
Why are geeks often atheist? - nreece
http://m4th.com/Articles/Why-are-geeks-often-atheists.php
======
seer
I would never forget the moment I became an atheist - it was somewhere in the
middle of the 7th grade, and we had a lesson about the emerging empires in
Mesopotamia ( The first time history touches organized religion, at least in
my school). I was cautiously believing in christ then. Anyway we were
discussing the merits of their religion (sovereign chosen by god, underworld
or something like that), and it was all clear that their notion of religion
was silly and could never be true, yet they passionately believed it. On top
of that it was obvious that the ruling class had invented it to serve it's
needs (the sovereign was entitled to his position, so was his family and
hairs). And then it struck me, what will be different in say 3-4 thousand
years into the future, when in some class a child will be learning about
christianity, and discussing it's merits. In that exact moment the whole
pillar of belief (which my parents were relentlessly building) crumbled like
the WTC.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

~~~
robg
In rejecting _an_ organized religion, why make a leap to rejecting the entire
inquiry? We're already well-into that technological future you imagine.
Indeed, we're communicating across the globe at sometimes the speed of light.
But the most difficult questions of our humanity still have yet to be
answered. I can't see that ever changing save for God incarnate descending
(again?). :)

A very influential book for me: A Common Faith by John Dewey - a pragmatic
philosopher with a realistic approach and hope.

The real problem, to me, is one of literalism vs. metaphor. I read the Old and
New Testaments for insight but not history or science. Some would find that
appalling. Others appealing. The choice is mine and ours to believe what we
want.

~~~
Tichy
The thing is, if god exists, all is hopeless, because everything is arbitrary
(at the whim of said god). Only without a god is there any hope for us humans
to make sense of things.

I think in a way the existence of god would be very depressing, because it
would make everything meaningless.

~~~
noonespecial
There is a caveat to this assertion; If said god is entirely internally
consistent, then his whim is no more arbitrary than the laws of nature.

Perhaps this is contained in the definition "God", perhaps this is why
religious types are always on about "holiness" (which I have gathered mostly
means "internally consistent") .

~~~
Tichy
Wouldn't "internally consistent" be equivalent to "god doesn't exist"?

------
dfranke
> It might make sense to think that many such geeks simply find something as
> simple as a creator an overly simplistic explanation for something so
> elegant.

"Overly simplistic" is nearly the opposite of the problem. We _want_ our first
principles to be simple -- the fewer axioms, the better. By contrast, a god is
something mind-bogglingly complex, far more complex than the universe itself.
That makes it a thoroughly unsatisfactory explanation.

~~~
robg
But see it's up to you (if you accept the challenge) to come up with a
satisfactory answer. I know I have - for myself. And my wife and I mostly
agree. That's enough. We won't teach our (eventual) kids dogmatically but we
will teach them a healthy appreciation of the power and pitfalls of religious
thought. To us, it's a part of what it means to be human. An atheist, to me,
is simply saying "No, _that_ definition is wrong and I don't believe in it!".
To me, that's a weird perspective for folks who come up with definitions day
after day.

On topic, I do wish folks down-voting me throughout this thread would explain
why. I started posting because I'm very interested in the question but lack an
answer. Down-voting me only proves the point and necessitating the very
question!

~~~
gizmo
We could argue with you, but it would accomplish little.

1\. I'm not looking for a satisfactory answer. I'm looking for the answer that
is most plausible. I go where evidence leads me. In this case, there is as
much evidence for god as there is for unicorns. This is not sufficient to
dismiss the concept of god entirely, but it should at least give you pause.

2\. I have debated religious people for hours and hours. I don't know any
atheist who hasn't seriously evaluated his beliefs. My position is very close
to the one of Richard Dawkins. Read his books (especially Selfish Gene and The
God Delusion). The last book is not as confrontational as the title suggests.
Dawkins has done a few programmes for the BBC, you can easily find them
online.

