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You are at a meeting with colleagues, one colleague suddenly starts to insist that Santa Claus is real. Do you take them seriously? Sure it’s freedom of speech

You are at a meeting with colleagues, one colleague suddenly starts to insist that Santa Claus is real. Do you take them seriously? Sure it’s freedom of speech but there will be some kind of drop in respect. I mean I get that you believe that one book trumps all of human science because you were raised that way but when you grow up your critical thinking skills should kick in. If they don’t, it’s very difficult to keep taking an adult that believes in all kinds of unprovable stuff serious, because where does that end? When is weird weird enough to be allowed to be publicly rejected every time it’s brought up, according to you?

jjeaff 4y ago
It's likely that a minority of Christians take everything in the Bible literally and believe that it trumps science. I think you are being a bit disengenuous.
- klodolph 4y ago
  I don’t think you have justification for calling the argument “disingenuous”. Seems like accusations of people being disingenuous is the go-to accusation on HN and I’m tired of it.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    Well, if it's not disingenuous, then the commenter is very much out of touch with reality. Pick your poison.
    - klodolph 4y ago
      I can’t follow your line of reasoning here. Seems like you’re saying that the comment is so absurd and fantastical that the author is either “out of touch with reality” or the author doesn’t believe it themselves… but I don’t know what line of reasoning you used to come to that conclusion. The conclusion is definitely not obvious to me.
kaba0 4y ago
That's such a bad take, and I'm not even religious. This is the utmost lack of respect for another person that we should strive to stray very very far away from. Also, if you would know anything at all about religion (from context, I assume you mean Christianity), they don't believe that one book trumps all of human science at all -- taking the text literally is a relatively modern take done by very few branches of it, but Catholics were responsible for several huge discoveries in science and science is absolutely in line with the religion (the current Pope has a background in chemistry). The usual direction of religious dogmas is not based directly on the Bible, but on its "interpretation" by the Church, which is evolving.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  > Catholics were responsible for several huge discoveries in science and science is absolutely in line with the religion This comes off as hugely apologetic. I’m not sure whether Copernicus would agree with the sentiment.
  - HuwFulcher 4y ago
    Copernicus’ theory of heliocentricity was taught in several Catholic universities until growing Protestant opposition made them stop. The worst the Catholic Church could be accused of is submitting to popular opinion, not being anti-intellectual.
    - eurasiantiger 4y ago
      That is not true: Catholic opposition made them stop. Catholics were also the first and most vocal to criticize heliocentricism of its heretical nature.
      - HuwFulcher 4y ago
        Some Catholic theologians criticised but the church did not denounce the theory for some time
zaphirplane 4y ago
What a strawman argument and moderately offensive metaphor
HuwFulcher 4y ago
Your equation of Santa Claus with God reveals your prejudice and stereotyping of religious people. As another commenter has said, many great scientific discoveries over history have been made by Christians. It would be wrong of me to deny that there is an anti-intellectual strain in Christianity but it is not the dominant trend that American media would like to espouse. Whether you think Christianity is sensible or not, if someone has made it to Google then they must possess at least some level of intelligence. To change your perspective on that based on previously unknown information about that person highlights a prejudice.
- anonymous_sorry 4y ago
  > As another commenter has said, many great scientific discoveries over history have been made by Christians. Given that Christianity was the social norm in Europe and many European colonies for centuries, this statement is nearly equivalent to saying that many great scientific discoveries were made by Europeans. It's true, but only slightly interesting.
  - HuwFulcher 4y ago
    That’s a valid point, I think what should be considered though is the interest that the Catholic Church had in encouraging scientific study
    - wruza 4y ago
      Or controlling it exclusively. Because if you look at the religion as a crowd control institution, that comes pretty naturally. Why fight education if you can just patronize it.
  - OrderlyTiamat 4y ago
    I respectfully disagree, given that the topic is antiscientific thinking within christianity. The fact that many contributions were made by that group is evidence regardless of the size of the group. If this is not intuitive, consider the hypothetical world where no serious scientific contributions were made by christian europeans at all: would we then be free to dismiss that fact as uninteresting as well?
ken47 4y ago
