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Actually I'm heartened to see people defending religion on HN. Tithing to a church you truly belong to is probably a better use of your money, even purely by pe

by jl2718 4y ago

Actually I'm heartened to see people defending religion on HN. Tithing to a church you truly belong to is probably a better use of your money, even purely by personal benefit, than tithing Wall Street. I hope that I've introduced some of those ideas in the text by making a negative comparison to the church. But yes; it was sloppy and possibly interpreted as disparaging of religious practice itself, so for that I apologize. Meta: this is what I like about Hacker News. I get challenged to maintain disciplined thinking, often at the boundaries of the argument where I casually drift.

jen20 4y ago
I didn’t see it as a defense of religion (it did not express an opinion) - more as a correction of your post.
- jannyfer 4y ago
  Agreed, the reply makes me more sure that the comment suffers from non-expertise and that we should remember the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.
sytelus 4y ago
You might be even more heartened to know that one of the top most and highly respected computer scientist, Donald Knuth, is ardently religious. The contrast between his works that is extraordinarily precisely well reasoned after decades of thinking and his complete submission to ancient religion where logical reasoning is not all that welcome, is absolutely a thing to behold. It makes me marvel at complexity and perhaps still evolving nature of our brains that can even do this. I used to be very interested in personalities who you would absolutely consider highly intellectual and utterly rational but at the same time extremely religious. My observation was that these people had developed some sort of switch in their brain which suddenly turns on and off depending on subject matter. One very common trait was also that all of these high IQ people were exposed into religious practices since very early age with a lot of non-negotiable enforcement from otherwise very loving parents. It seemed to me that part of their growing brain had just carved out area which was basically off limits to questioning ancient religious practices. Human brain is fascinating thing.
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  > ancient religion where logical reasoning is not all that welcome If something gives you purpose and makes you happy isn't the most rational thing to do to follow that thing, even if the thing itself isn't logical?
  - sytelus 4y ago
    Yes, I myself have done a lot of things that have no logical reasoning but gave life a purpose, or at least it seemed to. That was my “religion”. I really cannot say I am opposed anyone else’s religion. The big issue is that many religious people want everyone else to follow their religion and any refusal or reluctance means target on your back. This is why religions get bad name and produce negative impact on society, for example attempts to squash scientific progress in medieval dark times or formulating laws based on one religion to a force on to everyone else or forcing religious education on all children and actively preventing them from learning scientific concepts like evolution etc. Not everyone does this and in fact most religious people I know are very private about that aspect of their lives.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  The simpler explanation would be that spirituality is not as mutually exclusive with logic and reason as one might have been led to believe.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  Is it really all that surprising? I’m a fairly spiritual person, and work with logic and reasoning every day. I like to think about this kind of stuff for fun and one of my answers to this is that if you like fiction, you are able to suspend disbelief at will (whether aware of it or not). I think faith requires disbelief and trust to work. Without disbelief, you will question, and without trust, you’ll undermine.
  - sytelus 4y ago
    Spirituality is not same as ardently following very specific religious practices. I believe everyone is spiritual in some way. I also don’t think we suspend disbelief when reading/watching work of fiction. We accept that to be fake but we are curious about what-if scenarios and it’s merely learning and/or entertain. This is not same as reading religious texts were you do not accept it to be fake and questioning is feared for.

by jl2718 4y ago

jen20 4y ago

I didn’t see it as a defense of religion (it did not express an opinion) - more as a correction of your post.

jannyfer 4y ago
Agreed, the reply makes me more sure that the comment suffers from non-expertise and that we should remember the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.

sytelus 4y ago

You might be even more heartened to know that one of the top most and highly respected computer scientist, Donald Knuth, is ardently religious. The contrast between his works that is extraordinarily precisely well reasoned after decades of thinking and his complete submission to ancient religion where logical reasoning is not all that welcome, is absolutely a thing to behold. It makes me marvel at complexity and perhaps still evolving nature of our brains that can even do this. I used to be very interested in personalities who you would absolutely consider highly intellectual and utterly rational but at the same time extremely religious. My observation was that these people had developed some sort of switch in their brain which suddenly turns on and off depending on subject matter. One very common trait was also that all of these high IQ people were exposed into religious practices since very early age with a lot of non-negotiable enforcement from otherwise very loving parents. It seemed to me that part of their growing brain had just carved out area which was basically off limits to questioning ancient religious practices. Human brain is fascinating thing.

shepherdjerred 4y ago
> ancient religion where logical reasoning is not all that welcome If something gives you purpose and makes you happy isn't the most rational thing to do to follow that thing, even if the thing itself isn't logical?
- sytelus 4y ago
  Yes, I myself have done a lot of things that have no logical reasoning but gave life a purpose, or at least it seemed to. That was my “religion”. I really cannot say I am opposed anyone else’s religion. The big issue is that many religious people want everyone else to follow their religion and any refusal or reluctance means target on your back. This is why religions get bad name and produce negative impact on society, for example attempts to squash scientific progress in medieval dark times or formulating laws based on one religion to a force on to everyone else or forcing religious education on all children and actively preventing them from learning scientific concepts like evolution etc. Not everyone does this and in fact most religious people I know are very private about that aspect of their lives.
yellowapple 4y ago
The simpler explanation would be that spirituality is not as mutually exclusive with logic and reason as one might have been led to believe.
withinboredom 4y ago
Is it really all that surprising? I’m a fairly spiritual person, and work with logic and reasoning every day. I like to think about this kind of stuff for fun and one of my answers to this is that if you like fiction, you are able to suspend disbelief at will (whether aware of it or not). I think faith requires disbelief and trust to work. Without disbelief, you will question, and without trust, you’ll undermine.
- sytelus 4y ago
  Spirituality is not same as ardently following very specific religious practices. I believe everyone is spiritual in some way. I also don’t think we suspend disbelief when reading/watching work of fiction. We accept that to be fake but we are curious about what-if scenarios and it’s merely learning and/or entertain. This is not same as reading religious texts were you do not accept it to be fake and questioning is feared for.