
Poll: How many HN readers are believers? - ofcapl_
So here&#x27;s my question: how many of You believes in religious way in something&#x2F;someone (I mean here some Godlike being). I noticed that most (around 99%) tech people I know in-person do not believe in God or any other supernatural being.
Besides believing, are You participating in all ceremonies (e.g. as a Christian going to church every sunday etc.) ?
======
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.

------
kevingoslar
Pantheism. God is a word to describe the wholeness of reality, seen as a
single living being (the One). "Living" here means complex, intelligent,
interactive, responsive, loving, joyful, prospering, creative, amplifying,
mysterious. To me (PhD, philosopher, entrepreneur, developer) these are the
best attributes to describe the world I live in. Science describes this world
in excruciating detail and beauty for my mind, religion makes the same
available for my intuition.

If I would say "I don't believe in God", I wouldn't be talking about God,
because then I no longer talk about the One, but about two things: myself and
God. Then I merely criticize my own limited image of God. Which is fine.

Besides that, my religion is a school for love. Loving is tricky: strong
emotions, complex beings with individual edges and blind spots, very close to
each other, causing friction. Much more tricky than for example driving cars.
Yet, we all agree that attempting to learn to drive cars all on our own is not
a good idea. Sure, like love, in the end driving cars is about developing
intuition and following our instincts, and we can make it work somehow after
lots of bruises, but its better to have some guidance and mentoring along the
way. We need to learn about the basic rules that make traffic safe, or we'll
end up hurting ourselves or others. The same is true for love. Wisdom
traditions that provide guidance on how to love (aka religions) are useful
tools that add value here.

------
tboyd47
I am a practicing Salafi Muslim, but also a Ruby on Rails developer of 7
years.

I have noticed this about the Ruby on Rails world. After working in Rails jobs
at 5 different companies in 2 cities, I've met and worked with scores of other
Rails devs, but I've only known only one other Rails dev who was even Muslim,
and no one who was Salafi. Some would be disheartened by this, but I take it
as a source of pride.

I was not born into a Muslim family, but I embraced it later in life. So I
love Islam a great deal and consider it to be the best thing that has ever
happened to me. But I do not get into debates about religion or God with co-
workers or on the internet, because I don't feel it's appropriate. When I'm at
work, I'm not there to proselytize; I'm there to make great software and earn
money. And on the internet, it's just too pointless. If I'm talking to you
about Islam, then I'm not doing it for fun -- I'm doing it because I want you
to become Muslim. I find it very unlikely that someone who never believed in
God in their life would start believing just because some stranger on the
internet talked them into it. Rather, the end result is always a flame war,
and that doesn't really encourage good manners.

~~~
cpursley
I'm not familiar with Salafi. What are it's basic tenants?

~~~
tboyd47
Salafi Islam is really just like mainstream Islam, meaning we believe like the
other Muslims, pray the same way, etc. The only difference is how we view the
companions of the Prophet (sall Allah alaihi wa sallam). We consider them to
be authoritative sources on Islam, while a lot of Muslims see them as just
regular people. So for example, say here we are living many centuries after
Islam started, and someone comes and says they have a "new interpretation" of
the Quran -- well, it's not really possible for that person to know the Quran
better than the people who actually met the Prophet (sall Allah alaihi wa
sallam) and learned it from him directly, while seeing him implement it in his
life and hearing him explain it. That's the main tenet, I guess, and it's
really just a logical and common-sense way of looking at things. That's
probably the best I can do without going into too much detail. Thanks for
showing interest.

~~~
makeset
> it's really just a logical and common-sense way of looking at things.

To you, yes. Plenty of other Muslims find it utterly illogical why some random
people who happened to be in the right place 14 centuries ago should be taken
as any sort of authority. It's as black to them as it is white to you. We all
think our own particular beliefs are the logical and common-sense way of
looking at things.

In matters of faith, all judgments are subjective by definition. It's human,
but delusional and dangerous nevertheless, to assume that they extend to hold
objectively.

------
gliese1337
An actual poll seems to be missing here, so I'll just add my comment.

I am a practicing Mormon (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints), and do in fact believe in God and the specific doctrines of my
religions. I go to church every Sunday, pray and read the scriptures
regularly, and plenty of other things besides. The majority of tech people I
know in person are also religious, although I am very well aware that this is
largely due to selection effects in my choice of friends and places of
employment, and not necessarily reflective of general trends in the industry.

Furthermore, I find my education in computer science strengthens rather than
diminishes my faith. Education _in general_ strengthens my resolve that my
religion is largely ascientific (not non-scientific, but rather outside the
realm of applicability for scientific investigation); since it can be neither
proven nor _disproven_ by empirical evidence, I am free to continue to believe
in it if I like, and I prefer to believe. Education in computer science
specifically gives me a fairly unique set of tools compared to the average
Christian apologist for investigating the internal logical consistency of my
beliefs. For example, while I'm a big fan of C.S. Lewis and his works on the
subject, I am also rather fond of the computational approach to the Problem of
Pain (aka the Problem of Evil), as overviewed here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTb6zhqHLI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTb6zhqHLI)
.

