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Poll: What is your religion?
I'm curious, what are Hacker News' religions? If I'm missing something in the list or if something is offensive, please tell me.
(Please vote for one unless more than one fits)
- rikthevik 16y agoNothing for us Deists, I guess. :)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- mgkimsal 16y agoSome time ago I put together a survey on programming languages and religious affiliation. http://www.kimsal.com/reldevsurvey/results.php http://www.kimsal.com/reldevsurvey/results.php and the filtered data is at http://www.kimsal.com/reldevsurvey/filtereddata.txt http://www.kimsal.com/reldevsurvey/filtereddata.txt if anyone would care to pull it down and play with it.
- it0ny 16y agoRoman Catholic, so I voted Christian.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- stretchwithme 16y agoit is and I thought it was clear from the statement
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- semanticist 16y agoMissed Paganism (or 'Paganism/Newage', as I frequently see it, much to my annoyance). Also, I bet there's at least 14 people here who would fill out 'Jedi' on their census form.
- hugh3 16y agoIs Paganism a religion, or a large collection of (now defunct and poorly-understood) religions? What are the ontological claims of paganism? Precisely which supernatural beings does paganism assert the existence of?
- philwelch 16y agoThere's actual paganism, which is gone. If you ever hear someone say "nobody seriously thinks Thor exists anymore", they're talking about paganism. In recent decades, people (for whatever reason) decided to try and restart paganism--if you meet a "pagan" today, they're actually following one of these reconstituted religions. I personally have trouble taking neopaganism seriously, largely because I've never known any serious neopagans, only disaffected suburban teenage girls who wanted some excuse, however flimsy, to be nonconformists. I've known people who took religion seriously, and I've known neopagans, but I've never met anyone in the intersection set. So my perception of neopaganism is quite dismissive.
- semanticist 16y agoIf your only experience of OSS was Richard Stallman, you might dismiss everyone who contributes to open source software as a bearded lunatic. There's a lot of very serious and studious Pagans out there, but they don't tend to be as obviously 'look at me, I'm SPOOKY' as the kids you're talking about. For a trivially easy to find example, consider the Pagan Federation. In Scotland they work with government interfaith groups and are consulted for things like religious diversity training material and non-denominational chapels in hospitals. Most Pagans I know look a lot more like RMS than someone who shops at Hot Topic.
- 16y ago
- frognibble 16y agoPastafarian, so I voted nonreligous.
- chc 16y agoIt's not hard to be atheist or agnostic and a Buddhist. It's fundamentally a very god-optional religion (though some traditions add them back in, like Jodo Shinshu).
- jacoblyles 16y agoStatements about the nature of reality arrived at through a mystical methodology conflict with scientific materialism even if no god is involved.
- chc 16y agoPerhaps so, but neither atheism nor agnosticism is equivalent to scientific materialism.
- jacoblyles 16y agoNo, but I'd be willing to bet that a large portion of the atheists here are atheists because of such a viewpoint.
- philwelch 16y agoPrecisely. I don't care two shits whether God exists or not, frankly--that's not the interesting question. And "scientific materialism" is a bad way to cast it--materialism is a metaphysical system while science is an epistemic system. I'm nonreligious because I don't believe claims without a good argument behind them. Buddhism is a set of claims without any good arguments just the same as Christianity, whether or not those claims are about gods and resurrected demigods or not.
- chc 16y agoI agree that's probably true, but I don't understand your point. I was just observing that Buddhists are likely to also be atheists, since the OP seemed to consider overlap unlikely.
- PostOnce 16y ago
- gojomo 16y agoThe Simulation Argument.
- RK 16y agoI like to call it The Great Grad Student In The Sky scenario.
- csomar 16y agoInteresting question. I have lot of theories regarding religion and I wonder if the HN community is interested discussing them. Just one question now (for Atheists): Why don't you believe in God. Do you have a good reason? Is it because it doesn't interest you? Is it because of a scientific theory that proved to you that God don't exist?
