

Ask YC: Are you religous? - BenS

I feel like online applications and communities built around religion are pretty poor given how important religion is for lots of people. One hypothesis is that few hackers are religious. Maybe the YC community can confirm/offer a counter-explanation.
======
tjr
I hold Christian faith. In some ways, I hesitate to label myself as
"religious," as it seems to me that a great deal of stuff that has been done
and said in the name of Christianity is a bunch of rubbish -- while I believe
Christianity itself is good, I also believe that a lot of cruft and
misinformation has been tacked on over the years.

Even amongst Christians, there is a regrettable amount of division. This group
believes X, this group believes Y, this group believes Z, and none of them
want to have anything to do with each other. It's a mess, and I really don't
understand why folks act that way. But it makes it hard to discuss matters of
religious belief, because as soon as you present view X, those who hold view Y
are prone to get angry or cut you off or whatever. Then adherents of view X
get angry, and adherents of view Z think X and Y are both wacky, and... _sigh_

Certainly, not all religious people are like this; I don't mean to claim that
at all. It may just be, like in many arenas of life, a vocal minority really
can't get along, giving the more sensible majority a bad reputation.

Several years ago, I participated in a reasonably successful online forum
about Christian music production. After a couple of years, a few people
totally ruined it for everyone else by turning the forum into a religious
flame war, and the forum was eventually shut down. My guess is that online
communities centered around religious topics could only exist both peacefully
and for a long duration with heavy moderation.

~~~
roadtripgeek
I've noticed there's a difference in how people who label themselves
"religious" and people who choose the label "spiritual" act (at least in the
Bible Belt). Most of the people in my hometown who chose religious would beat
you over the head with how good of a Christian they are and criticize you for
not following what was clearly the One True Way. My father-in-law is proud of
being a religious man and it's frustrating that he's unwilling to accept
other's beliefs.

The ones who chose spiritual were much more pleasant to be around. My
spiritual friends usually let me know what time their churches' main events
kick off and that I have a standing invite if I decide I'm interested. Most of
the time I forget they go to church X until I ask them to do something and
they have prior plans involving their church. They also don't brag about their
work within the community. They tend to be the type who will say "Glad I could
help" and really mean it when someone thanks them. In contrast, my father-in-
law is proud of how religious he is and gets upset if he feels he wasn't
properly recognized for his good works.

I've noticed that certain types of communities (usually the mainstream ones
aimed at moms) tend to also be more religious than not. They're ok communities
until something that has a religious aspect comes up and then it's witch
hunting time. I've also run across a few niche Christian sites when looking
for things related to my hobbies. They don't seem to have flame war issues,
but they have closed forums for the main discussions and public forums to vet
new members.

------
ars
No, there are plenty of religious hackers, it's that they don't talk about it
because there is nothing much to say: every single religious argument has been
argued over and over for thousands of years. What's the point in doing it
again?

~~~
as
I don't find this convincing. The arguments are thousands of years old, but
most of the relevant data is <200 years old. The reason most religious hackers
don't talk about it is that they know better - that unless you're sufficiently
vague, believing in supernatural stories born of bronze age cultures is
logically indefensible.

~~~
silentbicycle
The arguments also tend to turn uncharacteristically ugly.

~~~
as
That'll be the case in anything where people have strong attachments.

~~~
silentbicycle
Indeed.

------
Prrometheus
Why do you care? If you draw any generalizations from the replies on this
forum, then you are committing every statistical fallacy in the book.

As for your hypothesis, the Hacker News community is built around Hacker News
and not religion or the lack thereof, so I find it hard to see how it fits in.
I would agree that online communities built around religion are of little
interest, but only because I find the subject matter so tedious.

If you could flesh out your argument and make it a little more clear, I'm sure
you would get better replies from this community.

Personally I try to never judge the people I socialize with based on their
beliefs in irrelevant subject matters. But I am an oddity, being born without
the seemingly common gene that causes most people to derive pleasure from
meddling and prying into the personal affairs of others.