~~~
maxerickson
There are at least branches of theology that utilize the tools of philosophy
(I suppose theology in general does, but some of it uses the approach more
carefully). I guess there is an endless argument available in deciding what
the average Christian apologist is, but I think you might be selling their
rigor a bit short.

~~~
gliese1337
I did not mean to question the _rigor_ of more traditional apologetics; merely
to note that there are certain approaches and points of view that they tend
not to use, which is entirely understandable. Apologies if it seemed that I
did (question their rigor).

Beyond that, though, I had in mind more the amateur Facebook/Tumblr apologist
than the more professional, philosophically-educated sort.

------
vhogemann
There is no God.

My parents come from different religious backgrounds, my father was raised as
a Lutheran while my mother as a Kardecist. Neither cared a lot about their
religions, so while they tried to give me the general notions of their
religions I was free to make my own mind.

So, having no pressure to follow my parents beliefs, and founding no logic
reason or need for the existence of a God, I found myself an Atheist.

I can't believe on it because I can't find any logical reason to do so.

Also, knowing how much evil was done in the name of religion I came to have a
strong opinion against the notion of faith. I really think religious faith,
that is, believing without proof, is a disease that must be eradicated. No
good that came from it justifies all the bad things that came along.

~~~
DougN7
> knowing how much evil was done in the name of religion

I always wonder about this stance. Are you against property ownership because
of the evil done by those wanting to own what others own? Against money (lots
of evil done in it's quest), etc? This really seems like a case of throwing
the baby out with the bath water.

------
peterhi
Personally I am still open to persuasion. However I am greatly disappointed
when people say they have found God when all they have done is join a
religion.

Finding God seems more of a life's work rather than "read this, wear these and
you are good to go"

------
jpetersonmn
I don't really believe any anything supernatural. I think there are definitely
things that we couldn't possibly understand yet in our universe; which people
might see as supernatural because they don't understand. If I showed up in
1800 with an iPhone people would have thought that was pretty supernatural
even though all the raw materials to make that phone were already on the
planet, all that was lacking was the knowledge.

I believe it living a good life, not hurting others, being empathetic, etc...
But don't feel the need to go to any church or anything like that. I think
most organized religions scams preying on the weak.

------
markyc
Evangelical Christian here - regular Church going, missions, Bible study, etc.
Most of my programmer friends are atheists, but I also have quite a few
programmer Christian friends, and a lot of agnostics

------
marczellm
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 repeated opinion that "God gave you
your life and his teachings are the owner's manual" seems to hold true for me.

~~~
DanBC
> much less likely to hurt others

The Catholic rules on abortion are cruel and cause very great harm to women. A
woman was raped in her home country. She left that country and sought asylum
in Ireland. She discovered that she was pregnant and sought an abortion.
Abortion is only possible in Ireland if the mother's life is at risk. She was
suicidal, and the two psychiatrists needed agreed that her life was at risk.
The third doctor, an obstretician, disagreed about the mental health status of
the patient and so she could not get an abortion. She went on hunger strike,
intending to kill herself or kill the unborn child. She was subjected to
forced naso-gastric feeding to keep the fetus alive until it could be
delivered. She agreed to a caesarian section at about 25 / 26 weeks.

This is 2014 in a developed European nation.

And this is under their "liberal" new law, introduced in 2014 after the death,
in 2012, of Savita Halappanavar.

The Catholic church spent considerable effort to prevent contraception being
made available in Ireland. This delayed the availability of contraception for
years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraception_in_the_Republic_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraception_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland)

This cruelty is a direct result of Catholic teachings.

