3 ms·

> Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? As a religious person, I find keeping religion out of normal discourse has been very counterproductive for both relig

> Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? As a religious person, I find keeping religion out of normal discourse has been very counterproductive for both religious and non-religious people. I understand that the discussions are more prone to conflict and uncomfortable feelings, but they're nonetheless key to understanding other people and diversity of thought. Keeping religion (and agnosticism and atheism) out of things produces the same problems we see with the 'Majority Illusion'.

reitanqild 10y ago
Point is <edit>I felt</edit> GP used his post as a platform to launch a covert attack on religion in an otherwise unrelated thread. I have nothing against discussing religion online but I think it is mostly offtopic on HN. Edit: see also my reply to GPs answer to me
- humanrebar 10y ago
  For what it's worth, I got the same impression. But I would consider it a problem if HN, which generally welcomes broad topics including philosophy and politics, considered religion off topic. Religion is the defining trait to many minority groups in the U.S. and the rest of the English speaking world. Asking people to keep religion out of things is asking people to stay in the closet in some contexts. I understand that's surely not intended, but it's nonetheless the consequence of making religion off topic.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    I actually personally agree but I thought there was a rule, written or unwritten, to keep religion out of HN. Would it be better if I said something like "keep attacks on religion out of HN"?
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      Something along those lines, sure. I'm actually fine with people civilly criticizing religion, though. It's the stereotyping that really sticks out to me. It would be flagged or downvoted (justifiably!) if someone called women irrational or told homosexuals that their lifestyles should be kept private. I'm convinced that the double standard here just doesn't register for most of the HN community, and almost all the English speaking world besides. I said something to raise awareness of the problem.
      - nitrogen 10y ago
        It's the stereotyping that really sticks out to me. It would be flagged or downvoted (justifiably!) if someone called women irrational or told homosexuals that their lifestyles should be kept private. I think the difference here is that in one case one would be inferring a belief system from membership in a non-belief-related group, while the other would be inferring a belief system from membership in a belief system. I don't think it's a double standard to treat those things differently (though there are corners of HN that get wildly out of control in either of the aforementioned cases).
        humanrebar 10y ago
        I don't follow you. Neither calling people groups irrational nor encouraging them to live closeted lifestyles is 'inferring a belief system'.
        nitrogen 10y ago
        I meant that calling a gender irrational is different from calling a belief system irrational, regardless of whether either claim is true.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      One problem with rules like this is that they inadvertently create a bias in what is considered an "attack", which leads to religious claims standing uncontested because any disagreement is viewed as an attack. Eventually it becomes okay to preach belief, but not okay to advocate for reasoned disbelief. This is related to a current problem in the US left, where tolerance of belief has to compete with intolerance of abuse, and sadly, belief often wins at the expense of the abused.
      - reitanqild 10y ago
        Then again, this is a general problem, not only when discussing religion but also when discussing racism, feminism etc: everything is an attack according to someone. For context: did you read the comment that started this thread? I and others originally read it as a fairly broad patronising attack against all religions before the author came back and explained the intention. (and I still think it could have been written a lot clearer to begin with. )
        nitrogen 10y ago
        I have read all of the thread, though not in order, and while from a religious perspective (as a former extremely devout believer) I can see how describing religion as irrational would feel like an attack, from a conversational perspective it can be incredibly frustrating to have to couch every example in softening language to avoid offending someone, and can thus see why the original comment was not so couched. So back to the point of creating tools for productive discussion, is there some solution to the problem that will allow us to communicate ideas without the offense and without the verbosity?
        humanrebar 10y ago
        > is there some solution to the problem that will allow us to communicate ideas without the offense and without the verbosity? I'm not sure we can get there in one HN thread, but consciously addressing linguistic gaps would be worthwhile. When particular words have enough overloaded meaning to cause confusion and conflict, we need to find new words. For the record, I'm for healthy (respectful) dissent. A lack of dissent is poisonous for all parties. But outgrouping is also poisonous.
DSingularity 10y ago
Agreed. I think we need more meta* courses. Courses on how we think, agree, disagree, discuss, learn, unlearn. If we understand ourselves more maybe then it wouldn't be so difficult to bring people who are in diametric opposition together for fruitful conversation.
hueving 10y ago
The arguments get very tiresome quickly. There are a million other places online to beat the same dead horse of 'what is evidence, etc'. Keep it out of HN.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  Equally tiresome political issues are on here all the time. There are also fairly regular (and equally redundant) back-and-forths about programming languages.
  - steve-howard 10y ago
    At the very least, the political issues and programming language fads have changed in the last few centuries.
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      As have particular religious movements, but most people don't know about that because they are considered off topic in the news, at work, and in polite company.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  And yet this entire subthread is about a proposal to create a social network "designed from the ground up to be a public square for civic discussion between people who disagree" that has "mechanisms to agree on facts, and tools to create arguments supported by those facts". Isn't HN supposed to be a place for civil discussion between people who disagree? If you write off arguments you disagree with as "tiresome" and "beating a dead horse", especially on something as basic as "what is evidence", then you're providing a strong negative counterpoint to the original proposal - do people even want a place where people can agree on facts and then disagree on the results of interpretations of those facts? Or do they want, as you seem to want, to retreat into their comfortable social network of people who all agree on the same unwritten body of pseudo-facts?