~~~
mattmaroon
A person's religion says a lot about their epistemology, which in turn says a
lot about them. You have to pick and choose your friends somehow (this is not
unnecessary meddling) and there are few more substantive ways.

I'm a non-militant atheist, so I generally don't "look down upon" religious
people or feel it's my duty to convert them. But I also have a hard time
really relating to anyone who is willing to base their morality or
political/life decisions on such silly things as the Bible (see
[http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-
Changed/...](http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-
Changed/dp/0060738170) for explanation) or logically unsound principles with
no factual evidence. Their epistemology is just too different from mine.

~~~
Andys
In a sense, it would be very logically unsound to base faith in God on just a
book, even if it is "The Book".

Isn't it because faith transcends logic and reason? This is my understanding
of the word "faith", any way.

~~~
mattmaroon
Right. It's essentially believing in something because you want to, rather
than because evidence or logic points to it. Faith doesn't transcend reason,
it is its opposite.

------
keefe
Maybe most good hackers are pragmatic? I'm spiritual, but not religious.

The biggest tenet of my philosophy is "I don't know". I've always found that
those people that turn to religion with dead-set certainty are usually running
away from something and using religion as a shield.

The one point I have faith in is that we do not live in a random universe,
that there is some design and point to our existence. This is actually a
purely pragmatic point of view.

Either something happens after we die that can be influenced by the way we
live, or nothing happens. If nothing happens - who cares? So, I choose to
believe and seek whatever it is that is our species' purpose and follow it.

The problem is I have no idea what that is. So, I try to take care of myself
first, my family second and my community next. The problem is just getting by
on the day to day life is incredibly time consuming.

I hope to resolve my financial pressures (insert shameless startup plug here?)
and then worry about these things when I'm a bit more wrinkly.

~~~
ltbarcly
'spiritual but not religious' is the most vapid phrase ever to originate on
the lips of a douchebag.

------
nickfox
I'm mormon and I do practice all the "rules" of my religion and go to church
every Sunday. I've been coding now for 11 years. I've been a contractor all
that time. My religion is important to me but if you met me you wouldn't get
the feeling that I'm all overly-religious. I don't try to pull any religious
crap on people and I'm not trying to convert anyone unless they want to be.

------
silentbicycle
I don't consider myself religious, but I have incorporated some buddhist
practices into my life.

Also, not to derail, but I think that it's pretty ambiguous whether buddhism
counts as a religion, per se, according to the (generally unstated)
assumptions in discussions like these. Some schools of buddhism are athiestic
or agnostic, some are not, etc.

~~~
as
Yea, many schools of Buddhism have a lot of supernatural trappings that are
basically ornaments and interpretations from the cultures they grew to
prominence in. I think this is why the most popular school of Buddhism in the
west is Zen, which strips most of that away.

~~~
silentbicycle
Right. I remember reading something where the author's teacher, when asked
what some chanting in a sutra meant, basically said, "Oh, that? That's just
Hindu stuff."

Historically, buddhism has partially melded with the local worldview as it has
been carried from culture to culture: Theravada in India seems to have a lot
of elements from Hinduism in it, Mahayana in China and Japan incorporated
Taoism and Shinto respectively, Tibetan Vajrayana melded with Bon, etc. It
seems to me that buddhism in America has been absorbing psychology, though it
may be too early to say.

Also, I think another reason for the relative popularity of Zen / Mahayana
here is that some of the Beats, particularly Alan Watts, attracted people to
Shunryu Suzuki and the San Francisco Zen Center. Other buddhisms are common in
immigrant communities, for example, but the Zen Center had a head start.

------
vaksel
Sort of, I believe that there is probably a higher being that created that
initial micron of matter. But I don't believe that there is a "god" that
watches our every move.

And I believe that organized religion is nothing more than a huge thousand
year old scam. Make lots of money and convert as many people as you can to
make even more money. 400 years from now Scientology will be on the same level
as Christianity.