- SamReidHughes 16y agoWhy do you believe you understand what exist means? (Edit: Uh, or why don't you?)
- petervandijck 16y agoQuite simply, there is very, very little reason to believe in any type of "god". Sure, there's stuff we don't know. But trying to explain that away with some type of "god" thing doesn't cut it. I find it quite baffling that anyone can believe in a god, actually. I mean, surely the logical inconsistencies in pretty much all religions must bother you? And moving away from organized religion, why would you believe in a "god"?
- csomar 16y agoQuite simply, there is very, very little reason to believe in any type of "god". Sure, there's stuff we don't know. But trying to explain that away with some type of "god" thing doesn't cut it. Quite good. We have a brain, we should analyze things and not only accept them as they are. I find it quite baffling that anyone can believe in a god, actually. I mean, surely the logical inconsistencies in pretty much all religions must bother you? A very good reason. The inconsistencies in religions are huge and spawn lot of doubts.
- petervandijck 16y agops: at some point this discussion will mention the difference between Europeans and US Americans :) The importance of "god" in US culture is quite astounding, really.
- 16y ago
- xaei 16y agoI'd be interested in the breakdown between non/atheist/agnostic, as there are significant differences e.g. level, intensity, or existence of belief structures.
- jk 16y agoI am a Quaker. I voted other.
- cookiecaper 16y agoWhy did you vote "other"? Quakers are Christian, aren't they? All traditions called "Quaker" with which I am familiar are Christian.
- joe-mccann 16y agoSecular Humanist, so I filed under non/agnon/etc. http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=what§ion=main http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=what§i... My opinion is that the argument FOR the existence of God is just as philosophically bankrupt to argue AGAINST the existence of God. Best answer: I don't know. Secular humanism covers the majority of my values without ascribing to any dogmatism. I have a feeling a lot more people are actually secular humanist, but may not know it.
- philwelch 16y agoSecular humanism feels too much like a brand name for a set of ideologies I may or may not fully agree with. I don't really need anyone else to come up with a brand name for my ideology, especially since it changes every week or so when I meditate for two hours and do my Bayesian updates. (Joke).
- timschwartz 16y agoApatheist
- Gormo 16y agoSame. An option always overlooked in these polls; apparently most people are more concerned about what's "true" than what's important.
- cema 16y agoHow is it different from "agnostic"?
- klodolph 16y agoAgnostic is, "I don't know whether god exists." Apatheistic starts with, "I don't care whether god exists." But it often continues from there, and apatheists can also include as their beliefs "Questions of theology should not motivate morality." Some apatheists are strongly atheistic and not agnostic, saying "God doesn't exist, but this fact is irrelevant to human affairs." I find apatheist theists not inconceivable, "God exists but who cares?" Kind of like when you ask, "How many feet are there in a mile?" and I say, "The answer to your question is irrelevant because you should switch to metric. It is wrong to use imperial units for any purpose. And there are 5,280 feet in a mile." I can honestly say that I don't care how many feet there are in a mile, and yet I know the correct number.
- cema 16y agoFrankly, to me this is like, instead of answering a question, a person starts moralizing. Right? In other words, the difference is not so much philosophic as it is pragmatic? There are atheists and there are militant atheists. I guess what you described sounds to me as a definition of militant agnosticism. Have I missed something important?
- cema 16y agoLooks like I have asked an unpopular question.
- fizx 16y agoWhere's the vim option?
- cmelbye 16y agoI considered it, but then I would have to add Emacs, and then I'd have to add Lisp, and it would've just gotten messy. ;-)
- mixmax 16y agoWhere's the Cowboy Neil option?
- zephyrfalcon 16y agoWrong website :-)
- younata 16y agofalls under paganism with emacs.