~~~
burkesquires
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 wonderful is that if you want to understand what the Catholic Church
teaches anyone can consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) which
can be found at:
[http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM](http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM)
. The specific page that you are interested in is:
[http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-
believe/c...](http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-
believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm#)

So, you can review the CCC to see what the Catholic Church actually teaches
but in asking what anyone think you are getting their opinion and NOT
necessarily what the Church teaches.

Finally, you selected a single tragic instance of a rape victim. I think you
need to research and follow up with rape victims who have had an abortion and
who later regret it. For example: [http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/06/13-year-
old-rape-victim-r...](http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/06/13-year-old-rape-
victim-regrets-abortion-grieves-for-baby/)

Regards

~~~
DanBC
> 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 contraception); sometimes this is because of the structure
of the church (eg routine physical and emotional abuse of looked after
children; transfering child-abusing priests from one area to a different
area).

Parent claimed that following the teachings of the Catholic church made them
less cruel. This is a weird position to hold considering the very great harm
the Catholic church has perpetuated, even in recent years.

~~~
marczellm
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?

~~~
sirrocco
> 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)

------
elric1v
I choose to believe in God; I don't have proof, but I like to believe. It
makes life easier and in my case doesn't seem to have any ill effects. Even
with everything we have learned through science, there still seems to be room
for God. We don't seem to have any way to know what caused the universe to
form, and I'd just as soon postulate an eternal God as an eternal universe
even if it doesn't follow Occam's razor.

------
Red_Tarsius
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 believe in God?". The human mind
is biased toward dualism, so it feels natural to talk about something as a
competition of two mutually exclusive arguments.

Another issue I have with belief == religion is merging morality and the
Truth. Religion delivers both in one convenient package. However, they are not
necessarily bundled together. I love Jesus Christ's teachings but I'm not
Christian.

Truth is, many of our predecessors treated religion with much more self-
inquiry than strict believers do today. _Biblical literalism_ was not a given.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism)

~~~
gamechangr
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"?

~~~
Red_Tarsius
I think the _origin of everything_ has nothing to do with human morality and
It didn't send any sons/prophets. I do not think God HAS memories and even
human-like consciousness as Scriptures suggest. However, everything IS part of
It.

Another way to put it is that God is always and everywhere: the matter you
touch, the thoughts you have, the questions you ask and answers you get. :)

~~~
gamechangr
I personally do not believe in "all roads lead to rome" kind of spirituality,
but I appreciate your candor and insight.

I will up vote your comment as well. Thanks for participating in the
conversation!

------
ofcapl_
So here's also my answer - I believe in God, I was raised in Catholic
environment but lately I stopped going to Church - I've lost faith in Church
as a place & organization and started to believe that by being just the good
person for other people (& world environment) will be enough to achieve
redemption - and I believe God is generous enough to respect my way of
'believing'.

~~~
zaqokm
The church is the corporation of religion, using religion to bend the will of
man and keep power. I know it sound harsh, but I spend a lot of time in the
Philippines where the church has way to much power and people suffer because
of it, contraception, sexual education, divorce etc. Families do it tough
here, but some dude at the front of an alter decides a lot of the rules.

However on the other hand even though I am not religious myself, I see nothing
wrong with faith. Especially faith which someone challenges themselves.

------
kiliancs
I do believe in God. I'm a Bahá'í, so I believe that all major world religions
come from the same God and have been sent to humanity at different times and
in different places according to their needs with the purpose of educating
mankind, promoting its wellbeing and advancing civilization. Most of the
activities I participate in are initiated by friends at their homes and have
the purpose of contributing something to the community (the neighborhood or
the town), like devotional gatherings, study circles to raise the capacity to
serve, spiritual classes for children, groups for the junior youth, etc. There
are some other events for the Bahá'í community but I wouldn't call them
ceremonies because we don't have clergy and they are extremely flexible. These
events are usually backed by our institutions, such as a Feast every 19 days
where we pray and consult together, a quarterly meeting to reflect on the
advancements of our endeavors in the betterment of the world and plan ahead,
or a yearly convention to elect these institutions.

------
SamF1n
Yes,I do believe in the God of heaven. I've read the Bible practically as I
learnt to read, and found the Church failed to teach the Bible as it is, but
is standing on the sand of human thoughts and traits.. I still read the Bible
a lot in case I'd been misguided by my own thoughts but as I found too many
lies I resigned the Lutheran Church and joined the SeventhDayAdventists. ..but
after it was evident I really know what the Bible says I was promoted to teach
them the Bible. After several years I found the people in SDA Church have even
more sinister measures than my former Church I got greatly disappointed to
human established and maintained Churches and as the Bible says, if any of you
are gathered in the name of the Saviour, He is among them. I have some guys
believing mostly as I do so that is the only Church I need.

------
drak0n1c
Deist - 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?

------
mswen
Practicing 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.

------
robobro
I kind of see logic or the laws of nature as being "higher forces," but I
can't bring myself to believe in sky wizards, ghosts, time travel, psychic
powers, and the like.

As a philosophy major, I think something dissuading me from the religious
persuasion is that most attempts to define/describe God are either different
kinds of logical games (God = Beauty; this is what beauty is; therefore, god
is // God = Perfection; this is what perfection is; etc // God = Nature,
Light, Truth, etc etc) or completely illogical ones (The Bible says that God
is true, so he must be!).

The Problem of Evil, in particular, sways me from placing faith in a god like
the Christian one.