~~~
oz
Well, what happened to him?

~~~
Hexstream
I think any serious answer would be preposterous and probably irrelevant. Even
if it was spot on. Let's say we could prove we live in a computer simulation.
Would you really stop living your life? Would you try to talk with the admins
of the universe? Isn't that a bit pointless? Reminds me of the South Park
episode where they discover the Earth is a giant reality show for aliens.

------
mechanical_fish
_I feel like online applications and communities built around religion are
pretty poor..._

Your use of the word "poor" here is not merely delightfully ambiguous, but one
of its meanings helps to explain the other: A lot of charities have poor
websites because they are poor. Building sites costs money, as does
maintaining them. And many people take a dim view of charities who spend more
money trying to appear less poor than they spend on... the poor.

Of course, as the web matures nice websites cost less money. A lot of
charities are turning to Drupal, for example, which in its simplest
incarnations can be pretty straightforward to maintain, presuming you know how
to set it up in the first place. ;) But beware the feeping creaturism...

I'm also pretty dubious about the facts of your statement -- not that online
religious communities are poor, but that they're _especially_ poor. A lot of
online applications are poor, full stop. We're not going to run out of things
to build anytime soon.

------
eznet
Agnostic and atheist beliefs are likely more concentrated in the hacker world
because this is a world of science and mathematics - worlds that have not
traditionally reconciled well with the world of religion (no flaming please,
historical observation - Copernicus: "The Earth is not the center of the
Universe" Church: "Condemn the heretic!"). You need not search far to find
examples of this (aside from the previous example) as most popular scientific
periodicals and journals frequently discuss the lack of religious faith in the
scientific community - Scientific American, Nature and Science all regularly
discuss this very topic (very frequently in Scientific American).

On the flip, there are many hackers who are religious. Despite popular
consensus, hackers are people and some 80%+ of the world population claims one
religion or another. It only serves to reason that some of this 80%+ of the
worlds population would call a scientific discipline, such as programming,
their trade of choice.

Although a generalization for sure, there is likely a grain of truth and logic
to the posed argument - specifically, fewer hackers are religious than is the
case with other disciplines (such as, say, insurance agent).

I know a great number of hackers who claim to be "religious", though
philosophical discussions often show them to hold concepts more akin to
agnosticism. My (unscientific) theory for this phenomenon is the "fire
insurance" argument - i.e. If a particular religious system is correct,
denouncing the legitimacy of said religion will ensure them a place in hell.
If the individual does not formally denounce said religion (despite the
religion not necessarily syncing with their true beliefs), they can still
claim a place in heaven as a 'believer'. The "if there is a God, I am good, if
there is not, what did it hurt to pray?" defense.

To each their own I say. If it works for you to believe, then by all means,
believe. Concerning science and religion, evidence suggests if there is a God,
he like to play dice - something that many notorious religious scientist were
uncomfortable with. Myself, I find comfort in the randomness.

~~~
silentbicycle
It's not meaningful to generalize about _all religion_ based on the church in
medieval Europe. The potential behavior of a powerful theocracy, yes, but not
religion in general.

Incidentally, your "fire insurance" argument is generally referred to as
"Pascal's Wager" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager>), in case
you (or another reader) is interested in reading further along those lines.

------
comatose_kid
If there was a god, we wouldn't be subjected to posts like these.

------
teuobk
No. I used to be a devout Catholic, but I lost my faith in the Church during
high school. By the time my sophomore year in college rolled around, I decided
I was agnostic. Now, a few years later, I have gone the extra step: I am
atheist.

That said, I have become convinced that some sort of order exists in the
universe. Things work out so elegantly so often... Perhaps that is a "god" of
sorts, though not the sort of omnipotent (or even self-aware) being that is
held up by most religions.

