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I was extremely interested in the _why situation when I first started my professional career (and started learning Ruby), which was shortly after he left. Maybe

I was extremely interested in the _why situation when I first started my professional career (and started learning Ruby), which was shortly after he left. Maybe once a year I would search online if there was any news on him, and when there was that strange thing with his website having a brief printer feed, I looked into it more deeply than in retrospect seems reasonable. And I think I finally get why this all was. I think we all liked _why and his whimsy and his disappearance for the same reason we liked Willie Wonka and Mary Poppins as children. Because they had an air of mystery about them, because they were serious yet whimsical, lighthearted yet deeply profound, creative and imaginative while still being practical. My interest in his situation, and those movie characters, and similar real people or fictional characters, went down to zero after I finally learned that those things were guiding me to Jesus all along. He has all these qualities and more, and gives meaning to our everyday life. I know that religion is frowned upon here as being for the delusional and uneducated (ironically), and that what I'm saying will be taken as the cliche saying of a born-again Bible-thumper rather than as any kind of profound philosophical statement. But so many of you have such philosophical minds, and they go to such waste finding fancier ways to convert bytes into other bytes, because when it comes to daily lives, you think of yourselves as scientists and not philosophers. I understand the frustration St. Paul had as he stood on Mars Hill unable to reach the hearts of the learned and educated elite of his time. I understand why he went afterwards to Corinth resolving not to use words of eloquence or plausible earthly wisdom to proclaim what he had personally witnessed, but rather "to know nothing but Christ and Him Crucified."

dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads on religious tangents. It won't work, just as it hasn't worked in the past, and it became a significant problem at one point.
- sdegutis 7y ago
  "Won't work" implies that I have some sort of goal of trying to convince anyone of religious truths, which I don't. I also don't think it was a tangent to say that _why appeals to a religious desire within us. It's philosophical but on topic. But maybe it was a tangent to lament the constant stream of missed opportunities for genuinely profound discussions on HN.
  - dang 7y ago
    HN isn't capable of genuinely profound discussions about religion. Probably no large, public internet community is. "Won't work" isn't saying anything about your goals, only about the subthreads such comments lead to.
    - sdegutis 7y ago
      I suppose you're right. Even the intellectual elite becomes irrational in the face of discussions over religion. Which explains why they replace it with discussions over politics, whereby they can at least exercise their agnosticism through amiable acceptance of their disagreements.
icebraining 7y ago
> what I'm saying will be taken as the cliche saying (...) rather than as any kind of profound philosophical statement The two are not incompatible; in fact, those that combine both are the quintessential clichés. In any case, I can't agree with your characterisation of the general opinion on religion by HN users. Yes, that contingent is certainly overrepresented compared to the overall population, but I feel like there's a majority that has at least respect for the cultural institution, even if we don't wish to participate. (Curiously, this might actually increase as the population becomes less religious, since the negative uses of religious teachings will also decrease proportionally.) But frankly, what your post seems to indicate is that you lost the ability to share the joy of the mysteries of _why with the rest of us. I am sorry for your loss, even if you aren't.
- sdegutis 7y ago
  > but I feel like there's a majority that has at least respect for the cultural institution, even if we don't wish to participate. Most of the anti-religious sentiment is expressed by invisible downvotes and flags, so people don't generally see how great it is here. > (Curiously, this might actually increase as the population becomes less religious, since the negative uses of religious teachings will also decrease proportionally.) I'm not convinced. People will be even less educated on what our religion teaches, so there'll just be more general confusion. As Fulton Sheen once put it, there aren't 100 people in the whole USA who hate the Catholic Church, but a great many who hate what they believe the Catholic Church to be. Misconception and misrepresentation will only increase over time. > But frankly, what your post seems to indicate is that you lost the ability to share the joy of the mysteries of _why with the rest of us. I am sorry for your loss, even if you aren't. That's just the thing. The mysteries of _why were not actual mysteries, they're illusional, for lack of a better word. Whereas the mysteries of Jesus are very real and quite satisfying, intellectually and on every other level.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    > Most of the anti-religious sentiment is expressed by invisible downvotes and flags, so people don't generally see how great it is here. Downvotes and flags aren't invisible, they're shown by comments becoming grey and [dead], respectively (the latter can only be seen by people who have that option enabled, which I do). The points also influence the ordering in a thread, and I often see posts respectful of religion at the top. What I also see are people seeing their own posts downvoted and deciding it must be due to a particular reason, which I often disagree with. > I'm not convinced. People will be even less educated on what our religion teaches, so there'll just be more general confusion. As Fulton Sheen once put it, there aren't 100 people in the whole USA who hate the Catholic Church, but a great many who hate what they believe the Catholic Church to be. Misconception and misrepresentation will only increase over time. People don't hate what they don't know; how many people today hate the Manicheans? People hate what they feel as threatening. The Catholic Church increasingly doesn't, in my opinion. > The mysteries of _why were not actual mysteries, they're illusional, for lack of a better word. Not everyone shares the fetish of the authentic. Of course they're an illusion.