3\. There doesn't -need- to be an answer. When a problem is very complex, it
is always better to honestly admit you don't know than to make something up
that sounds nice or gives comfort.

4\. You can't expect people to explain their position again and again on
forums like these. Reading books is a far more efficient way to understand
alternative points of view. Only when you have -specific- questions does it
make sense to challenge people online.

~~~
d0mine
All models are false but some models are useful. <http://is.gd/MnP>

Usefulness of the _God_ model depends on the context. Therefore it does not
make sense to discuss such things without a context.

~~~
gizmo
Exactly. That's why I proposed Dawkins' model as a frame of reference. Without
some common ground communication breaks down.

------
Herring
Geeks aren't religious? I think Emacs would be a good OS if it came with a
halfway-decent text editor.

~~~
anr
Hehe, so true. Geeks usually place their religion all over licenses,
languages, editors, operating systems, methodologies, etc.

Some people choose ideologies. There must be an evolutionary explanation for
religion somewhere.

------
icey
I have to say that this thread shows why I'm so impressed with the YC
community. Ordinarily this sort of discussion is _very_ thorny; and almost
always ends up as a flame fest within the first 10 posts.

Instead, we're drinking tea in the middle of the brier patch.

~~~
procrastitron
"this thread shows why I'm so impressed with the YC community"

I was actually thinking the opposite. I come here for news and articles
relating to technology start ups, and this thread shows how far off track
hacker news has gotten.

~~~
dkokelley
I was thinking the same thing. I thought about posting a "please stop" thread
to this but decided against it. I figured that if I ignored it then it might
go away.

It's not that I don't appreciate this sort of discussion. I like the openness
of asking these questions. It's just that I can go to any corner of the
internet with a forum and see most of the same.

They say you're not supposed to discuss religion and politics, I'd personally
prefer to keep to this guide, and we don't see much of politics here.

~~~
jey
" _They say you're not supposed to discuss religion and politics_ "

That advice is for situations where you need to "just get along", but it's an
actively harmful stance if you're trying to seek truth, understand reality,
fight regressive politics, etc.

------
petercooper
Simple. Geeks respect and understand the scientific method. Anything that
cannot be observed and tested is considered speculation and not fact.

Being an atheist in no mean requires that you remain an atheist forever.
Scientists have believed, at many times, in things that we now know are not
strictly correct. Once evidence arrives and experiments are performed,
scientific consensus changes.

~~~
icey
Frankly, I believe that a lot of people who call themselves Athiests are in
fact Agnostics; and don't really stop to think about the difference.

I would venture to guess that most scientists especially are agnostic because
it fits the scientific method better - we can not presume to know what we
cannot measure, and all that.

Atheism is the idea that we _know_ that there is know higher power. Any
scientist has to know that it is impossible to have that absolute knowledge
because we have no tests to prove or disprove the hypothesis.

~~~
ken
No, it's worse than that. I think we know well enough that we're agnostic.
It's just that agnostics have even worse PR than atheists.

Look at the digg survey this article links to: there's no option for
"agnostic". Did the agnostics choose "atheist" or "other"? Either way, they're
hidden.

Look at the photo spread: it lists "Famous Agnostics/Atheists", as if they're
the same thing, but at least half are arguably agnostic:

\- Darwin: self-described agnostic; claimed he had "never been an athiest"

\- Einstein: "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic."

\- Edison: apparently a lifelong agnostic

\- Gates: can't find a clear statement, but said in an interview "I don't know
if there's a god or not"

Look at the article itself: there's no mention of agnosticism at all. They're
simply using a photo of a famous agnostic to bolster an argument about
atheism.