------
rrf
Alternate theory: The Internet is a dangerous idea – cf Raganwald last post.
Religions would probably prefer to keep followers away from the web and in a
place of worship, where there is more direct idea control; therefore would be
less interested in devoting resources to developing websites. Second, I’d
suggest that the average hacker puts reason before faith, so is less likely to
believe in a supernatural creator.

~~~
paulgb
> Religions would probably prefer to keep followers away from the web and in a
> place of worship, where there is more direct idea control; therefore would
> be less interested in devoting resources to developing websites.

I think this is too cynical a view of religion. Most religious people I've
known value truth as much as any atheist, and would know it if they were the
subject of this sort of idea control. I know there are plenty of
counterexamples, but I think we only see the worst side of religion through
the media.

(fwiw., I'm atheist, and I've read Dawkins, but I don't get the whole
"militant atheist" movement.)

~~~
ericb
I'm not sure _militant_ is the right word--seems like that would be adopting
the nomenclature of the religious. I've never had an atheist knock on my door
and try to convert me. I think the term militant comes out because believers
sometimes find non-belief threatening in and of itself.

Most religions have, built into them, a meme for spreading (evangelizing)
themselves. There is no such meme for atheism to spread itself. The idea is to
put atheism on a more equal footing. Being open about atheism counters
conformity:

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

~~~
paulgb
I called it militant because Dawkins has used that himself
([http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_dawkins_on_milita...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html)),
but it may have been a bit out of context, because he seems to use it with a
bit of irony intended (about 5:30 into the video).

On the second point, I agree that atheism doesn't have the same self-spreading
mechanisms, but most religious people I know don't make any effort to convert
other people either. They see religion as a personal thing, are respectful of
other people's religion or non-religion, and do not try to push their belief
on others.

------
patrickg-zill
In discussing Windows vs. Linux (a different sort of religious issue), you can
call upon a series of verifiable facts to support whichever side of the
argument you are on.

For instance, I could point to Linux's superior X in comparison to the X
provided by Windows.

I cannot make similar arguments in defense of my Christianity however, without
going through a lengthy process of communicating first with the person,
determining what they consider important, reaching mutual agreement on a set
of criteria by which to compare different religions (and atheism) , etc. Only
then, given a hammered-out base to build on, could I then communicate clearly
and succinctly why I believe "X".

Surely you can see that this would be a great amount of effort to expend in a
forum, and probably would be best handled through one on one exchanges rather
than allowing some random user, to whom my comments were not originally
addressed, to jump in at any time.

------
ericb
Nope. Edit: As Dawkins pointed out, most Christians are atheists in regard to
Thor and Zeus. Atheists just go one god farther.

~~~
msg
Most realists believe in only one observable universe. Solipsists just go one
universe farther.

~~~
msg
Most baseball fanatics pull for only one team. People who hate baseball just
go one team farther.

~~~
ericb
Instead, how about: love the believer, not the belief.

------
blader
Yes. About vim and unit testing.

~~~
MoeDrippins
Blast! You stole my thunder - I was going to use the same argument here. But
about emacs instead, you heathen. =)

------
natch
I do not believe in leprechauns. In fact, I actually _do believe_ that there
is NOT a leprechaun dancing around my feet at this very moment.

Note this is different from having "no belief." I also feel this way about
God, because intelligence, which is a kind of organized complexity, does not
just spring into existence without some stage of organization such as
evolution, at least as far as we know. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise,
but it would take more than empty assertions to do so.

So that makes me an atheist. Of course, someone claiming "no belief in God" is
also an atheist, but one of a different flavor. (You know, strong versus weak
atheism).

To agnostics, I have only one question: If you are agnostic about God, are you
also agnostic about the invisible leprechauns dancing around your feet?

------
dan-kruchinin
> Are you religous?

Nope. Religion implies _belief_ in something/somebody. I for myself don't
believe in anything at all. I can only _assume_. And I assume that there is no
any god, life has not any sense and everything in this world can be understood
and scientifically proved. From this point my position is safe, because it
would be incorrectly to ask me prove my assumption just because it's
assumption. Religion/belief, in contrary, is not about "assumption of
anything", rather it's about "assertion of anything". And if someone asserts
anything, he should be ready to prove his proposition if he would be asked(and
of course he couldn't do it).

Such point of view is very much spread among technical/scientific guys. So, I
don't think your hypothesis is right.

------
holdenk
I'm not religious and religion makes me somewhat uncomfortable . This may be
in part since religion is largely considered a private/personal matter in
Canada (or at least Ontario :P).