- augustl 16y agoWhenever I (atheist) meet religious people and start nerd raging, I remind myself of the following: The world makes equally amounts of sense for a religious person as it does to an atheist. It's easy to dismiss religion when you're an atheist, because science makes so much sense that it is a perfectly adequate explanation of the world around us (in the sense that it acknowledges that proving things are difficult). But for a religious person, religion makes just as much sense and adequately explains the world around them. I think the two should be viewed as poles that have nothing in common and are complete opposites. And both should acknowledge that either may or may not be correct.
- anthonyb 16y agoWe have very different ideas of 'adequate' then. For example, I'll take modern medicine over faith healing any day.
- kylemathews 16y agoThat's a false dichotomy for the vast majority of religious people. There are very few people that believe exclusively in faith healing and don't accept modern medicine.
- anthonyb 16y agoFaith healing was just an example. You can substitute pretty much any "because God said so" explanation. I think the reason that the world makes sense for most people is because they have their adequacy levels set too high - they're too used to 'hand wavy' explanations and not having to actually think through things for themselves.
- kylemathews 16y agoI think that was augustl's point. Most atheist understand just as little about science as most religious people understand about God. And is there any difference really between a "because God said so" explanation and a "because the Doctor said so" explanation? To follow either, you must rely on faith in the goodness and wisdom of the instruction given as you don't fully understand the reasoning behind it. To the religious and science-skeptic alike, the explanations used by the other camp sounds "hand wavy". But Truth is Truth and both religion and science, if practiced well, will guide the earnest seeker along.
- coryl 16y agoI think I'm willing to entertain the idea of God on a philosophical level, but not on a practical day to day life level.
- philwelch 16y agoHow could you? The idea of God by itself is just a weird metaphysical claim like "maybe we're all actually in the Matrix"--okay, I fully admit that possibility, but there's nothing I can do about it, by itself. Which is why theistic religions don't stop with God. They say things like, "God exists, and he says don't eat pork. Seriously. DON'T EAT PORK." That's actionable.
- protomyth 16y agoTo be fair about the Biblical food and health mentions, it was more a health guide for the ancient world than anything else. Deuteronomy 23:9-14 are about cleanliness and Leviticus 11 covers the food.
- philwelch 16y agoYes, but the whole God thing is just to motivate people not to eat pork. Apparently, people are more willing to do what they're told if you claim the instructions are of supernatural origin.
- techiferous 16y agoI find it strange to separate philosophy from practicality. If your philosophy does not have practical implications, you're doing it wrong.
- coryl 16y agoI'm also not a pagan nor a Christian, but I celebrate their Christmas holiday.
- techiferous 16y ago
- jbm 16y agoIt seems disingenuous to mix Agnosicism with Atheism. Both are utterly different - one makes a knowledge claim (atheism) while the other is in a position of neutrality or indifference (agnosticism)
- philwelch 16y agoAtheism and agnosticism are orthogonal: 1. If you believe in a god but don't claim to have knowledge, you are a theist agnostic. (This is not that silly. Many people believe things they do not claim to know. For instance, you can believe that P != NP while acknowledging the question as unproven and unknown.) 2. If you don't believe in a god but don't claim to have knowledge, you are an atheist agnostic. 3. If you claim to know, not just believe, that a god exists, you're a theist (but not an agnostic). 4. If you claim to know there are no gods, you're an atheist (but not an agnostic).
- alanh 16y agoFor strict definitions of these words, you are right. In practice I find the following equivalent list of terms more common: 1. Deism 2. Atheism 3. Theism 4. Strong atheism
- philwelch 16y agoDuring the Enlightenment, which was the heyday of deism, philosophical proofs of God's existence were still taken seriously by most deists. So they weren't agnostic at all--they claimed to know, based upon reason, that God existed. A perfectly consistent Enlightenment-era viewpoint. However, since they only go as far as "God exists" and never get to the more exotic beliefs, namely the beliefs which always were and always will be taken on faith (God had a human son, who was also God, died, and was resurrected; God chose a Middle Eastern ethnic group for a special purpose; God revealed prophecies to certain people; God is from outer space) they weren't religious.