I believe that a lot of us who are (and rightfully claim to be) agnostic are
being labeled "atheist" by people who don't know or care.

~~~
gizmo
Even atheists don't -know- whether there's a god or not. So the statement
Gates made sounds like the statement from a politically correct atheist.
Einstein also considered the idea of a personal god very implausible.

I think an agnostic is somebody who doesn't know whether god exists, but
considers it a 50/50 situation. Both sides are equally plausible. A fence-
sitter, if you will. An atheist thinks extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence, and that the evidence for god doesn't stack up.
Therefore atheists are forced to conclude there probably is no god. Or simply
said: there is no god. Even though we all admit we may be wrong.

~~~
icey
I disagree with you on this point. Atheists make the claim that there is
definitively no god, just as theists make the claim that there is one
definitively.

~~~
gizmo
All people I know who label themself atheist accept they might be wrong. I
don't think atheists exist that claim to know with absolute certainty that no
god could possibly exist.

In fact, I'm pretty sure not a single person reading HN is an atheist by your
definition. Even Richard Dawkins is an agnostic by your definition. I can only
conclude that your definition does't make sense.

Challenge: find me an atheist who fits your definition.

You'll find none.

~~~
icey
I'm not saying that they reject the possibility that they might be wrong; they
couldn't do that any more than they could reject the possibility that they're
wrong about anything immeasurable (to themselves).

The very definition of Athiesm is to deny the existence of a god or a higher
power.

As soon as you admit there is a real possibility that there may be a god or a
higher power; bam, you're an agnostic.

Which is the crux of my point - the definition of Atheist is often misused, as
in this article. There are far more Agnostics than Atheists, it's just that
Atheism gets used more frequently.

This page discussing the differences far more eloquently than I ever could:

<http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/intro.html>

------
IsaacSchlueter
Spluh, it's because they're smart.

~~~
robg
Or lazy.

Coming late to this game, I'm still surprised by this attitude in CS circles.
To me, an atheist has refused to see the problem in defining one simple term:
"God". Rejecting one definition (after a half-hearted explication) doesn't
solve anything except by ignoring further inquiry.

As a neuroscientist, I know that finite matter gives rise to visions of the
infinite. To me, that itself is an awe-inspiring moment for which I have no
rational basis. Call it what you will (even delusion) but the challenge is to
explain it away when no explanation seems adequate.

Of course, solving for "God" need not be tied to a particular faith. On it's
own, it's a personal undertaking where rejecting an understanding in being
atheist is certainly one's right. But replace the loaded term "God" with
something else, say "Nature" or "Infinite" or "Universe" or even "Matter", and
I can't see how one doesn't tumble back to a more humble position.

~~~
pg
_Or lazy._

No, the lazy choice is to have the visions of the infinite you mention and
instead of trying to understand them, simply to describe them in terms of
whatever traditional concepts are floating around in your culture-- which in
this case are at best 99% anthropomorphizing fable, and often consciously
designed to enslave you.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Perhaps some of us have grown out of our traditional concepts designed to
enslave us and have managed not to have visions of the infinite (study of
infinities is a fairly mature science, btw) but still understand the need for
a taxonomy of the unknowable?

The lazy is on you, it seems, for making all kinds of straw man arguments
here. Surely 99% of belief in God is based on culture and anthropology, but
99% is not 100%. You do the topic a disservice to say that it is.

Personally? I find it funny when people say they're an atheist. "How do you
know what not to believe in?" is my first question, and usually that shuts
them down. You see, atheism is a response to those traditional cultural ideas
of religion (and the history of how they have evolved), not to the real
concept of a God. To the atheist, God, santa clause, the christian church, the
easter bunny, etc -- it's all the same thing. Stuff you can't prove. They
haven't grown to understand where the definitional fault lines are.