~~~
noonespecial
I do believe in God and religion makes me somewhat uncomfortable as well! I
find nearly all of it to be a bunch of superstitions that people would like to
believe, both without evidence or logic.

I respect people of every faith, (and no faith) that have developed for
themselves a systematic theology/cosmology that has some modicum of internal
consistency. I have no time to talk to or debate those who can't be bothered
and just go around believing "by faith" whatever they feel like.

------
senthil_rajasek
I haven't given religion much thought (as a coding problem),

But have you looked at sites like,

<http://www.beliefnet.com/>

------
nazgulnarsil
meh, I think religion in this context is merely morality side-taking. morality
is one of the great unsolved dilemma's of our kind, I can see the appeal of
taking a shortcut. I myself have struggled with the balance between objective
and subjective morals. I take an evolutionary psychology approach to why
humans behave how they do, but that doesn't answer what we should do. I think
this question is very relevant to hackers who work on AI. What happens when an
artificial consciousness wakes up and it doesn't do anything because it
doesn't have any idea of what it "should" do? there's axiometry, but in the
absence of perfect information about the future you have to resort to Bayesian
statistical models in order to choose between likely outcomes. I also think
it's pretty clear that a 100% consistent interpretation of any axiomatic rule
would have unintended consequences.
<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/terminal-values.html>

~~~
gscott
> morality is one of the great unsolved dilemma's of our kind

With religion morality is supposed to be the norm. For Christians, Jesus feed
the hungry not because it made Jesus feel good but rather to model "normal
behavior". This goes on with Jesus saving the woman from stoning, the son
coming back to his father and his father forgiving him (for demanding his
inheritance early and blowing it on hookers), and so on.

Morality in the real world (without religion) is an excercise in making
yourself feel good (and feel you are "better then others") without any self-
examination.

~~~
silentbicycle
Not all religious authority rests on any sort of divine command. In buddhism*
, morality is based on the idea that it's immoral to do some things
(primarily: kill, steal, engage in sexual misconduct, lie/slander, and consume
intoxicants that cloud judgement) because they tend to increase the amount of
suffering in the world.

* Which may or may not be considered a religion, depending on how you define things; it's not necessarily theistic, for example.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
this is basically utilitarianism. i.e. this action will benefit me, but will
create a disproportionate amount of suffering for others, thus increasing net
suffering.

------
midnightmonster
You could just say "online applications and communities are pretty poor" and
be mostly right, too.

My wife participates in several online communities associated with our faith.
They're technically a lot like most other such (could be better but quite
adequate), and they cover a range in quality of discussion.

I run an online community of Christian web professionals/volunteers/whatever..
Our website is awful. I inherited it from the previous operators and haven't
had time to redo it. I'll be taking the site in a whole new direction--i.e.,
new applications, not just a prettier face--but it's not there yet. Our
community (which operates mostly via mailing list) is quite pleasant and
mutually helpful.

You'll see competition and innovation most anywhere there's money, which is
why you can find any number of automated website management services directed
at churches (for example). But a lot of religion either is inappropriate to
online expression, has no easy path to monetization, or both.

------
saundby
I'm religious, but I'm seldom willing to discuss it in technical forums
because of the responses it draws. Specifically those who feel it their
mission to, first, tell me what it is I must believe, then, tell me why it's
foolish to believe those things.