Can you prove the Big Bang occurred? If so, can you prove that nothing preceded a Big Bang? If you are as rational as you arrogantly imply, then the obvious answers to these are no. Are you equally appalled when you come across average people talking about these theories as if they are facts? I wonder.
- eps 4y ago
  Big Bang is the best available explanation of observed facts. This doesn't mean it's the right one, but other explanations are inferior. Especially those provided by religions.
  - ken47 4y ago
    The superiority to which you refer is questionable. If the goal of these explanations is to prove the origin of the universe in some kind of mathematical sense, they all fail. They all belong to the same category. The inferior tier is one where an explanation can be proven false with the limited tools of the 2022 version of humanity. Perhaps some religions' explanations fall into this category, but not all.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > Big Bang is the best available explanation of observed facts. Best available is not proof. The sun rotating around the Earth was also the best explanation for a long time in Human history. Traditional physics theory was the best until we started to observe things at the atomic level. Certitudes in Science don't age well, and should teach humility more than absurd dogma.
    - wruza 4y ago
      Is your last sentence applicable to religion?
      - ken47 4y ago
        I think it applies to humanity as a whole. There's a certain obsession with a false sense of control.
paganel 4y ago
Comparing one’s religious beliefs with believing in the existence of Santa Clause misses the point completely and it validates what the author of the article is saying, i.e. that contempt for religion and, in the end, religious discrimination, is widespread in tech circles. (if it matters I’m an atheist myself)
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  In one sense I see why it's insulting, but isn't Santa Claus basically a benevolent god?
  - djkivi 4y ago
    Not when he gives a lump of coal to the bad kids.
- orwin 4y ago
  Contempt for all religion is only pushing christian values further. Polytheistic religions incorporated every new Gods, as they all could very well exist. Then a new religion appeared and decided only one god existed and other gods did not. Athon and his clergy then died with the pharaoh pushing him, but around the same time, a new religion appeared in the middle east, led by a certain Moses(weirdly, an Egyptian name given to those destined to a clerical life)(probably an Athon priest imho, but i could be wrong). Lot of stuff happens, it appears that divine right+monotheism is better than polytheism for population control (reason why and how Islamic faith spread amongst the ruling class of adjacent countries). Contempt for all religions but the one from the book, and contempt for all religions are not really different. I just decided that .1% is a rounding error when deciding gods existence. I do respect polytheism more.
  - azth 4y ago
    Monotheism existed before polytheism. The fact that monotheism "is better than polytheism for population control" is a completely orthogonal topic to the truth of the monotheistic claim. This in fact, is a logical fallacy called the genetic fallacy. Your last statement is also a genetic fallacy.
leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
- hugozmith 4y ago
swat535 4y ago
> Santa Claus is real. I'm going on a tangent here but I will make a bold statement: I think one unfortunate side effect of the sciences, is the acceleration of the demise of other domains of humans knowledge, specifically philosophy. After all, why bother reading the works of Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther or Dietrich Bonhoeffer and compare their arguments against the likes of Nietzsche, Kant and Jean Paul Sartre when we know about Evolution ? Those old ancient texts and discussions are silly and passe.. It is clear that these poor uneducated people were busy arguing over the existence of Santa Clause. The 21st century has regrettably produced some of the most illiterate minds in _this_ area. We have incredibly bright people who can build complex systems, think logically and excel at sciences, yet they fail at expanding their minds slightly above the materialistic universe; This is where arts, philosophy and theology reside. We call it the realm of transcendence. The side effect of such phenomena is that bleeds into today's thought process and prevents nuanced discussions regarding any topic (whether it's equality, religion, freedom, justice,..). We have completely forgotten how to form coherent arguments and this thread itself is a great example; The basis of modern discussions boils down to: I can shout the loudest, therefore I am right. The lack of humility is rampant, especially on social media and everything is black and white. I don't care if you are an Atheist, a Theist, an Agnostic or a Marxist, but if you have the urge to start a discussion with "You think Santa Clause is real", I plead you to think twice before posting it and go read any pages of Francis Shaffer or Soren Kierkeggard and then come here and assert that these people had completely surrendered all thought and reason.