reitanqild 10y ago

Point is <edit>I felt</edit> GP used his post as a platform to launch a covert attack on religion in an otherwise unrelated thread. I have nothing against discussing religion online but I think it is mostly offtopic on HN. Edit: see also my reply to GPs answer to me

humanrebar 10y ago
For what it's worth, I got the same impression. But I would consider it a problem if HN, which generally welcomes broad topics including philosophy and politics, considered religion off topic. Religion is the defining trait to many minority groups in the U.S. and the rest of the English speaking world. Asking people to keep religion out of things is asking people to stay in the closet in some contexts. I understand that's surely not intended, but it's nonetheless the consequence of making religion off topic.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  I actually personally agree but I thought there was a rule, written or unwritten, to keep religion out of HN. Would it be better if I said something like "keep attacks on religion out of HN"?
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    Something along those lines, sure. I'm actually fine with people civilly criticizing religion, though. It's the stereotyping that really sticks out to me. It would be flagged or downvoted (justifiably!) if someone called women irrational or told homosexuals that their lifestyles should be kept private. I'm convinced that the double standard here just doesn't register for most of the HN community, and almost all the English speaking world besides. I said something to raise awareness of the problem.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      It's the stereotyping that really sticks out to me. It would be flagged or downvoted (justifiably!) if someone called women irrational or told homosexuals that their lifestyles should be kept private. I think the difference here is that in one case one would be inferring a belief system from membership in a non-belief-related group, while the other would be inferring a belief system from membership in a belief system. I don't think it's a double standard to treat those things differently (though there are corners of HN that get wildly out of control in either of the aforementioned cases).
      - humanrebar 10y ago
        I don't follow you. Neither calling people groups irrational nor encouraging them to live closeted lifestyles is 'inferring a belief system'.
        nitrogen 10y ago
        I meant that calling a gender irrational is different from calling a belief system irrational, regardless of whether either claim is true.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    One problem with rules like this is that they inadvertently create a bias in what is considered an "attack", which leads to religious claims standing uncontested because any disagreement is viewed as an attack. Eventually it becomes okay to preach belief, but not okay to advocate for reasoned disbelief. This is related to a current problem in the US left, where tolerance of belief has to compete with intolerance of abuse, and sadly, belief often wins at the expense of the abused.
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      Then again, this is a general problem, not only when discussing religion but also when discussing racism, feminism etc: everything is an attack according to someone. For context: did you read the comment that started this thread? I and others originally read it as a fairly broad patronising attack against all religions before the author came back and explained the intention. (and I still think it could have been written a lot clearer to begin with. )
      - nitrogen 10y ago
        I have read all of the thread, though not in order, and while from a religious perspective (as a former extremely devout believer) I can see how describing religion as irrational would feel like an attack, from a conversational perspective it can be incredibly frustrating to have to couch every example in softening language to avoid offending someone, and can thus see why the original comment was not so couched. So back to the point of creating tools for productive discussion, is there some solution to the problem that will allow us to communicate ideas without the offense and without the verbosity?
        humanrebar 10y ago
        > is there some solution to the problem that will allow us to communicate ideas without the offense and without the verbosity? I'm not sure we can get there in one HN thread, but consciously addressing linguistic gaps would be worthwhile. When particular words have enough overloaded meaning to cause confusion and conflict, we need to find new words. For the record, I'm for healthy (respectful) dissent. A lack of dissent is poisonous for all parties. But outgrouping is also poisonous.

DSingularity 10y ago

Agreed. I think we need more meta* courses. Courses on how we think, agree, disagree, discuss, learn, unlearn. If we understand ourselves more maybe then it wouldn't be so difficult to bring people who are in diametric opposition together for fruitful conversation.

hueving 10y ago

The arguments get very tiresome quickly. There are a million other places online to beat the same dead horse of 'what is evidence, etc'. Keep it out of HN.

humanrebar 10y ago
Equally tiresome political issues are on here all the time. There are also fairly regular (and equally redundant) back-and-forths about programming languages.
- steve-howard 10y ago
  At the very least, the political issues and programming language fads have changed in the last few centuries.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    As have particular religious movements, but most people don't know about that because they are considered off topic in the news, at work, and in polite company.
sievebrain 10y ago
And yet this entire subthread is about a proposal to create a social network "designed from the ground up to be a public square for civic discussion between people who disagree" that has "mechanisms to agree on facts, and tools to create arguments supported by those facts". Isn't HN supposed to be a place for civil discussion between people who disagree? If you write off arguments you disagree with as "tiresome" and "beating a dead horse", especially on something as basic as "what is evidence", then you're providing a strong negative counterpoint to the original proposal - do people even want a place where people can agree on facts and then disagree on the results of interpretations of those facts? Or do they want, as you seem to want, to retreat into their comfortable social network of people who all agree on the same unwritten body of pseudo-facts?