~~~
mansr
The Old Testament god strikes me as quite evil.

------
richmarr
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 cognitive
dissonance, for emotional/psychological reasons, or just plain-old fear of
being stoned to death (figuratively or literally depending on where you live).

Apologies to anyone offended. Just an opinion.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
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! :)

~~~
richmarr
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 prove or disprove even if we could agree what it
was that we thought we were talking about. You, me, nor anybody else has the
slightest figment of a clue, not a scrap. Nor apparently can we, because
conveniently all major religions also define God as unknowable and untestable.

Sure people can have faith if they like, maybe they've been touched by a deity
and I haven't (personally I doubt it), but anyone taking a _rational_ position
that there either is, or isn't, a God, is just expressing a fantasy that
originates in their own emotional needs.

To try and dress up either atheism or theism in rational arguments is absurd.

~~~
topherreynoso
>> 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.

~~~
richmarr
> 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.

~~~
topherreynoso
I'll be the first to admit that I've heard a lot of irrational arguments from
people trying to advocate or disprove a particular religion. But you're saying
that because you've only heard or explored irrational arguments for theism or
atheism that all arguments for theism or atheism are irrational. Your argument
is irrational.

~~~
richmarr
That's not what I'm saying at all. Don't mistake me for an atheist.

I'm saying that without the ability to even vaguely define what a "God" is the
question "does God exist?" is a non-question.

Sure you can define God as the 'metaphysically ultimate being' but that's a
cop-out definition that means nothing. 'Ultimate' just means there isn't
another one after that... ranked assumedly by some magical badassery rating.

I might as well ask you "is there a Fnooob?" on the basis that Fnooob is the
metaphysically penultimate being. You have no basis on which to answer the
question because the question is nonsense.

We're all familiar with stories about various gods because we've been fed them
since childhood, and that familiarity makes us think we know what they are,
but we really don't.

------
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.

------
sumitviii
I am starting my own religion!

If that doesn't sound crazy enough, see its commandments: 1\. You should know
that God doesn't exist. 2\. But you may ask god to help you do things that you
think are somewhat out of your control. Eg: Please God, give me a good GPA
this semester. 3\. You have to acknowledge that just saying stuff won't
actually make it happen, but doing it might. 4\. You may or may not fight self
righteous wars in favor of this religion.

------
DanBC
> I noticed that most (around 99%) tech people I know in-person do not believe
> in God

Do they talk about it? Some religious people are not particularly evangelical,
especially in the workplace, so maybe some of them are observant religious and
you just don't know about it.

(Btw: I'm atheist if it helps.)

------
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.

------
MalcolmDiggs
I'm Pastafarian. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

------
ragecore
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.

~~~
kevingoslar
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.

------
haidrali
I am Full Stack Developer with strong believe in GOD Muslim

------
azaras
I am not believer.

------
louishk
why u no poll?

~~~
mtmail
The user doesn't have enough karma to create a poll yet. Even if I think the
user didn't look for absolute or percentage values, but wanted to start a
discussion around religion.

------
WorldWideWayne
Why are you asking?

~~~
ofcapl_
I'm just curious. As I mentioned before most tech people I know doesn't
believe in God and I was interested how it looks like a bit beyond my
neighborhood.

~~~
blissofbeing
I suspect that is because tech people tend to be smart.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
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.

~~~
blissofbeing
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.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
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.

