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Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

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Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#31

Post by burkesquires »

azaras wrote: post #9
marczellm wrote: post #7

I'm an MSc student in IT/software engineering, and I am a practicing and believing Roman Catholic. Some of the main reasons for this is - having recognized that the teachings are consistent with my embedded worldview and ethical code - a perception that living according to these teachings is much more beautiful, much less likely to hurt others or get hurt myself, mostly free from anger and bitterness, etc. The often…

Do you believe in Mary's perputual virginity?

Check out #499 here: http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/c...

As Catholic we also understand that not everything that Jesus said was written in the Bible, thus the Catholic Church, which Jesus Christ instituted, also includes sacred Tradition. thus we believe not in sola scripture (the Bible alone) but sola verbum Die (the word of God alone) which includes sacred Tradition. The Bible actually mentioned that not everything Jesus said is in the Bible: John 21:25 "But there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written"

Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#32

Post by WorldWideWayne »

richmarr wrote: post #22

There may well be a god, even a judeo-christian style one. He might even have a beard. But there isn't enough rational evidence for one. Even supposedly rational arguments like Intelligent Design fall laughably short, arguing that life is too complex and sophisticated not to have been created by something even more complex and sophisticated. My take is that anyone who does 'believe' is either doing so out of cognitiv…

Every major religion defines God as the one and only thing that exists. The thing that every other thing is made out of. So, wouldn't existence itself be rational evidence for the existence of a thing that makes up all other things? What if we find something that looks like it's the single cause of all observable phenomena? (The most fundamental building-block of nature.) Have we found God?

The idea of God is so singular that I'm not sure regular logic can be applied here at all. What other thing do we rationalize about that is similar to the idea of God?

Are you sure that you're being rational or are you simply using one type of rational logic which lends itself mainly to materialism?

I guess the other problem is - what exact definition of "God" is anybody using at any given time?

EDIT: I don't mean for you to answer all of these questions, but it's fun to think about! :)

Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#34

Post by Red_Tarsius »

ragecore wrote: post #33

Question: If God made man(intelligent design), you open a whole new plethora of questions, including "Who made God", and we're back to square one.

imho God is supposed not to be subject to space and time, thus expecting It to be made or born would not make much sense. A believer could as well say that reality was/is/will be always God.

Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#35

Post by gamechangr »

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #27

Everyone has their own ways of thinking and believing. Once you start to get rid of the labels — agnostic , atheist and believer — you can really listen to others. I’ve met far too many people who called themselves one way and later understood how unfitting was such label to their assumptions. Unfortunately, the quest for the true nature of the universe has been reduced to Scriptures and the yes/no question "Do you b…

Looks like you are in the wrong forum friend. The question is "Who believes?".

Your response covered essentially what you "don't believe in". I am genuinely interested in hearing what "you believe in"?

Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#36

Post by nvivo »

I do believe in God, I'm a christian, I go to church usually 3-4 times a week (because I want, not because the church requires it or any rules) and I'm a very technical person, software developer and I'm also very into astronomy and physics.

When you say "around 99% tech people I know in-person do not believe in God", this may be biased based on your location. For example, my country (Brazil) is predominantly catholic. So, I'd say around 99% of people in tech I know believe in god in some sense.

There is a huge misconception, mainly in the US, with this evolutionist vs creationist thing where a correlation was created where evolutionists are mostly atheists, and believers are mostly creationists, so there must be a "clear distinction" between people that understand science and people that believe in some kind of god.

IMHO even great speakers like Neil DeGrasse Tyson fail epicly doing the same thing they complain about creationists, they reject arguments of anything related to God in a very unscientific way: "oh, so you believe in God? so there is an old guy floating in the clouds? so his special ability is to turn water into beverages" - How is this different from believing that, as Carl Sagan said, there are dinosaurs on venus? It is just making up a lot of assumptions out of nothing.

Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#37

Post by kevingoslar »

ragecore wrote: post #33

Question: If God made man(intelligent design), you open a whole new plethora of questions, including "Who made God", and we're back to square one.

God is the "primary" source of everything. If God were created by something else, then we aren't talking about "God" anymore, but a part of God.

Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#38

Post by sshine »

Until I was 13, I belonged to an Indian sect and strongly believed that I, like everyone else, had the incarnation of the one God within me, who also happened to coincide with a short Indian man named Sai Baba. At the time of my Christian confirmation (I belonged to an otherwise protestant community), my minister couldn't give me any satisfactory answers to my questions. At that point, I believe I started thinking for myself, because that's when I picked up programming also. Today I'm an atheist.

I miss the Indian comicbooks with the blue men, though.

Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#39

Post by selectnull »

An atheist.

I was born in catholic family and was baptized and sent to church as a kid. I very soon found it to be rather boring and brain washing and proclaimed myself an atheist before I was of full age. I simply did not need the god hypothesis to explain the world around me.

Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?

#40

Post by marczellm »

DanBC wrote: post #26
burkesquires wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rape is a difficult case. First of all, I am glad to hear that you want to talk about the difficult cases because it means that you are okay with Catholic teaching in non-rape cases. With regards to rape, ultimately is comes down to the fact that the child that arises from the rape should not be punished for the sins of the father. Catholic teaching respects the human being and sees the bigger picture. What is wonder…

> First of all, I am glad to hear that you want to talk about the difficult cases because it means that you are okay with Catholic teaching in non-rape cases. No, it very much does not. The fact that your failed to comprehend this is telling. For clarity: the Catholic Church routinely abuses human rights. Sometimes this is a direct result of proclamations from the Pope and thus a core part of the religion (eg use of…

Can you educate me about this? I don't understand how a religious stance of "don't use contraceptives" can be an abuse of human rights, when anyone is free to decide whether they follow the teachings of said religion or not?
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