That's lazy.

~~~
jamesbritt
'"How do you know what not to believe in?" is my first question, and usually
that shuts them down. '

It usually goes something like this:

T; Do you believe in god?

A: Define 'god'

T: <some description involving unverifiable supernatural beings>

A: No. I do not believe that.

No one gets shut down.

"They haven't grown to understand where the definitional fault lines are."

Nice ad hominem there. Talk about lazy.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
How about we actually ask the poster (me) how that goes? I know this is a lot
more fun when you get to make up both parts, but gee -- give a guy a break.

T: Do you believe in God? A: I believe through inductive reasoning that there
are things we do not understand. I believe it is critically important to know
this. I also believe this always to be the case. You can call this continuing
lack of knowledge "a hole", part of the implications of Godel's theorem --
whatever. I find no problem with those who choose the word "God"

See how much more fun this is with two players?

~~~
jamesbritt
"How about we actually ask the poster (me) how that goes? "

Well, you were the one saying _you_ ask that question of others, and then you
gave a fairly dismissive account of how others answer. Basically, you played
both parts.

I simply offered an alternative to how those sorts of conversations go when
I'm the one being asked. You know, giving you an actual person so you don't
have to play both parts. It's more fun that way.

If you want to use a very particular definition of "god" to frame the
discussion in your favor, that's great. But we both know that when most people
are talking about god and atheism and belief they are not obliquely referring
to Godel anything.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
So you got it, good.

I understand that you and others confuse God, religion, and social justice.
I'll posit that they are all related in some fashion outside the scope of this
discussion. But that common confusion is a colloquial discussion (What is
commonly meant when one says something) not a semantic and epistemological
one.

------
patrickg-zill
Troll-bait. Digg does not represent geeks at large, and we have no idea if the
poll was spammed or not.

Second, there are many geeks (like one client I have who is finishing up his
studies at Cambridge this year) who are of one faith or another.

The guy who wrote the first silicon compiler (lets you lay out chip designs
without having to do it manually) - fundamentalist Christian. Many Apple geeks
- Buddhist. etc.

------
utefan001
Maybe some of us geeks just need to get outside more. Go hiking like Francis
Collins did.

From (<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article673663.ece>) Francis
Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute,
claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries
bring man “closer to God”.

For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his
mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter
instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of
mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page
without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague
sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

“I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God chose to
create human beings in his image and decided that the mechanism of evolution
was an elegant way to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that is not the
way,” he says.

Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was
impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical
patients.

“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape,
and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a
source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting,
puzzling and unsettling.”

His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in
Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the
remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot
resist this another moment’.”

Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God
because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes
miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of
God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem
to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he
says.

As for me, know that I respect your opinion. My life experiences are different
than your life experiences. For me, God is very real. I find when I remember
to pray sincerely in the morning, I can recognize God’s hand throughout the
day. The things I see are usually small things but sometimes they are not
small at all.

~~~
aswanson
Sam Harris hikes, and this is his take on Collins:

[http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060815_sam_harris_lang...](http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060815_sam_harris_language_ignorance/)

What is your opinion on his interpretation?

------
reazalun
I suspect, atheism itself will become an organized religion several decades
from now.

~~~
robg
I think in some circles it already has.

(Don't know why you got down-voted.)

~~~
olavk
I think Unitarian Universalsm
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism> is some kind of
organized atheism.

~~~
gregwebs
it is acceptable to be a UU and believe in God or not believe in God. That is
why some people think UU is not a religion- it doesn't have dogma.

~~~
dfranke
and if you don't think they're tolerant enough, there's always
<http://www.themonastery.org/>

------
ashu
In a hypothetical universe, if kids weren't exposed to ANY thoughts about
religion AT ALL and were taught about what we know about how the universe
works, would the concept of God arise? Perhaps, since there are still a lot of
things which are mysterious and can't be explained. But it seems that it will
take a very different form than what we have been exposed to.

~~~
cousin_it
I think yes, the concept would still arise. Many disconnected societies had
religion.

You know this feeling when, after stumbling and falling over a chair, you
punish the poor piece of furniture as if it were alive? Or see a car crash
about to occur and think to yourself, oh please, let's this not happen?
Imagining self-consciousness around you, a natural human trait, leads to the
invention of tree spirits, thunderstorm spirits, etc., all the way up to god.

