Religion doesn't get as rabidly attacked here as on reddit and digg, in fact the opposite seems true. So, I'm curious what the demographics are here. FWIW, I'm in the theist (Christian) camp.
Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
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Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#2so, to be clear, you noticed that pandora's box is closed and you figure it would be good to open it?
Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#3I'd say it gets "attacked", but maybe in a more reasoned and sensible way than on the other sites.
(Or is this another one of those "I wonder what this does to my karma, can it be used to hack the system?" posts?)
Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#4I think it is because we realize the futility of arguing about religion and stay clear. Also, news.yc tends to be more respectful of people in general; just as you won't attack a person on their beliefs in the real world, you won't do so here.
edit: Not to mention such discussion is actually off-topic.
Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#5Posters here tend to be a little more reserved. Reddit can be a bit like tabloid newspapers. G-d kills millions, Noah unavailable for comment! Atheist saves boy from well; Christians baffled.
The discussion here just tends to be less absolute about things and considers more viewpoints. Nuanced thought is more highly regarded and rewarded (in terms of voting) and people who post with comments that one would never say to another person in real life tend to get down-voted. So, it stays more cordial. I doubt that the demographics on religion are that much different, but I guess we'll see if more people vote. I think it's that it's a smaller community, we recognize people's usernames more often, and you don't have to shout to be heard.
Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#6Posters here tend to be a little more reserved. Reddit can be a bit like tabloid newspapers. G-d kills millions, Noah unavailable for comment! Atheist saves boy from well; Christians baffled. The discussion here just tends to be less absolute about things and considers more viewpoints. Nuanced thought is more highly regarded and rewarded (in terms of voting) and people who post with comments that one would never say…
Well put.
Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#7Those that refuse to believe x can not even imagine the astounding effects of y.
Einstein nailed it by stating the following: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." AND "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#8These results, at least so far (ath=16, dei=4, the=5), are encouraging. I know you'd expect to see less religion in a science and tech community, but I've never seen anything beyond my group of friends, even in the scientific community, where atheists outnumber theists. I'm sometimes split between the views that religion is harmless and comforting for those who believe and should just be left alone, versus every service implicitly building the legitimacy of extremists. If church (or islamic services, or temple) didn't happen normally, extremists would just be obviously crazy with arcane rituals from the past thousand years; but, since it's all so ingrained in our cultural experience, less of a leap is need to understand extremists, which builds this low-level legitimacy for many people, even if we believe that they're criminals.
Just by everything I've ever learned about reason and the scientific method, and everything I've ever read, while I can completely understand why people would _want_ to believe, it's completely mystifying as to why the vast majority of the world's population (well, in the free, information-rich societies) could make themselves believe. It just doesn't make sense to me, given all evidence is so clearly, hugely against it. (Which, I guess, is kind of the point -- which also doesn't make any sense.)
Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#9so, to be clear, you noticed that pandora's box is closed and you figure it would be good to open it?
As long as Pandora's Box comes in the form of a poll and defined carefully within some scope of intelligence, this case it's HN, then I say go ahead and open it; the people of the community are always the ones that make-up whatever it's contents are, which are always interesting nonetheless.
Re: Poll: Atheist, Deist, Theist?
#10I am agnostic, so I can't vote, apparently.