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Ask YC: Are you religous?

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Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#91

Post by xlnt »

dehowell wrote: post #88
xlnt wrote: post #30

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

Wait, are you saying that Hacker News is left leaning? I don't know, I think there's enough diversity of political opinion around here to prevent a broad characterization one way or the other.

Yes it's definitely left-leaning. Did you see the poll about who you'll vote for? Obama won by a landslide.

YC's a bit right-leaning on economic issues, but left-leaning overall.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#92

Post by silentbicycle »

ltbarcly wrote: post #74
iamelgringo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"Be civil."

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#93

Post by dhbradshaw »

BenS wrote: post #57
Prrometheus wrote: post #16

Why do you care? If you draw any generalizations from the replies on this forum, then you are committing every statistical fallacy in the book. As for your hypothesis, the Hacker News community is built around Hacker News and not religion or the lack thereof, so I find it hard to see how it fits in. I would agree that online communities built around religion are of little interest, but only because I find the subject…

I wasn't really looking to conduct a survey, I was just hoping to get a few opinions. True, hacker news is not about religion, nor is it a good way to conduct statistically signifcant surveys, but it's still nice to hear what people think. I could think of lots of explanations for the shortage of religious sites...and I was looking for some opinions. A few possibilities include (A) there is no shortage of sites, i'm…

Most people would call me religious. I'm a practicing Mormon. I pray and believe that God answers my prayers. However, I hesitated to answer your original question because the label "religious" is mildly distasteful. It seems more external than internal, more political than spiritual.

As a practicer of my faith, I get plenty of chances to interact with people of my religion. So I don't feel much of a need for a 'religious' forum.

On the other hand, I do hunger for forums and other forms of social media where the standards that I hold are widely shared. I tried Reddit. It was great to have news and education combined. But in the end it wasn't worth wading through so many headlines, articles, and comments that were (to me) degrading in one way or another.

I love it here. I wouldn't call it at all religious. But the dialog is respectful and the people are interesting. I could use more places like this.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#94

Post by xlnt »

ltbarcly wrote: post #76
mattmaroon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's true. I bet YC is much more atheist than the general population. But I know a religious YC poster who's hesitant to express that kind of idea here; I also bet YC is a bit more religious than it appears.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#95

Post by dhbradshaw »

ltbarcly wrote: post #74
iamelgringo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I submit that there can't be a logical defense. This is not because of a weakness in religion but rather because of a weakness in logic. To get to the point where logic becomes relevant you have to build up a set of shared assumptions. The beliefs from which you argue are formed from a set of experiences. Unless you have something of a common experience it is difficult to share a set of beliefs from which to argue. The process of joining a religion is not a logical one. It is a spiritual one and is based in experience.

How, then, do we argue about experience? Either we discuss things and times and places that neither of us have witnessed, or we discuss and evaluate each others experiences. Perhaps we are fortunate and both accept a common ground distilled from some set of experiences. Maybe we are both physicists. But no such set of shared experiences seems to be broad enough to properly answer questions of religion.

If you truly want to begin to discuss intelligently then you have to seek a shared set of religious experiences. But that might be dangerous. Change can happen at that point.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#96

Post by byrneseyeview »

ars wrote: post #90
as wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You think you are an exception, and this is a unique time in history, but it's not, give it another 200 years and you'll be wrong too. Science has a pattern it goes like this: you discover something and you find out more and you understand it fully. (Religions get bashed here.) Every single time that happens you find out a little more and you realize how much you don't actually know. (No more bashing.) If you think y…

But religion as a real, testable phenomenon doesn't get more valid as one model of the physical world is discarded for a more accurate one. The Four Humors don't make a comeback when we develop an understanding of antibiotics that renders previous assumptions false.

You're treating religion as the natural fallback hypothesis, which should make it fairly easy to convince yourself that you're right.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#97

Post by natrius »

xlnt wrote: post #91
dehowell wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, are you saying that Hacker News is left leaning? I don't know, I think there's enough diversity of political opinion around here to prevent a broad characterization one way or the other.

Yes it's definitely left-leaning. Did you see the poll about who you'll vote for? Obama won by a landslide. YC's a bit right-leaning on economic issues, but left-leaning overall.

I don't think the current election is a good barometer for ideology. War is a big deal to some people, and they'll vote for the person who is likely to cause the least amount of death regardless of ideology. Then there's the whole intolerance thing, which maps poorly to ideologies, but strongly to political platforms.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#98

Post by [deleted] »

xlnt wrote: post #94
ltbarcly wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's true. I bet YC is much more atheist than the general population. But I know a religious YC poster who's hesitant to express that kind of idea here; I also bet YC is a bit more religious than it appears.

[deleted]

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#99

Post by tjr »

xlnt wrote: post #94
ltbarcly wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's true. I bet YC is much more atheist than the general population. But I know a religious YC poster who's hesitant to express that kind of idea here; I also bet YC is a bit more religious than it appears.

I think it's also interesting that, up until the past century or so, many well-educated people were also openly religious. To wit, holding religious beliefs does not prevent one from doing excellent academic work... religion does not go hand-in-hand with stupidity or ineptitude.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#100

Post by byrneseyeview »

msg wrote: post #49
ericb wrote: post #9

Nope. Edit: As Dawkins pointed out, most Christians are atheists in regard to Thor and Zeus. Atheists just go one god farther.

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

Are there other -ists who seriously believe in the existence of other universes, and disbelieve in this one? Your analogy is only consistent if: there is a single religion in which nearly everyone believes; or there is a multitude of universes in which large groups (none a majority of the population) believe, to the exclusion of all other universes.
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