And of course the concept of god (or any other Powerful Force orthogonal to
human well-being) is very beneficial to those in power, to rationalize their
decisions to the masses. So yes, it would be invented, and pretty soon.

------
DanielBMarkham
Let's put down the rationalist cool-aid for just a minute. While in every
realm of scientific inquiry we have never discovered a man in a red suit
(santa claus) by surprise, we have always discovered a greater level of
complexity and uncertainty.

The question becomes whether or not we can assign names to things we cannot
reason about. Human language and psychology are great things. I believe we can
and I believe it is necessary. To say there is an intelligent prime mover at
some level beyond our understanding is only far-out in one word: intelligent.
I would argue as a baby species we're nowhere close to having a rational
definition for intelligent. It's obvious there are complex levels of
understanding to the universe that we do not grok.

So in 4 thousand years, when humans look back on us and laugh, so what? Were
the Romans wrong in believing Zeus threw lightning bolts? I would argue they
were not: some force existed that caused electrical discharges from the sky.
By learning more about Zeus, humans simply took part of the meaning of "Zeus"
and replaced it with various theories. (Which continue to be worked to this
day, I might add)

We will never complete this exercise. There will always be holes in what we
understand. And using our creativity and intellect to tell stories about what
must be out there? It's the definition of human.

So yes, Virginia, there is a God. For some he is a personal, close advisor.
For some he is simply a thing to be denied until time of dire stress. But he's
been there, and will remain there, for millennium. Every time a scientist
takes a deep-field shot from the Hubble for a picture of the "face of God",
every time a MLK rises up to change society for the better, every time a child
wonders where their dead parents "went to" -- God remains.

You can cling to your provisional theories as being the source of truth or you
can accept the uncertainty of it all and grow up. Atheism is the ultimate
negative statement "there is no such thing as I cannot define" and therefore,
at the end of the day, is the most non-rational belief of all - in my opinion,
of course.

~~~
pg
_Atheism is the ultimate negative statement "there is no such thing as I
cannot define"_

No, it's just concluding, as JMC puts it, "the evidence on the God question is
at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question."

~~~
DanielBMarkham
But it's not. It's lazy (in my opinion) to have such a shallow view of the
matter.

I would encourage you guys to listen to some discussion and arguments around
proofs-of-God. The Teaching Company has a couple of great lecture series. Take
some time and learn. The worst people to teach are those who think they have
nothing to learn.

We can't make a conclusion one way or another given common terms and
understanding. The question is really about how we deal with things outside of
our ability to reason about them, not werewolves, santa clause, or any of that
other nonsense.

I wonder how many have you studied any of this since university? I thought
about it, and I got tired of hearing the same old arguments, so I reached out
and kept reaching until I got it. To me this seems like one of those questions
people are just happy repeating something they heard a long time ago while not
looking at the subject with a fresh eye every so often.

