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I know a surprising number of creationists in urban Seattle. They hide in plain sight because everyone simply assumes they don't exist, and the people that are

• aidenn0 3y ago
  > ... almost no one ever publicly admits to owning one. Does having an NRA sticker on your pickup's bumper count? I see those all the time.
  • bitwize 3y ago
    I've seen more of those since living in the southeastern USA, than I ever did in the northeastern USA... despite having lived in Connecticut where gun laws were, until recently, fairly lax for a blue state and there were quite a few stealth gun nuts.
  • retrac 3y ago
    I do see what the parent poster meant. Here in Canada, about 1 in 4 households have a firearm. It's over 10% even in large cities like Toronto. Statistically speaking, it seems likely several households in my condominium have firearms. Not quite at American ownership rates, but firearm ownership is far from scarce in Canada. You wouldn't get impression though; most owners are very discreet about it. That same sort of vibe seems to exist in parts of the USA, too.
    • throwaway2037 3y ago
      Thank you to share. This is a valuable post. Do you think people who own guns who live in non-rural areas do so for (a) personal protection, (b) hunting, or (c) sport shooting? I'm not a hunter myself, but (b) and (c) seem pretty reasonable anywhere that you live. However, I never understand the (a) crowd. For the record, Finland also has very high gun ownership.
      • SpicyLemonZest 3y ago
        (a) is common. I don't know that there's anything particularly complex to understand about it - to people who are interested, owning a gun for personal protection is just like owning a stash of food and water for disaster preparedness.
      • Modified3019 3y ago
        I live in America, and work in agriculture as an agronomist, but live in a very “left leaning” Oregon city. In rural areas my impression is it a mix of A, B and C in different ratios per person. In urban areas, it seems primarily A, especially for women. Here pistols are favored, because they are discreet and Supreme hasn’t released an AR-15. Yet. You probably wouldn’t suspect for example my ethnically ambiguous gym coach and his hispanic girlfriend to be packing, but they are very enthusiastic about having the capability of defending themselves from strife. Police after all cannot be relied upon to do anything other than start paperwork about the the mess a criminal or group rioters/looters leave. Consider the sentiments of survivors of Hurricane Katrina are likely to hold. My impression is there are also periodic mass renewals of interest whenever we elect a new president, or some massive thing like covid or a depression occurs. Obama was often called “gun salesman of the year” in regards to conservatives, and Trump did a bigly job convincing many liberals that the whole “perhaps I need a gun because government” sentiment most commonly associated with rural/conservative areas wasn’t so outrageous after all. Now, for all the posturing and larping of some blowhards, there are vanishingly few who actually think having a civil war would be a grand time. But it doesn’t hurt to be ready, just in case. Especially with the worlds most powerful military involved. That said, the future of effective defense against governments will be drones, with the classic “heroic personal stand” being far less desirable for obvious reasons. I myself don’t hunt, but I occasionally shoot for recreation. An AR-15 is basically an engine you can easily modify, playing around with weights, springs, muzzle devices and ammo to achieve silly low recoil. I also for some reason just love troubleshooting firearms. This is a great video about how things function, and how the use of gauging can be used to help find tolerance issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv6a1hs9U5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv6a1hs9U5o And of course then there’s the whole making holes close together from far away aspect as well. Really tickles my nerdy white guy autism (at least once I got a suppressor, because funny enough I don’t like loud sounds lmao). I didn’t really understand “car guys” who were always fucking with their car until I realized I was doing the same thing. I tend to mostly carry when I’m up doing agronomy in the foothills, because bear, mountain lions, methheads, deer and dogs (the last two are what I’m most likely to be attacked by). I also have bear spray, and a knife, allowing me to actually deter something not already deterred by my ATV engine, and to react to an ambush attack by a mountain lion (in the event I manage to not immediately have my neck snapped). Now, an actual incident is very unlikely and I certainly don’t operate under some kind of omnipresent terror or anything. After an initial scan of an area I basically go about my day completely preoccupied with other things. But if a motherfucker wants to take me down, they better do it right the first time because I am prepared and willing to drag them down to hell with me. Fortunately though we don’t have moose here. Those are “I can’t even make you regret it” scary, unless you want to carry a repeating large caliber rifle.
• zdragnar 3y ago
  Hell, two jobs ago I wouldn't even admit to being religious, let alone creationist. Most places aren't like that, fortunately.
• mistermann 3y ago
  > There are many polite fictions like this in society. Which is deliciously ironic considering how much non-theists enjoy mocking theists "for their 'irrational' thinking".