dang 7y ago

Please don't take HN threads on religious tangents. It won't work, just as it hasn't worked in the past, and it became a significant problem at one point.

sdegutis 7y ago
"Won't work" implies that I have some sort of goal of trying to convince anyone of religious truths, which I don't. I also don't think it was a tangent to say that _why appeals to a religious desire within us. It's philosophical but on topic. But maybe it was a tangent to lament the constant stream of missed opportunities for genuinely profound discussions on HN.
- dang 7y ago
  HN isn't capable of genuinely profound discussions about religion. Probably no large, public internet community is. "Won't work" isn't saying anything about your goals, only about the subthreads such comments lead to.
  - sdegutis 7y ago
    I suppose you're right. Even the intellectual elite becomes irrational in the face of discussions over religion. Which explains why they replace it with discussions over politics, whereby they can at least exercise their agnosticism through amiable acceptance of their disagreements.

icebraining 7y ago

> what I'm saying will be taken as the cliche saying (...) rather than as any kind of profound philosophical statement The two are not incompatible; in fact, those that combine both are the quintessential clichés. In any case, I can't agree with your characterisation of the general opinion on religion by HN users. Yes, that contingent is certainly overrepresented compared to the overall population, but I feel like there's a majority that has at least respect for the cultural institution, even if we don't wish to participate. (Curiously, this might actually increase as the population becomes less religious, since the negative uses of religious teachings will also decrease proportionally.) But frankly, what your post seems to indicate is that you lost the ability to share the joy of the mysteries of _why with the rest of us. I am sorry for your loss, even if you aren't.

sdegutis 7y ago
> but I feel like there's a majority that has at least respect for the cultural institution, even if we don't wish to participate. Most of the anti-religious sentiment is expressed by invisible downvotes and flags, so people don't generally see how great it is here. > (Curiously, this might actually increase as the population becomes less religious, since the negative uses of religious teachings will also decrease proportionally.) I'm not convinced. People will be even less educated on what our religion teaches, so there'll just be more general confusion. As Fulton Sheen once put it, there aren't 100 people in the whole USA who hate the Catholic Church, but a great many who hate what they believe the Catholic Church to be. Misconception and misrepresentation will only increase over time. > But frankly, what your post seems to indicate is that you lost the ability to share the joy of the mysteries of _why with the rest of us. I am sorry for your loss, even if you aren't. That's just the thing. The mysteries of _why were not actual mysteries, they're illusional, for lack of a better word. Whereas the mysteries of Jesus are very real and quite satisfying, intellectually and on every other level.
- icebraining 7y ago
  > Most of the anti-religious sentiment is expressed by invisible downvotes and flags, so people don't generally see how great it is here. Downvotes and flags aren't invisible, they're shown by comments becoming grey and [dead], respectively (the latter can only be seen by people who have that option enabled, which I do). The points also influence the ordering in a thread, and I often see posts respectful of religion at the top. What I also see are people seeing their own posts downvoted and deciding it must be due to a particular reason, which I often disagree with. > I'm not convinced. People will be even less educated on what our religion teaches, so there'll just be more general confusion. As Fulton Sheen once put it, there aren't 100 people in the whole USA who hate the Catholic Church, but a great many who hate what they believe the Catholic Church to be. Misconception and misrepresentation will only increase over time. People don't hate what they don't know; how many people today hate the Manicheans? People hate what they feel as threatening. The Catholic Church increasingly doesn't, in my opinion. > The mysteries of _why were not actual mysteries, they're illusional, for lack of a better word. Not everyone shares the fetish of the authentic. Of course they're an illusion.