Hey -- my opinion only. But it looks lazy to me.

~~~
helveticaman
_I would encourage you guys to listen to some discussion and arguments around
proofs-of-God. The Teaching Company has a couple of great lecture series. Take
some time and learn. The worst people to teach are those who think they have
nothing to learn._

If someone accuses you of being self-righteous or condescending, don't let him
or her find this.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
This sub-thread was in terms of laziness. As part of that discussion, I have
demonstrated my efforts to learn more, questioned others to see if they have
done the same, and encouraged them to do so.

Quite frankly, I haven't heard much of a rebuttal so far. You are correct in
that I should have drawn the point home sharper in the above text.

------
tptacek
Eric Raymond has similar essays for why geeks are "often" libertarians, or
"often" in favor of gun rights. "Logic dictates" that they would be so. Of
course, a year later you find out that he also thinks people with dark skin
are genetically inferior, and that we should bomb Tehran.

For my part, and despite what the avalanche of comments on this thread says to
the contrary, I'll assert that it's hard to find an argument more _boring_ and
_petulant_ than this one. "Geeks" are people who like to take things apart and
build them back up again, and vice versa. That is the _only_ thing they have
in common. Unless you'd like me to make fun of your grimy pony tail and Star
Trek ears.

------
natch
For me it's because I understand the argument against the existence of God.

Specifically, a God, meaning some kind of conscious all-knowing, all-powerful
entity that exists somehow "beyond" time, would have to be a thing of
organized complexity.

And organized complexity does not just "exist beyond time."

Somehow, this kind of organized complexity has to come in to being. No, it
does not "just exist."

We do know one process for bringing organized complexity into being, and that
is evolution.

So far, it's the only process we know about for creating organized complexity
on the scale required for consciousness and intelligence.

We don't know of any other processes that can do this.

That doesn't prove that there aren't other ways. But.

You tell me. If God knows everything, where did he/it get that knowledge?

If God "just exists", explain: how is that possible?

Your non-explanation, to me, proves nothing.

Rather than saying "I can't prove leprechauns exist, so therefore you must
accept that they might exist" I am very content to say "I do not believe that
leprechauns exist." Period. End of story.

Same with God. No reason to believe. Even Pascal's wager is flawed, because
you lose so much by living your life according to faith, that it is not worth
it, especially considering how unlikely it is that a complete perfect all-
knowing all-powerful intelligence would just spring into being beyond time.

------
cap4life
This articles is absolute b.s. Faith and reason go together; they are not
diametrically opposed. Perhaps the reason why geeks tend to be atheists is
because they simply don't care that much about religion- they have other
subjects to consider.

~~~
ajkirwin
Not meaning to start a theological debate here, as really, it's not the place,
but how exactly do faith and reason go together?

~~~
yummyfajitas
All reasoning requires some unprovable axioms. That's Godel's incompleteness
theorem. A religious person can simply take the divinity of jesus (or
whatever) as an axiom and use reason from that point onward.

~~~
dmoney
> All reasoning requires some unprovable axioms. That's Godel's incompleteness
> theorem.

No, that's just reasoning. Godel's theorem is about the limitations of what
you can build upon those axioms.

I'm not sure those limitations even matter much. What use is being able to
prove "this statement is unprovable"?

------
urlwolf
Steve pavlina is clearly a geek (you may think what you want of his ideas;
being married to a psychic is not a good sign of good judgment if you ask me);
he wrote an extensice critic of organized religion here:
[http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/05/10-reasons-you-
shou...](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/05/10-reasons-you-should-never-
have-a-religion/)

I agree, and I think most geeks I know fall into the category of people who
question bullshit often.

------
wheels
Tied into the recent Meyer-Briggs poll I'd also posit that the prototypical
geek personality, INTJ, also tends towards Things Needing To Be Right.
Meaning, many people simply don't find a need to break down systems of belief
and settle on a solid, well constructed belief structure. Geeks like binary
stuff. Religion is true or false. The Christian geeks that I do know seem to
confirm this by being rather taken with systematic theology.

~~~
henning
"Systematic theology"? That sounds like a lot of effort to dance around the
fact that Christians worship a magical Jewish zombie who is all that stands
between them and hell.

~~~
rbanffy
After all, not all zombies can fly and that one did.

------
nazgulnarsil
Intelligent people have better things to do with their time than argue about
undefined words. (edit: I just saw how many comments this thread has, never
mind)

here's another one for you, why don't geeks believe in casplak?

It's the russel's teapot problem. People who talk about god are using a word
with no referent.

------
liaohaohui
I would think that cause there is no need to be religious. I mean what's the
point of believing in something which no one knows whether existed or not
while life goes on as usual. I mean computers work for both who believe in
something and who don't.

------
zach
I think this may be the simplest explanation for why geeks often have any
particular quality, this one included:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=204240>

------
rw
Hard agnostic != atheist.