- klodolph 16y ago5. If you claim that the question, "does a god exist?" cannot be meaningfully answered due to flaws in the nature of the question, then you are a theological noncognitivist. 6. If you claim that the question, "does a god exist?" cannot be answered before defining "god", then you are an ignosticist. An ignosticist who claims that "god" cannot be defined is therefore also claiming that "does a god exist?" can never be answered. 7. If you claim that the question, "does a god exist?" is not worth answering, then you are apatheistic. 8. Alternatively, if you choose to assume that the answer to the question, "does a god exist?" is "no", but do not consider it worth the effort to attempt to answer the question conclusively, then you are apatheistic. 9. If you claim that the question, "does a god exist?" cannot be answered because the question cannot be correctly communicated due to differences in the definition of "god" and/or "exist" between the idiolects of the persons attempting to communicate the question to each other, then you are a philosophy major. 9b. If (9) above applies but you manage to work the word "qualia" into the discussion, then you are a philosophy major and I'm changing the subject.
- SandB0x 16y agoHmm, mostly agnostic eh? Looks like a startup could shake things up here. Let's bootstrap a new religion! http://god.ly http://god.ly has a nice ring to it.
- danicgross 16y agomix it up with some virtual currency and you're ready to rock the IPO
- petervandijck 16y agook I clicked that link. http://god.ly http://god.ly
- mortenjorck 16y agoAha, here's why it hasn't been squatted: Strings shorter than four symbols long are to be registered directly under .ly ONLY through Libya Telecom and Technology in the upcoming period to guarantee that registrants have Local presence. http://www.nic.ly/lyregistrars.php http://www.nic.ly/lyregistrars.php
- hugh3 16y agoLuckily God is omnipresent, so that shouldn't be an issue.
- axod 16y agolanguages, frameworks, etc are the religions around here. Do you believe in node.js? jquery? git?
- rdl 16y agoI do not see Python listed here, I believe you should update your poll. :)
- zephyrfalcon 16y agoMissed Taoism here... =(
- rbanffy 16y agoPastafari
- detcader 16y agoI recognize the fact that the theory of the existence of a deity or deities is logically, scientifically, factually, demonstrably, historically, and obviously devoid of any creditability. So yea, nonreligious. Allow me to plug a speech by Douglas Adams before any discussion attempts to ensure: http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/ http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/ also, 3 scientologists? gosh.
- AngryParsley 16y agoI voted scientologist because I can't resist giving silly answers to polls. A couple others probably behaved similarly.
- bg4 16y agoJedi
- niekmaas 16y agoI'm missing the Chuck Norris option. To me he is still the answer to everything.
- Rhapso 16y agoUnitarian Universalist
- thegyppo 16y agoJedi
- Gormo 16y agoIt's fairly common for people to respond to this sort of question by saying something along the lines of "I disapprove of organized religion, but have spiritual faith." My own view is exactly the opposite. I see the value in the ritual, community, and psychological "anchor" that organized religion can provide. But spiritual faith seems absurd; why mix your emotional security and your sense of identity up with a bunch of conceptual abstractions, or delude yourself into thinking that the subjective and particular is really objective and universal? I respect religion, per se, and hold no grudge against religions that use theology and mythology as part of their symbolic repertoire. So when I say "I do not believe in God", I'm not so much rejecting God as rejecting belief. Whether or not God exists objectively isn't really something I think about or care about answering.
- MikeCapone 16y ago> Whether or not God exists objectively isn't really something I think about or care about answering. I think that you could fairly be described as an agnostic, then.
- Gormo 16y agoApathetist is a better description. An agnostic says he doesn't know the answer; I'm saying the question is meaningless.
- MikeCapone 16y agoTo elaborate a little, would you say it's "meaningless" to you personally, or in general? Just curious.