There are a lot of folks who feel tech forums are an appropriate place to make
atheistic comments or anti-religious statements, probably because they feel
like they're among a receptive audience. I think this gives an unbalanced
impression of how far the split is to one side or the other. For myself, I
just ignore the statements. It's not about what I'm in a tech forum for. And I
don't consider it any more indicative of where the group mind is than
statements on, say, film preferences.

------
maxwell
Is there anything interesting to say about religion?

~~~
tjr
<http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/things.html>

------
jaxn
I took a fair amount of religion courses in college, but I am not religious
(believe there is no God, etc). However, I do find religion very interesting.

The irony here is that the tech community is extremely "religious" in another
context. Vim or Emacs? Mac or Linux? Java/.NET or Python/Perl/Ruby/PHP? In
that sense there are a ton of religious communities.

~~~
vaksel
Fanboy is probably a better term for that

~~~
jaxn
No, religion is much deeper.

------
robg
The distribution here, if you believe this sample, is more biased to the
heathens! than is the general population:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=237517>

------
Hexayurt
I'm Hindu clergy.

~~~
silentbicycle
This isn't a direct response, but: cool project in your profile.

------
mov
I'm atheist.

------
th0ma5
deeply, but i'll argue against it until i die! err, unless you really wanna
know why deeply.

~~~
ericb
I am too confused to either up or down vote you. Well played, sir, well
played.

------
petercooper
No. I consider the scientific method valid and not something to be taken on
faith.

------
lakeeffect
I have seen this post on here several . The answer, its always the same. I
know Ruby coders who wont go near python.

We all have our own religions, some believe in trees others god, its all the
same, experience.

------
whycombinator
Hell no!

------
xlnt
Few hackers post that they are religious on left-leaning social news sites is
different than few hackers are religious.

~~~
mattmaroon
I would be willing to bet that the average hacker is significantly less
religious than the average American, if any of the terms in that sentence
could be defined and then measured.

~~~
ltbarcly
It is well documented that the level of religious intensity is very
dramatically inversely proportional to education, as well as IQ and income
level.

~~~
xlnt
That's true. I bet YC is much more atheist than the general population. But I
know a religious YC poster who's hesitant to express that kind of idea here; I
also bet YC is a bit more religious than it appears.

~~~
tjr
I think it's also interesting that, up until the past century or so, many
well-educated people were also openly religious. To wit, holding religious
beliefs does not prevent one from doing excellent academic work... religion
does not go hand-in-hand with stupidity or ineptitude.

~~~
crocus
I think you'd have to say "did not" rather than "does not."

200 years ago many well-educated people owned slaves. That doesn't allow us to
conclude much about whether slave ownership and intelligence/education are
intrinsically compatible.

~~~
tjr
I think you'd have to say "does not" rather than "did not."

Don Knuth is Lutheran, and has done some of the most excellent academic work
of anyone alive today. Guy Steele holds Christian beliefs of some sort, and
his work has been extremely influential in the programming world. Just two
examples off the top of my head, but I think enough to keep the verb in the
present tense.

We would be remiss to claim that religious beliefs imply academic stupidity.
We would also be remiss to claim that lack of religious beliefs imply academic
stupidity.

~~~
mattmaroon
Depends on the field. To my knowledge, no religious beliefs conflict with any
work being done in computer science. (Maybe some AI or something.)

On the other hand, certain very commonly held beliefs would totally hinder
work in biology or possibly physics.

------
ajkirwin
I'd say that I am spiritual, in that I have an interest in the enrichment of
the body and the mind, but I am not religious in any way, shape or form.

Infact, I am something of a militant atheist, but I am a very moral person. I
would happily tolerate religions of all types, if only they would tolerate me
and mine. But, as they won't.. then neither shall I.

------
alnayyir
atheist, nihilist. tl;dr. Ponder the second sentence.