------
edu
Because we all know we are living in a computer simulation...
<http://www.simulation-argument.com/>

------
globalrev
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity> == Atheism?

~~~
globalrev
i meant that some singularitists seem more reliogious about it that
scientific.

i have no real opinion whether it will happen or not.

------
lpgauth
"God is dead" - Friedrich Nietzsche

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead>

------
ensignavenger
I wonder if anyone else has caught the contradiction in the article-

"This makes them the single largest religious group on Digg,..." (The author
acknowledges that atheism is a 'religious group')

"Religion has no place in science." (Used as a possible reason why Geeks tend
to be atheists)

Religion is the greatest science of all. All other branches of science are
merely an appendage to true religion. When we understand nature, and natures
God (or the rules that govern nature) we understand science.

------
arvid
because smart scientific people are skeptics. It is tougher to resolve one's
skepticism with religious beliefs than it is resolve with atheism.
Interestingly, I have known several atheist who were almost "religious" in
their atheism.

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Isn't this roughly the same as my "spluh" comment? :)

In a religious culture, it's hard to find anyone more religious than an
atheist. The reason for that, I think, is that you have to make a choice to be
an atheist when it's not the default.

------
t0pj
if(god.exists()){ return to_your_predetermined_role_in('work','play','etc');
}else{ while (true) { rage_against_the_machine(); } }

------
sealedidentity
anyone who can understand probability in a half-decent manner wouldn't believe
in god.

------
time_management
One note that I'll add: if we want to make "religion" palatable to hackers,
there is a way in: reincarnation research. The reason I say this is that, as I
mentioned in another post, hackers like to experience things directly,
understand them at intimate levels, and improve them, which makes the
immutable, transcendent, unprovable and irrefutable "truths" offered by
religion unappealing.

500 years from now, we'll still have no scientific evidence either way
regarding the existence of God, and there will be millions of people on each
side of the debate. However, empirical reincarnation research (e.g. the work
of Ian Stevenson) can be done, and early results are promising. It's not
enough, at this very early stage, to "prove" that reincarnation occurs after
death, but it could provide a lot of interesting insights into what we are as
humans, using methodology that scientifically-minded hackers would approve.

------
Allocator2008
I would say by and large "geeks" subscribe to Occam's Razor, meaning the
simplest self-consistent explanatory theory for a given explendum tends to be
correct. If the explendum, is, for example, the Universe, then Occam's Razor
would point to a well-defined, self-consistent theory of quantum gravity (as
yet not entirely done), then positing say, the flying spaghetti monster. If
"God" is defined as some sort of disembodied "macro-intelligence" then said
notion becomes a casulty of Occam's Razor. If however, "God" is co-terminous
with Nature, or the Universe, or the "creativity" of nature as some would have
it, which I would take to mean emergent forms or fluctuations spontaneously
arising from a system in thermal equlibrium in the macro-scale, then one can
carry on using the word "God", without running into Occam's Razor. Personally
I prefer the word "pantheist" to "atheist", meaning the former term is "glass
half full" whereas the latter term is "glass half empty".

------
time_management
Hackers like to experience things directly, and improve them. Religion of the
traditional sort tends to assert that there are immutable revealed truths,
which cannot be experienced except by a rare few who lived millenia ago, and
which it is a crime (heresy) to "hack". So traditional religion is
unappealing, and a lot of them come to the conclusion that nothing in religion
is true.

------
xlnt
One would hope the reason is: geeks more often manage to understand evolution
properly.

~~~
wumi
were there not atheists long before evolutionary theory?

~~~
xlnt
Few, because they didn't have an answer to the problem of design.

(Plus, back then, science and industry had yet to give a stunning
demonstration of the power of human reason over nature.)

------
ahold
It's because some of them are european buddhists :)

------
giles_bowkett
because we can do math.