jjeaff 4y ago

It's likely that a minority of Christians take everything in the Bible literally and believe that it trumps science. I think you are being a bit disengenuous.

klodolph 4y ago
I don’t think you have justification for calling the argument “disingenuous”. Seems like accusations of people being disingenuous is the go-to accusation on HN and I’m tired of it.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  Well, if it's not disingenuous, then the commenter is very much out of touch with reality. Pick your poison.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    I can’t follow your line of reasoning here. Seems like you’re saying that the comment is so absurd and fantastical that the author is either “out of touch with reality” or the author doesn’t believe it themselves… but I don’t know what line of reasoning you used to come to that conclusion. The conclusion is definitely not obvious to me.

kaba0 4y ago

That's such a bad take, and I'm not even religious. This is the utmost lack of respect for another person that we should strive to stray very very far away from. Also, if you would know anything at all about religion (from context, I assume you mean Christianity), they don't believe that one book trumps all of human science at all -- taking the text literally is a relatively modern take done by very few branches of it, but Catholics were responsible for several huge discoveries in science and science is absolutely in line with the religion (the current Pope has a background in chemistry). The usual direction of religious dogmas is not based directly on the Bible, but on its "interpretation" by the Church, which is evolving.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
eurasiantiger 4y ago
> Catholics were responsible for several huge discoveries in science and science is absolutely in line with the religion This comes off as hugely apologetic. I’m not sure whether Copernicus would agree with the sentiment.
- HuwFulcher 4y ago
  Copernicus’ theory of heliocentricity was taught in several Catholic universities until growing Protestant opposition made them stop. The worst the Catholic Church could be accused of is submitting to popular opinion, not being anti-intellectual.
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    That is not true: Catholic opposition made them stop. Catholics were also the first and most vocal to criticize heliocentricism of its heretical nature.
    - HuwFulcher 4y ago
      Some Catholic theologians criticised but the church did not denounce the theory for some time

zaphirplane 4y ago

What a strawman argument and moderately offensive metaphor

HuwFulcher 4y ago

Your equation of Santa Claus with God reveals your prejudice and stereotyping of religious people. As another commenter has said, many great scientific discoveries over history have been made by Christians. It would be wrong of me to deny that there is an anti-intellectual strain in Christianity but it is not the dominant trend that American media would like to espouse. Whether you think Christianity is sensible or not, if someone has made it to Google then they must possess at least some level of intelligence. To change your perspective on that based on previously unknown information about that person highlights a prejudice.

anonymous_sorry 4y ago
> As another commenter has said, many great scientific discoveries over history have been made by Christians. Given that Christianity was the social norm in Europe and many European colonies for centuries, this statement is nearly equivalent to saying that many great scientific discoveries were made by Europeans. It's true, but only slightly interesting.
- HuwFulcher 4y ago
  That’s a valid point, I think what should be considered though is the interest that the Catholic Church had in encouraging scientific study
  - wruza 4y ago
    Or controlling it exclusively. Because if you look at the religion as a crowd control institution, that comes pretty naturally. Why fight education if you can just patronize it.
- OrderlyTiamat 4y ago
  I respectfully disagree, given that the topic is antiscientific thinking within christianity. The fact that many contributions were made by that group is evidence regardless of the size of the group. If this is not intuitive, consider the hypothetical world where no serious scientific contributions were made by christian europeans at all: would we then be free to dismiss that fact as uninteresting as well?

ken47 4y ago

Can you prove the Big Bang occurred? If so, can you prove that nothing preceded a Big Bang? If you are as rational as you arrogantly imply, then the obvious answers to these are no. Are you equally appalled when you come across average people talking about these theories as if they are facts? I wonder.

