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Religious Discrimination at Google

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Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#311

Post by clint »

azth wrote: post #266
teekert wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that everyone should be free to believe what they want. It’s just that if you start talking to me like Jaweh, Zeus, Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster are real, you loose some credibility with me. I can think of many things on the spot that have the same level of evidence as you have for your $GOD but such a conversation just doesn’t make sense to me. I prefer to spend my time otherwise.

The arrogance displayed in some of these comments is astounding. Never mind the fact that our very existence is evidence of the existence of a Creator. It can be easily put the other way around: to a believer, if someone starts talking that we came into existence from nothingness, then they lose credibility to the former. Point is, this is not the way to have a discussion.

I literally laughed out loud at the second sentence.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#312

Post by chinchilla2020 »

danhau wrote: post #118

This probably isn’t going to get read, but the HN comments to this post really are off putting. They show Reddit levels of naivety. Just spewing further insults and discrimination with no attempt in putting yourself in the author’s position. And enough straw to feed a horse (as someone else said the other day). I came to HN to get away from this sort of thing, but the Zeitgeist here seems to be just the same. Or is t…

hackernews has alot of twitter overlap, not so much reddit

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#313

Post by azth »

teekert wrote: post #305
azth wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which religions? The major monotheistic religions state that God created and initiated our universe, which does not contradict that a Big Bang happened.

It's just that stating "God created the universe." immediately leads to the question "Who created God?". And if you answer "God always was.", then you can also say "The Universe always was." (And 'it bounces between expansion/contraction' or 'new Big Bangs occur inside this Universe al ultra low probability according to Quantum Mechanics', or whatever.) In any case, saying "The Universe always was." or "Time did not…

> It's just that stating "God created the universe." immediately leads to the question "Who created God?"

Simple answer: this is a logically contradictory question to ask. It's basically the same as saying: someone baked this piece of bread, then, who baked the baker?

The universe did not always exist, and provably so. The Creator exists outside the realm of His creation, and as such, our laws do not apply to Him.

The very fact that we're having this discussion is proof that God, The Creator, exists.

Secondly, God has sent us many messengers, and provably so. This means that "we have no need for God" assumption is meaningless.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#314

Post by ken47 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #282
ken47 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it called the big bang theory, not the big bang fact? How many reputable scientists can you cite that would publicly declare the big bang as a fact rather than a theory? I wonder if the person to whom I was originally responding finds your dogmatism as objectionable as dogmatism of a traditionally religious nature.

Ah, that old silly word game - haven't actually seen it in awhile. The definition is available if you'd care to read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory Science also refers to the theory of gravity, which I would suspect we can agree exists.

Let's cast aside for a moment that unlike gravity, the big bang, if it occurred, is impossible for a human to witness first hand.

The understanding of gravity had a tectonic shift about a century ago. Imagine if scientists declared that Newton's model of gravity was the final word, and that it was heretical to question it. These things are called theories, not facts, for a reason.

Such things happen all the time in the history of science. As another example, think about the phrase "subatomic particle" and the sequence of mistakes that must have occurred to arrive at such wording.

Paradoxically, instead of the history of science inspiring humility, it seems to encourage arrogance among some. Is the ego a friend or enemy of scientific advancement?

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#315

Post by ken47 »

lamontcg wrote: post #281
azth wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is, because of the implications that come out of it. Either it came out of nothing (a logically absurd claim), in which case nothing really matters. Or, it was initiated by an entity, The Creator, in which case you'd want to know what He has to say about how we conduct our lives and what comes next.

You're making a hell of a lot of assumptions. There's no evidence of a creator, no evidence the creator is a "He" and no evidence that it is remotely human with human concerns and that it cares about what we do one way or the other, or that it has any involvement after creation. You're projecting a creator that looks and thinks like you with absolutely zero evidence, which is alternatively your own lack of imaginatio…

Let's say you take the big bang as a historical fact. Something created the big bang. By definition, the "thing" that created it is a creator. We cannot say whether this creator is a sentient being that has vastly more intelligence than any human, but we can say that the possibility seems to make some people very uncomfortable.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#316

Post by orwin »

azth wrote: post #276
orwin wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contempt for all religion is only pushing christian values further. Polytheistic religions incorporated every new Gods, as they all could very well exist. Then a new religion appeared and decided only one god existed and other gods did not. Athon and his clergy then died with the pharaoh pushing him, but around the same time, a new religion appeared in the middle east, led by a certain Moses(weirdly, an Egyptian name…

Monotheism existed before polytheism. The fact that monotheism "is better than polytheism for population control" is a completely orthogonal topic to the truth of the monotheistic claim. This in fact, is a logical fallacy called the genetic fallacy. Your last statement is also a genetic fallacy.

No. First religions were ancestor's cult, those are polytheism. But even if you don't count them, this is patently false.

