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Ask YC: Are you religous?

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Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#71

Post by mattmaroon »

as wrote: post #44
silentbicycle wrote: post #8

I don't consider myself religious, but I have incorporated some buddhist practices into my life. Also, not to derail, but I think that it's pretty ambiguous whether buddhism counts as a religion, per se, according to the (generally unstated) assumptions in discussions like these. Some schools of buddhism are athiestic or agnostic, some are not, etc.

Yea, many schools of Buddhism have a lot of supernatural trappings that are basically ornaments and interpretations from the cultures they grew to prominence in. I think this is why the most popular school of Buddhism in the west is Zen, which strips most of that away.

Buddhism as most Americans understand it is more philosophy than religion for that reason.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#72

Post by ericb »

msg wrote: post #51
msg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most realists believe in only one observable universe. Solipsists just go one universe farther.

Most baseball fanatics pull for only one team. People who hate baseball just go one team farther.

Instead, how about: love the believer, not the belief.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#73

Post by iamelgringo »

as wrote: post #59
as wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find this convincing. The arguments are thousands of years old, but most of the relevant data is <200 years old. The reason most religious hackers don't talk about it is that they know better - that unless you're sufficiently vague, believing in supernatural stories born of bronze age cultures is logically indefensible.

I've been down voted, but I only say this because it's been the case in every one of the (literally) hundreds of discussions I've had on the topic.

Perhaps it's the tone and content of your post that got you voted down.

Without even knowing what my religious faith is, in one broad, sweeping generalization, you've told me that whatever my faith is, it's logically indefensible because of evidence from the last 200 years.

Those sorts of comments are usually voted down on Hacker News.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#74

Post by ltbarcly »

iamelgringo wrote: post #73
as wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been down voted, but I only say this because it's been the case in every one of the (literally) hundreds of discussions I've had on the topic.

Perhaps it's the tone and content of your post that got you voted down. Without even knowing what my religious faith is, in one broad, sweeping generalization, you've told me that whatever my faith is, it's logically indefensible because of evidence from the last 200 years. Those sorts of comments are usually voted down on Hacker News.

Oh, you do have a logical defense then? Or are you just spitting into the wind and claiming that "there could be a logical defense, so we shouldn't say there isn't?

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#75

Post by ltbarcly »

tjr wrote: post #14

I hold Christian faith. In some ways, I hesitate to label myself as "religious," as it seems to me that a great deal of stuff that has been done and said in the name of Christianity is a bunch of rubbish -- while I believe Christianity itself is good, I also believe that a lot of cruft and misinformation has been tacked on over the years. Even amongst Christians, there is a regrettable amount of division. This group…

... I really don't understand why folks act that way.

They act that way because when 2 people disagree, and there is absolutely no way to determine who is right, the only way to convince the other person is to coerce them.

If I say "Santa has a blue suit", most people would say it's actually a red suit. Fine, lets go find santa and see what color his suit is, that is how you determine the truth, you go find out. But crapola, there is no santa, just fictional images of him, and if I take my 'facts' from a different fictional source than you, we will disagree forever because we are both hopeless morons.

But frankly, you don't have any reason to believe in Christianity. If believe you have talked to Jesus or an Angel, you need medical help. If you believe in these beings without having witnessed them then you are just buying into a very old rumor with no evidence whatsoever.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#76

Post by ltbarcly »

mattmaroon wrote: post #70
xlnt wrote: post #30

Few hackers post that they are religious on left-leaning social news sites is different than few hackers are religious.

I would be willing to bet that the average hacker is significantly less religious than the average American, if any of the terms in that sentence could be defined and then measured.

It is well documented that the level of religious intensity is very dramatically inversely proportional to education, as well as IQ and income level.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#77

Post by ltbarcly »

keefe wrote: post #54

Maybe most good hackers are pragmatic? I'm spiritual, but not religious. The biggest tenet of my philosophy is "I don't know". I've always found that those people that turn to religion with dead-set certainty are usually running away from something and using religion as a shield. The one point I have faith in is that we do not live in a random universe, that there is some design and point to our existence. This is ac…

'spiritual but not religious' is the most vapid phrase ever to originate on the lips of a douchebag.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#78

Post by [deleted] »

nickfox wrote: post #41

I'm mormon and I do practice all the "rules" of my religion and go to church every Sunday. I've been coding now for 11 years. I've been a contractor all that time. My religion is important to me but if you met me you wouldn't get the feeling that I'm all overly-religious. I don't try to pull any religious crap on people and I'm not trying to convert anyone unless they want to be.

[deleted]

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#79

Post by paulgb »

ericb wrote: post #69
paulgb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religions would probably prefer to keep followers away from the web and in a place of worship, where there is more direct idea control; therefore would be less interested in devoting resources to developing websites. I think this is too cynical a view of religion. Most religious people I've known value truth as much as any atheist, and would know it if they were the subject of this sort of idea control. I know ther…

I'm not sure militant is the right word--seems like that would be adopting the nomenclature of the religious. I've never had an atheist knock on my door and try to convert me. I think the term militant comes out because believers sometimes find non-belief threatening in and of itself. Most religions have, built into them, a meme for spreading (evangelizing) themselves. There is no such meme for atheism to spread itse…

I called it militant because Dawkins has used that himself (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_dawkins_on_milita...), but it may have been a bit out of context, because he seems to use it with a bit of irony intended (about 5:30 into the video).

On the second point, I agree that atheism doesn't have the same self-spreading mechanisms, but most religious people I know don't make any effort to convert other people either. They see religion as a personal thing, are respectful of other people's religion or non-religion, and do not try to push their belief on others.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#80

Post by as »

iamelgringo wrote: post #73
as wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been down voted, but I only say this because it's been the case in every one of the (literally) hundreds of discussions I've had on the topic.

Perhaps it's the tone and content of your post that got you voted down. Without even knowing what my religious faith is, in one broad, sweeping generalization, you've told me that whatever my faith is, it's logically indefensible because of evidence from the last 200 years. Those sorts of comments are usually voted down on Hacker News.

It's true that I didn't make any effort to soften what I said.

If your understanding of the nature of things was largely formed more than 200 years ago, chances are that it's wrong.

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