  • orwin 3y ago
    I don't think most atheist care, really. Most atheist are agnostics who decided they will not arbiter if one religion is more right than other, at least that's my case and most atheist I've discussed with. I like rites (catholic funeral and Muslim marriage would be my perfect combo) and I enjoy talking spirituality and belief systems with people who believe in one more god than I do. I think Shintoism led to the most interesting discussions in general, but Jehovah's witnesses are the most consistent ones (also I always take so much of their time and they're too polite to tell me to stuff it, I always feel bad after).
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      I don't think Jehovah's witnesses get to claim consistency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses#History_of_eschatology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology_of_Jehovah%27s_Wit... In fact, consistency is their major weak point.
• User23 3y ago
  The overwhelming majority of human beings both now and throughout history are creationists. Heck, it's such a popular idea that techies have reinvented it by saying we live in a simulation, which obviously implies one or more creators.
  • akprasad 3y ago
    I've almost always heard "creationism" used in a much narrower sense: > The term creationism most often refers to belief in special creation; the claim that the universe and lifeforms were created as they exist today by divine action, and that the only true explanations are those which are compatible with a Christian fundamentalist literal interpretation of the creation myth found in the Bible's Genesis creation narrative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism
    • TheFreim 3y ago
      It's going to depend on who you are around. Among Catholics, for example, its very common to explicitly distinguish between Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and Old Earth Creationism (OEC) since both positions are considered permissible theological opinions. I try to never use "creationism" unqualified since all Christians and many/most (all?) other religious groups are going to believe in some view about the creation of the universe by some entity or being, the specific way in which that happened will be disputed but ultimately "creation" is universal in that regard.
      • Ekaros 3y ago
        Isn't whole creationism rather judeo-christian viewpoint? So basically 3 of the major religions. Others are quite far from that.
        • KptMarchewa 3y ago
          Not since John Paul 2.
        • 3y ago
• valbaca 3y ago
  The gun owner example isn't a great one. one of the first rules of gun ownership is to never tell anyone. It's a valuable and deadly asset which gains value from people NOT knowing that you have it.
  • lolinder 3y ago
    I'm not sure why that makes it a bad example. That's a specific reason why people would avoid bringing it up, but it still means that it's not a prominent affectation that would come up in everyday conversation.
    • themacguffinman 3y ago
      It's a bad example because this specific reason doesn't generalize to other political beliefs like creationism which is what the others in the thread are talking about.
    • watwut 3y ago
      A normal person has as much reason to admit they own a gun as they have a reason to admit they own a mixer. As in, unless you discuss specific topics, it is completely irrelevant. The difference is that if you go out of your way to tell you have mixer, you are weirdo. If you go out of your way to tell you have a gun, then you are someone who brags about having gun unnecessary, which means weirdo too, but in different way.
  • stevenicr 3y ago
    I do think the gun owner is a good example for the given situation it's referring to. I'm not sure 'never tell anyone' is a first rule, although I do agree that in many situations one could gain more value from other not knowing you have it. There are some situations in which sharing possession of such a tool and the knowledge of using one could be beneficial. Although most of the time, in most situations one would gain advantage in having defensive ability without broadcasting it to the world, and as the parent comment eluded to, one often gets by / through social interactions just fine, and due to some group's disdain for such, often gets by better, without advertising such. imho.
• Fatnino 3y ago
  I recently discovered one of my neighbors in Palo Alto walks around with a handgun on him all the time.
• bespokedevelopr 3y ago
  Also living and working in urban Seattle. There’s churches all over the city. It seems odd that people can drive by them all the time in their neighborhood but assume most people in the city are not theists. For quite a while during my tech years i was one of those people. I assumed most people in the city didn’t believe in that stuff. But it’s so obvious that is a huge group despite the association on a national level of theists being republicans and Seattle not having many republicans. In the city it’s a lot of gun owning, liberal or at least not-republican, theists. To hit on the gun topic, I’ve discovered so so many people that carry in their vehicles, which as a gun owner I find disturbing. Many more who own but don’t carry. Almost none of the people I’m aware of have stickers or advertise their gun ownership. I now work at a hospital and it’s made me realize how popular religion is here. So many people working here are some flavor of religious. It really was just a tech thing to assume religion is not followed regularly in the city or amongst coworkers. I wonder if it’s just the heavy antisocial aspect of tech workers to assume everyone around them comes in the same flavor as themselves.
• Aerbil313 3y ago
  Just for the record, there's a fundamentalist Muslim supporter of child marriage and Islamic Jihad (not US-backed-IS version) self-taught software developer who is interested in I2P network, Raku and Theseus OS right here on HN. He is me. Society is indeed a lot more diverse than 'mainstream' or 'normal' people assume.
• fmajid 3y ago
  Even in San Francisco Trump got over 30% votes. Republicans know better than to publicly voice their affiliation, however, as the career repercussions can be severe.