The oldest recorded religion is hinduism. Polytheistic. The second oldest is zoroastrism and is duotheistic. The first monotheistic religion is athenism, based of the egyptian polytheistic faith, then Judaism, which probably is a mix of athenism (in the rites) and a mix of caanism and zoroastrism in the myth (lucifer story especially).

My point wasn't that monotheism is false because its better for population control, my point was it was adopted against polytheist faith and ancestor's cults faith across the word by the local ruling class because it was better at population control. I'm saying nothing about the truth of this particular faith

And i don't understand why my last statement is a genetic fallacy. I find people believing in 100% of the gods (or a deist) more interesting than those believing in one specific god.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#317

Post by teekert »

azth wrote: post #313
teekert wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just that stating "God created the universe." immediately leads to the question "Who created God?". And if you answer "God always was.", then you can also say "The Universe always was." (And 'it bounces between expansion/contraction' or 'new Big Bangs occur inside this Universe al ultra low probability according to Quantum Mechanics', or whatever.) In any case, saying "The Universe always was." or "Time did not…

> It's just that stating "God created the universe." immediately leads to the question "Who created God?" Simple answer: this is a logically contradictory question to ask. It's basically the same as saying: someone baked this piece of bread, then, who baked the baker? The universe did not always exist, and provably so. The Creator exists outside the realm of His creation, and as such, our laws do not apply to Him. Th…

"Simple answer: this is a logically contradictory question to ask. It's basically the same as saying: someone baked this piece of bread, then, who baked the baker?"

The baker evolved through mutation and natural selection. You envoke an answer outside the provable realm. By doing that you release all bounds. There is no limit to what you can place in that realm.

"The universe did not always exist, and provably so."

Then you are not agreeing with the best of our combined knowledge in knowing for a fact what happened at the very start of the Big Bang? I though we were uncertain up until 10^-38 seconds or so. Did the Big Bang occur in this universe or did it form the Universe? I don't know. Does anyone at this point? Is there any outcome that you would consider an argument against a god? I would not accept the prove of the universe not always existing as proof FOR a god anyway.

"The very fact that we're having this discussion is proof that God, The Creator, exists."

When I look at our DNA, and compare it to every other organism on earth, I see a tree of life, dependencies, common ancestors between species. No proof that a creator exists. I any case, simply stating that anything is proof a creator exist is a bit simplistic right?

"God has sent us many messengers, and provably so."

Could you point me to this proof? Is it a reproducible experiment? Can I do said experiment at home and come to appreciate your point of view?

Could you suggest any experiment that could help me accept that there is a god?

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#318

Post by quantified »

azth wrote: post #289
quantified wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many religions, and across them they are mutually incompatible. Which ones have evidence for themselves that demonstrates another is false?

Just because there are many mutually exclusive religions, does not imply that none of them are correct. Look up genetic fallacy. The "Abrahamic" faiths have demonstrated themselves, but only one remains uncorrupted: Islam. You can check out provingislam.com for some hard proofs.

Which is correct, Sunni or Shi'ite?

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#319

Post by taylodl »

krisoft wrote: post #23

Quoting the most concrete example he gives: > If you start talking about your religious beliefs at a social event people treat you like you just farted in their face. They frequently will scrunch up their faces and might ask a question like “Do you REALLY believe all that stuff?” When you tell them that you do they might even go so far as to say “Sorry that’s just not the kind of thing I associate with someone as sma…

I grew up in the Southern Baptist church. These people have a serious persecution complex - in fact, they want to be persecuted because that makes them most like Jesus!

The guy feels "persecuted" because Google hasn't opened an office in Louisiana? Google hasn't opened offices in most states! Why haven't they opened offices in Louisiana? Who knows? Does that mean Google hates the South? Well, if so then why do they have offices in Atlanta? Last I checked, Atlanta is still in the US South!

Like I said, this guy is fulfilling his religious need to feel persecuted and grasping at nonsense to justify their persecution complex.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#320

Post by kthejoker2 »

tasuki wrote: post #256
teekert wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a long discussion but perhaps to keep it short, the alternative is “thought police”. But I have the feeling you’re not asking for an answer?

> This is a long discussion but perhaps to keep it short, the alternative is “thought police”. Good point, agreed. > But I have the feeling you’re not asking for an answer? Why? :) I believe people believing whatever they want is harmful. I believe you have no right to believe that the earth is flat. I'd love to know if there's a sensible option somewhere between "anyone is free to believe any untrue thing they want"…

The obvious answer is many things now taken as truth were once considered heretical; and also many completely wrong ideas (ether, the humors, etc) still produced useful science and technology.

By all means demand falsifiability of any claims to truth, but don't insist that any one of us or all of us collectively are worthy arbiters of truth.

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