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Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

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Re: Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

#31

Post by aynyc »

I firmly believe in separation of personal life and professional life. I have a few developer friends who are devout catholics. They are good developer and great people, never had any problems. Most importantly, they never ever publicize or evangelize their religion.

On the other hand, I have a coworker who never stop talking about religion to the point where no one wants to work with him and management will never fire him. He basically was a team of one who gets random tasks assigned just to keep him from talking to other people.

The point is, if someone who shouts religion or politics or anything that's divisive at the top of their lunges, I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

#32

Post by JSeymourATL »

> experience with hiring or working with "Jesus lovers"?

The profile is Ned Flanders!

Solid character, diligent employee, mostly a joy to manage.

Relative to intellect-- Assuming you value diversity of thought, a differing worldview can be refreshing and helpful.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

#33

Post by avl999 »

This post reflects more poorly on you than it does on the so called 'Jesus lovers' and I say this as an atheist. You are unambiguously in the wrong rejecting candidates for their religious affiliation unless there is something else more problematic in their twitter profiles.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

#34

Post by adkadskhj »

avl999 wrote: post #33

This post reflects more poorly on you than it does on the so called 'Jesus lovers' and I say this as an atheist. You are unambiguously in the wrong rejecting candidates for their religious affiliation unless there is something else more problematic in their twitter profiles.

I suspect OP is saying this with the context of how the "Jesus Lovers" are advertising. I suspect it's a fear of the overly vocal ones - ie, perhaps they(OP) thinks hiring someone with that label would be like hiring someone holding Jesus signs on street corners or dudes at colleges with microphones.

Which isn't to say that hiring those people is bad, but i suspect OP has been burned by people who can't keep their personal lives personal. Many religions inherently push you to share and spread the religion, so it's not unreasonable that a lot of religious people focus on pushing their agenda.

With that said i don't think a twitter profile is a good indication on whether or not someone would let their religion get in the way of their work and/or work relationships.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

#35

Post by jdshupe »

julienreszka wrote: post #5

Not only it is illegal[1] to discriminate based on religion when hiring people, it is also unproductive because you're stopping yourself from hiring people to do a job based on their beliefs not their skills. Your username is "sciencelover". I assume therefore that you are opposing Christianity to science. Let me help you reconsider this position by suggesting you to look at this article listing Christians in science…

I love this comment.

Something that I, as a christian, believe is often misunderstood about religion and science is that they are not opposed to one another. If you talk to many Christians today they will agree that science and religion build off of one another and support each other greatly.

I would recommend the books "God and the Astronomer" and "I don't have enough faith to be an Atheist". Both touch on this combining of science and faith, the first book more so than the latter.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

#36

Post by seattle_spring »

avl999 wrote: post #33

This post reflects more poorly on you than it does on the so called 'Jesus lovers' and I say this as an atheist. You are unambiguously in the wrong rejecting candidates for their religious affiliation unless there is something else more problematic in their twitter profiles.

Would you feel OK hiring someone whose first choice of describing themselves is "Jesus hater" or "PROUD ATHEIST"?

The point is not that they love Jesus, it's that they are projecting it in the most publicly visible way.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

#38

Post by TigeriusKirk »

sciencelover wrote: post #9
mondoshawan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what's the problem? If all you are doing is evaluating them for technical skill, then only the resume and interview performance should matter. Personal beliefs such as religion don't enter into it.

My (mis)conception is that it implies inability to advance too deeply into a particular problem. Because if you went deeply enough into the "Jesus" problem you'd understand it's myth/story-telling. Plus, it's one thing to be a Jesus lover. It's completely another to wear it extra-proudly on your technical website/profile.

"Jesus lover" on their twitter feed tells you little about their personal variation of Christian theology. Entirely possible they're not literal word bible believers.

My biggest suggestion to you is to have some actual conversations with a variety of Christians. I'm willing to bet you have some serious misconceptions about their beliefs.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

#40

Post by jki275 »

Some of the greatest scientists of all time have been Christians. Some have followed other religions with similar devotion.

Your bias is without basis. Faith is an important component of many people's lives.

I work for a company that is overtly Christian. They advertise it on their web page, they have morning prayer meetings, they have a chapel and a chaplain. They donate to Christian causes and partner with Christian colleges. It's also not a hiring metric (obviously), and it's not used to discriminate against anyone, and many of my very successful co-workers do not profess any religion.

Judge people on their technical ability, not your opinion of their faith. Judge people on the content of their character, not your opinion of who they pray to.

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