eps 4y ago
Big Bang is the best available explanation of observed facts. This doesn't mean it's the right one, but other explanations are inferior. Especially those provided by religions.
- ken47 4y ago
  The superiority to which you refer is questionable. If the goal of these explanations is to prove the origin of the universe in some kind of mathematical sense, they all fail. They all belong to the same category. The inferior tier is one where an explanation can be proven false with the limited tools of the 2022 version of humanity. Perhaps some religions' explanations fall into this category, but not all.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > Big Bang is the best available explanation of observed facts. Best available is not proof. The sun rotating around the Earth was also the best explanation for a long time in Human history. Traditional physics theory was the best until we started to observe things at the atomic level. Certitudes in Science don't age well, and should teach humility more than absurd dogma.
  - wruza 4y ago
    Is your last sentence applicable to religion?
    - ken47 4y ago
      I think it applies to humanity as a whole. There's a certain obsession with a false sense of control.

paganel 4y ago

Comparing one’s religious beliefs with believing in the existence of Santa Clause misses the point completely and it validates what the author of the article is saying, i.e. that contempt for religion and, in the end, religious discrimination, is widespread in tech circles. (if it matters I’m an atheist myself)

hotpotamus 4y ago
In one sense I see why it's insulting, but isn't Santa Claus basically a benevolent god?
- djkivi 4y ago
  Not when he gives a lump of coal to the bad kids.
orwin 4y ago
Contempt for all religion is only pushing christian values further. Polytheistic religions incorporated every new Gods, as they all could very well exist. Then a new religion appeared and decided only one god existed and other gods did not. Athon and his clergy then died with the pharaoh pushing him, but around the same time, a new religion appeared in the middle east, led by a certain Moses(weirdly, an Egyptian name given to those destined to a clerical life)(probably an Athon priest imho, but i could be wrong). Lot of stuff happens, it appears that divine right+monotheism is better than polytheism for population control (reason why and how Islamic faith spread amongst the ruling class of adjacent countries). Contempt for all religions but the one from the book, and contempt for all religions are not really different. I just decided that .1% is a rounding error when deciding gods existence. I do respect polytheism more.
- azth 4y ago
  Monotheism existed before polytheism. The fact that monotheism "is better than polytheism for population control" is a completely orthogonal topic to the truth of the monotheistic claim. This in fact, is a logical fallacy called the genetic fallacy. Your last statement is also a genetic fallacy.

leeroyjenkins11 4y ago

hugozmith 4y ago

swat535 4y ago

> Santa Claus is real. I'm going on a tangent here but I will make a bold statement: I think one unfortunate side effect of the sciences, is the acceleration of the demise of other domains of humans knowledge, specifically philosophy. After all, why bother reading the works of Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther or Dietrich Bonhoeffer and compare their arguments against the likes of Nietzsche, Kant and Jean Paul Sartre when we know about Evolution ? Those old ancient texts and discussions are silly and passe.. It is clear that these poor uneducated people were busy arguing over the existence of Santa Clause. The 21st century has regrettably produced some of the most illiterate minds in _this_ area. We have incredibly bright people who can build complex systems, think logically and excel at sciences, yet they fail at expanding their minds slightly above the materialistic universe; This is where arts, philosophy and theology reside. We call it the realm of transcendence. The side effect of such phenomena is that bleeds into today's thought process and prevents nuanced discussions regarding any topic (whether it's equality, religion, freedom, justice,..). We have completely forgotten how to form coherent arguments and this thread itself is a great example; The basis of modern discussions boils down to: I can shout the loudest, therefore I am right. The lack of humility is rampant, especially on social media and everything is black and white. I don't care if you are an Atheist, a Theist, an Agnostic or a Marxist, but if you have the urge to start a discussion with "You think Santa Clause is real", I plead you to think twice before posting it and go read any pages of Francis Shaffer or Soren Kierkeggard and then come here and assert that these people had completely surrendered all thought and reason.