- Gormo 16y agoI don't see how the concept of meaning can be discussed in general terms at all. It seems to inhere in the relationship between a person and the ideas he considers. I've certainly encountered other people who behave and speak in ways that indicate that they attribute a great deal of meaning to this question (often ironically because they insist on asserting an empirical basis for their faith), so I would not presume to speak for them. (BTW, note that I'm being pedantic in this thread in order to discuss this topic with a high degree of precision. I'm not trying to create a semantics rathole, honest. But oftentimes clarifying the semantics is necessary to have a productive conversation.)
- cema 16y agoI am an atheistic Jew. A Jew can be defined as a member of the religion or as a member of the ethnic group; this often causes confusion.
- calcnerd256 16y agoEspecially when someone claims to be a member of an ethnic group because their parents were of the corresponding religion.
- cema 16y agoYes. I think there is also a confusion about what is an ethnic group (breed versus culture).
- dmpayton 16y agoCan we have an "It's complicated" option?
- novon 16y agoI prefer to live life with the cup half full, if you remove the "doubt" in your mind, there is a peaceful underlying unity that can be sensed. Doesn't benefit anyone to make it more complex than that.
- lionhearted 16y agoHey, the three people who voted Shinto - care to share what your practice is like? I was always interested to have a chat with someone who practices modern Shinto...
- po 16y agoI didn't vote and I wouldn't identify myself as Shinto, but I did get married in a shinto shrine here in Tokyo. I typically describe shintoism as similar to native american religions and/or paganism. People here in Japan seem to practice shintoism more as a set of cultures and customs than what a westerner would describe as a religion. There is a belief in good and bad fortune which can be altered by prayer to various spirits. The shrine sells lots of trinkets to help improve your luck in various aspects of your life. It reminds me a bit of Catholics who keep a St. Christopher trinket in their car for safe travels. At the shrine where I got married, it was discovered that there was a "power spot" on a path behind the shrine: a little puddle of water from a nearby spring. People would line up to take a turn standing in front of it and say a prayer. We visit our local shrine on holidays, mostly because it is fun and peaceful. Sometimes there are festivals with good food, drink and music. People here will celebrate and visit a church, a temple (buddhist), or a shrine (shinto) without really seeing that there might be inconsistency. Christian weddings are very popular these days because the girls like to dress up in the princess-like "costume". I was recently told that you often don't know what religion someone is until they die: because then it comes down to what part of the cemetery do they put your ashes in.
- MikeCapone 16y agoInteresting that at the moment "Nonreligious/Atheist/Agnostic/etc" has more votes than all the others combined.
- ilamont 16y agoWait 'til the "Christian News" discussion forum finds out about the poll, and sends their members over en masse to vote. On a serious note, I think many people who believe in science/technology, and/or practice its many disciplines, are more likely to logically consider questions/claims relating to religion in the same way they evaluate other aspects of society. In the absence of observable evidence, many will be undecided about the existence of God, or will conclude that there is no god, and choose "Nonreligious/Atheist/Agnostic" to describe their own beliefs.
- MikeCapone 16y agoAgreed. As Dawkins says, we are all atheists about most of the gods that were ever claimed to exist (Zeus, Apollo, Thor, Vishnu, etc). Some of us just go one god further.
- hakl 16y agoEmacsian. I don't believe in God, so atheist is technically correct, but probably misleading.
- zephjc 16y agoTaoist (in the classical sense) so I voted Atheist
- PostOnce 16y agoI am not an adherent of any organized religion, but this question is puzzling: Where did stuff come from? There are two possibilities, either 1] it was put there, or 2] it was just there to begin with. God is an easy solution, but then where did he come from? Same problem. Maybe there are other possibilities that our brains just aren't able to process at this stage in our evolution. Anyway, before anyone says "the big bang", isn't that the explanation of how stuff got where it is, rather than how it came to be to begin with? It started with a singularity, where'd that come from?
- tensor 16y agoThat is a classic philosophical question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_movens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_movens
- rokhayakebe 16y agoMaybe there are other possibilities that our brains just aren't able to process at this stage in our evolution. Voila. You nailed it.
