I'm Pastafarian. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
61–70 of 76 posts
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 sing…
It sounds like you're trying to engage me in a debate, but there really isn't one to be had here. To have any kind of rational discussion about whether God exists, you first have to define what a God is. Either that or have some pretty strong evidence that can be used to draw a box around the question you're asking. The existence of God is a non-question, because we have neither a definition, nor evidence, nor a way…
>> To try and dress up either atheism or theism in rational arguments is absurd
Why? I know plenty of philosophers that are great with rational arguments that spend their time in atheism or theism. I know several who believe in God or some kind of higher power simply because of free will. Can you give a definition of free will? Can you provide evidence of it or prove or disprove it even if we can agree what it is that we think we are talking about? Just because we may not have the slightest figment of a clue, not even a scrap, doesn't mean that we can't feel strongly whether free will actually exists or not or posit experiments or rational arguments to explain its existence or non-existence one way or the other. Do you believe in free will? I do and I know several philosophers who do too, who feel that since they feel so strongly about its existence, despite it going against everything we understand about a physical universe (causal relationships, action and reaction and whatnot) that there must be something else going on in the universe other than mere atoms bumping into atoms, the existence that we can observe. Sounds like a pretty rational argument that dresses up atheism or theism quite nicely. Maybe you just haven't explored enough rational arguments or questioned your own ability to think and act freely to even reach the questions? Maybe you have. I don't know you, but I do know that there are all kinds of ways to talk about atheism and theism in very rational ways.
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#63Practicing Christian, participate in multiple ways within a local church.
I have a MA plus additional grad level work in quantitative social sciences. Many but not all fellow grad students were either atheists or agnostics.
I am fairly technical, in addition to grad level stats I have added semantic analysis, database and web development to my skill set in the past few years and combine it all in data science consulting and building my own web apps.
I worked in a start-up for awhile where 2 of the other top technical contributors including the founder were practicing Christians. We also had team members in India or from India who were likely Hindu. I don't think our religious beliefs were ever a topic of conversation at work. And, only rarely came up in personal conversations.
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
> anyone is free to decide whether they follow the teachings of said religion or not
Everyone that has enough mental power to escape the mantra of " you are going to hell and burn for all eternity ". Many, many people truly believe that they are going to hell for the use of a condom so they are not as free as you think. They will be punished if they don't obey. That's how religion works, do what we say or you will get eternal punishment in a fiery pit. (but as George Carlin said .... god loves you)
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect that is because tech people tend to be smart.
There are many, many smart scientists and other people in the present day and throughout history who are also religious, so there goes that theory. Einstein was not an atheist. Neither is Neil Tyson. The smartest people know what they don't know and seem to have some humility with respect to the question of human existence.
Smart people may have been, and may be religious, but I don't agree that _many_ smart people are religious, at least not dogmatically religious. In my experience _many_ smart people are not religious. As is the OPs experience. You can always find outliers.
And I wouldn't call Einstein religious, at least not the late Einstein. Nor would I call having "humility with respect to the question of human existence" being religious.
Basic inquiry is a trait of smart people. Dogmatic religion requires, maybe even demands for its own existence, that most enquiry (i.e. the "why" questions) be put aside on faith alone. Smart people just tend to not accept the "faith" argument. Smart people tend toward experimentation and logic, over blind faith.
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#66Deist - the latest physics makes the universe reek of being a programmer's hackjob. An impossibly narrow hard coded Dark energy constant, holographic principle (need I say more?), probabilistic phenomena coming together to create an illusion of deterministic order (a mask for runtime code injection, or just convoluted Rube Goldberg programming if not). If the inflationary multiverse is proven and people continue to claim anthropic survivor bias I still won't admit defeat - I'll just say that the multiverse is a for-loop. Something put the monkeys at typewriters, and if our addled grey matter can be considered sentience I'm pretty sure that magnificent something can fit the bill of intelligence as well. Sorry, but what more can a mortal say/comprehend?
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many, many smart scientists and other people in the present day and throughout history who are also religious, so there goes that theory. Einstein was not an atheist. Neither is Neil Tyson. The smartest people know what they don't know and seem to have some humility with respect to the question of human existence.
Smart people may have been, and may be religious, but I don't agree that _many_ smart people are religious, at least not dogmatically religious. In my experience _many_ smart people are not religious. As is the OPs experience. You can always find outliers. And I wouldn't call Einstein religious, at least not the late Einstein. Nor would I call having "humility with respect to the question of human existence" being re…
You seem to be conflating religiousness with the belief in God or in the possibility of God. There are many smart people, not outliers, who are not atheists.
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you're trying to engage me in a debate, but there really isn't one to be had here. To have any kind of rational discussion about whether God exists, you first have to define what a God is. Either that or have some pretty strong evidence that can be used to draw a box around the question you're asking. The existence of God is a non-question, because we have neither a definition, nor evidence, nor a way…
Perhaps you've made up your mind, but that doesn't negate the reality that the existence of God has been debated for thousands of years. It seems a little disingenuous to say that there is no definition of God. Google will even give you one if you search for: define God. Wikipedia holds that "In Classical theism, God is characterized as the metaphysically ultimate being (the first, timeless, absolutely simple, and so…
> It seems a little disingenuous to say that there is no definition of God.
There's no useful definition. Defining something as being 'metaphysically ultimate' doesn't describe any of its properties.
> What was the definition of oxygen before it was discovered? How about dark matter?
Both oxygen and dark matter were hypothesised based on observations. The definitions suggested by those hypotheses were then tested (dark matter still hasn't been discovered).
Through what experiment are you intending to discover God?
> Krishna explains that God can be known through meditation.
Define "known" in a way that bridges that context and this discussion and I'll buy you a Porsche.
> It's completely reasonable and logical to debate revealed knowledge.
No, sorry, revelation is faith, not knowledge. 'Revealed knowledge' is an oxymoron.
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you're trying to engage me in a debate, but there really isn't one to be had here. To have any kind of rational discussion about whether God exists, you first have to define what a God is. Either that or have some pretty strong evidence that can be used to draw a box around the question you're asking. The existence of God is a non-question, because we have neither a definition, nor evidence, nor a way…
>> To try and dress up either atheism or theism in rational arguments is absurd Why? I know plenty of philosophers that are great with rational arguments that spend their time in atheism or theism. I know several who believe in God or some kind of higher power simply because of free will. Can you give a definition of free will? Can you provide evidence of it or prove or disprove it even if we can agree what it is tha…
> Why?
For the reason I highlighted in the post you replied to.
You're welcome to explain why you think I'm wrong, but saying 'I believe X and so do my friends' doesn't satisfy.
Re: Poll: How many HN readers are believers?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> To try and dress up either atheism or theism in rational arguments is absurd Why? I know plenty of philosophers that are great with rational arguments that spend their time in atheism or theism. I know several who believe in God or some kind of higher power simply because of free will. Can you give a definition of free will? Can you provide evidence of it or prove or disprove it even if we can agree what it is tha…
> Why? For the reason I highlighted in the post you replied to. You're welcome to explain why you think I'm wrong, but saying 'I believe X and so do my friends' doesn't satisfy.
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough. Questioning the existence and using rational arguments for or against the possibility of free will itself is a rational argument that affects theism or atheism. My point wasn't to tell you what my friends believe but to help you understand that there is a whole body of work dedicated to substance dualism that is based in rational arguments. That's just one philosophical subject, there are plenty others. Simply waving your hand and saying that rational arguments about theism or atheism are absurd is lazy at best. Take a look, there are plenty to be had.