- bad_user 16y agoThis can be turned around ... maybe our brains aren't able to process the existence of God.
- PostOnce 16y agoI think this was about the ability to understand a fundamental concept. The fundamental concept of a god can be easily grasped by small children. There is a powerful being. He controls physical laws. How hard is that?
- bad_user 16y agoIt is hard to sustain such understanding ... all children believe at some point in Santa Claus, but that's only because they receive gifts (or fear punishment in the case of God) and they believe in general whatever the parents tell them to. Einstein's theory wasn't believed by the public until it was proven. So yes ... if God exists, our primary senses cannot perceive Him, and although I have reasons to believe He exists, all of them are subjective, but as our species evolves we may actually be able to.
- memetichazard 16y agoMy belief in God is at the same level as my belief in a multiverse of which we are just one universe amongst infinite. - It would be great if this were true (Yay afterlife/alternate worlds!) - No one can provide any convincing evidence for existence. - It is impossible to prove nonexistence. - The truth of this matter has absolutely no influence on my life. i.e. focus on other things should take priority before focus on this, although it is always fun to read about and debate existence.
- rokhayakebe 16y ago- It would be great if this were true (Yay afterlife/alternate worlds!) Must there be a God for there to be an afterlife?
- memetichazard 16y agoMy thoughts are that religion and God is about, or at least originates from a desire for, the afterlife. Hence, deathbed conversions, the focus on heaven, hell, and eternal damnation. Thus God -> Afterlife, and the converse is not really focused on.
- bad_user 16y agoI fluctuate constantly between being an agnostic and being a believer in God. Truth of the matter is, when misfortune/tragedy strikes (like the loved ones having health problems) it really helps to believe in God. My wife just gave birth to a premature child. He's a boy and he's in very good health, but he was born at 30 weeks (now he's at 32). Her water broke at 27 weeks. We were on the cutting-edge with this pregnancy ever since the start ... she had 2 embryonic bags (most likely twins) and lost one, causing her an ugly hemorrhage and a detachment of the other bag. This detachment was nullified by the child growing, and her water breaking was totally unrelated to that (urinary infection). After the water broke, the child stayed in her for another 3 weeks, because at 27 weeks children are not viable. This was a dangerous and highly unlikely outcome ... when water breaks most women go into labor immediately. And if not ... it is dangerous because the amniotic fluid was mostly gone and both mother and child could have suffered (even death) from a uterus infection. And I could say that this was just our luck or that we had some kind of a divine intervention ... I prefer the later, and I would probably go mad if it was the former. I also noticed another thing ... I have several friends that are now doctors, and I also made lots of friends in the hospital since my wife was hospitalized. People working in health-care have an easier time believing in God than in any other profession I know. Probably because they witness highly unlikely events a lot (miracles do happen).
- samratjp 16y agoMine is python, so I selected other.
- quan 16y agoHere's the visualization of the current poll snapshot (as of 11:47pm EST): http://hackerpolls.heroku.com/polls/44 http://hackerpolls.heroku.com/polls/44 Disclosure: I created this awhile ago and almost forgot about it until I saw this poll
- 10ren 16y agooblig. Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. Fred Brooks, p. 184 The Mythical Man-Month 2nd ed. It's interesting to me that several people I greatly admire in comp sci/technology are religious: Fred Brooks, Knuth, Larry Wall and Clayton Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma). To me, one aspect of the idea of God is as a workable label for all the things I don't know (especially those questions I know not of; the doors I have not suspected exist; the things my philosophy does not dream of; the unknown unknowns). Also helps me to seek questions (define problems) even if I can't imagine knowing the answer (finding solutions). It helps me to just let it be. Another aspect is political: human beings, like other apes, tend to organize around a dominant male (and even chickens have a pecking order). When groups grew in size due to agriculture and civilization, this scaled to super-dominant males - gods embodied in persons (I'm thinking ancient Egypt). This was dangerous. The next innovation was to transfer that "super-dominance" to a person who doesn't actually exist. This is safer, and of course this imaginary personage can embody all those ideas an actual human can only move towards but never attain. Although wars were still fought in the name of a God, there was a separation. That's a theory of mine anyway. Feel free to poke holes, build it up, tear it down (esp with evidence).
- sjwright 16y agoThat's all fine as long as you don't make the leap from "my imaginary friend is useful" to "my imaginary friend is real". I would however assert an unnecessary semantic overloading -- why use a word (God) that has so many assumptions built into it? Invent a new word, and confuse fewer people.
- bad_user 16y ago> That's all fine as long as you don't make the leap from "my imaginary friend is useful" to "my imaginary friend is real". You seem to assume that the later is a bad outcome. Also you can't really have a useful "imaginary friend" if don't believe he's real, or do you? > why use a word (God) that has so many assumptions built into it? Invent a new word, and confuse fewer people. Because God is word with a clearly defined semantic and definition ... the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe All unanswered questions about the Universe or God start with the most important question ... considering the law of Action-Reaction, how did it all started? Which has the nice property that has the answer to all unanswered questions. And if you're going to answer that with "some superior, omnipotent being (whose existence we can't comprehend) did it all", then it's philosophy 101 ... there can't be two unsurpassable beings each of which is God So why have another word with a watered-down meaning for it?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- etherael 16y agoNo, I think it's absurd to have a religion linked into ethnicity and I find the whole jewish is it a religion or is it an ethnicity question very confusing. I'd love a conclusive answer but as far as I can tell there doesn't appear to really be one.
- tome 16y agoJewishness is a combination of religious, ethnic, and cultural factors. There's a lot of typically "Jewish" thought, for example, that is not religious.
- klipt 16y agoThere are several ethnicities (Ashkenazim, Sephardim, etc.) which are historically Jewish, just as there are several ethnicities (Irish, Hispanic, etc.) which are historically Catholic. When someone says they are ethnically Jewish it generally means they belong to one of those ethnicities, and grew up with the associated foods, festivals and other cultural influences.
- etherael 16y agoSure, but Spanish and Irish atheists don't refer to themselves as atheistic catholics, whereas I have heard jewish friends of mine refer to themselves as atheistic jews.
- klipt 16y agoBut the term atheist Jew is just a proxy for atheist Ashkenazi or atheist Sephardi. Which is no different from atheist Irishman or atheist Spaniard.
- known 16y ago"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain
- drlisp 16y ago"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
- bfung 16y agoSweet, I'm vote #666 for Nonreligious/Atheist/Agnostic/etc ...
- drlisp 16y agoYou forgot deism. No way this is covered by "Other"
- mkramlich 16y agoI believe in Google what is that, Googleism?
- SandeepE 16y agoI was born Buddhist, later wondered into many religious believes, such as Christianity, Satanism, Paganism, Wicca. Yes I have tried them all and realized the to me Buddhism makes more sense. It helps me look for the answers right within me. The questions arise within one's self, and answers shall too. At least that is what I believe in. It gives me the answers to questions that interest me. But I do not mean by any means that it can give answers to all your questions or it is the right religion to you. It simply is mine.
- djacobs 16y agoI haven't read every last comment yet, but this is the most civil discussion on religion I've ever seen online. Congrats, HN. I think you've passed the test for excellence.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- emilsedgh 16y agoAtheist
- ntoll 16y agoI practice Zen, but since there is no concept of God or other supernatural "magic" I can also accurately describe myself as an atheist although this might be better categorized as "it's complicated".
- cookiecaper 16y agoI am Mormon. I voted Christian. I run a (desolate) Mormonism-related reddit clone at zionlist.com.
- peropaal 16y agoApple
- _polos_ 16y agoWrong question. The real one would be "what is your faith?", because all of us need to believe in something (that is, nobody is auto-sufficient, we all depend on many many things outside of us, we base our existence on a long history etc.). And (very important), if you ask "what is your faith/belief?", nobody can escape the question saying "not relevant".
- tome 16y agoInteresting point. I'd like to see that poll. I'd also like to see a poll "What sort of atheist/agnostic are you?". I'm sure there are lots of interesting different sorts of thinking to be discussed along the same lines as we've seen here.
- ErrantX 16y agobecause all of us need to believe in something Numerous studies have shown that this is not correct. You are right in the sense that it is impossible to live life as a pure empiricist - at some point you have to take some things on trust, and probably on faith. But a deity faith is not required. :)
- Gormo 16y agoIt's impossible to be a pure empiricist because you must translate your experience of reality into a conceptual representation in order to think about it at all. Perhaps you can be purely empiricist if you have no conscious awareness. But if you are conscious, you can approximate empiricism by maintaining awareness of the distinction between reality and your understanding of it.
- maushu 16y agoHaruhism, the belief that our fates are at the hands of a insane Japanese school girl that has no idea she's god. What can I say? I thought Atheism was just boring.
- joubert 16y agoPythagorean
- moxiemk1 16y agoI grew up attending the Methodist Church (which up in Vermont didn't used to be quite the holy-rollers that they are in the South), and for a time in my youth was very religious. I attended a Catholic school for middle school, and convinced myself that I would become Catholic one day. I expected that upon going off to college and being able to decide my own life that I'd covert quite soon. Instead, I became a mathematician in more ways than just study, and began trying to generalize and abstract everything in my life. The oft-observed similarities of religions at their roots, but divergence at the "dos and don'ts" level gave rise to this conclusion: In my being (indeed, in all beings, I should think) there is a place, a little box often marked "faith". There are a very large number of things you can put there, but the _important_ things that come out of it are always the same: be good to others, be good to yourself, be happy. Everything else attached to religions only serves to cloud those ideas. Though I could thus put anything into that box, it will always have the same result, and so for the moment, I leave it empty, and draw on the same lessons. It's like there is an abstract class definition for faith, and I'm using a _very_ trivial implementation based on constants, because it's quite a bit faster and more efficient than the other options out there.
- sjs382 16y agoI wish you would have split up "Nonreligious/Atheist/Agnostic/etc" because I'm non-religious but not an atheist or agnostic. Rather, I'm just completely uninterested.
- pbhjpbhj 16y agoDisinterest is termed "apathetic agnosticism" - although this term is also used for those who choose not to address such issues. Moreover you'll find that fanatical atheists will count you as an atheist - cf the Wikipedia article on this term.
- EzGraphs 16y agoBarchart of poll results: http://www.r-chart.com/2010/07/hacker-news-religion-poll.html http://www.r-chart.com/2010/07/hacker-news-religion-poll.htm...
- ido 16y agoIt's interesting to see how many people voted for non-religious and "miscellaneous" religions (for lack of a better word). Perhaps people who grew up in a household loosely practicing a major religion are less likely to see their religion as part of their cultural heritage and therefor more likely to leave it?
- mgh2 16y agoI am not religious but I do believe that religion has its reasons. Most of the problems in this world are caused because people do actions without a proper purpose. If everyone can stop and ask themselves the simple question 'why?' for every action they do, and if the answer is because of money, fame, sex, or anything selfish or 'sinful' according to religion, then it is not a valid cause. You entrepreneurs in Hacker News, of most people, should know that the concept of entrepreneurship lies in the desire to solve a problem and change the world for a better place. Do you believe that everything you do ultimately leads to have a higher purpose other than yourself? Most people are lost without purpose and they need some moral values, call it religion, family values, beliefs, etc, to follow. Only some people are lucky enough to know what their purpose in this world (I do believe everyone has one) early enough in their lives, and it is those people whom we follow, whom inspires us. Religion's purpose might be for those people who are lost, to find meaning in their lives so they can contribute, in their own way, for the better of the society. Thank you.
- foxtrot 16y agoOther: Unitarian Universalist