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Comment by lacrossegm | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure how relevant this is to HN. I know a lot of good engineers that are creationists. It doesn't seem to keep them from producing good work. Its more important for scientist and teachers I should think.

edit: Don't get me wrong. I agree with Dawkins on this.

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The argument has long since stopped being about either theology or science and turned into a matter of tribalism, where adherence to the Right Answer on a matter of trifling importance to both sides is used as a litmus test of whether you're a decent human being or not.

Forgive me for a five second religious interruption: I'm a strict Catholic and also have an engineering degree. I sincerely believe in things like the virgin birth and the resurrection. Essentially everyone who knows me well knows this or could guess. And I still have people say "Blah blah blah anti-science freaks need to stop blah blah blah hey Patrick, evolution happened, right?" And when I say "Yeah, of course", they check the "Proper Scientist (TM)" box next to me in their mental inventory.

I'm sorry that you were downvoted. I've come across good programmers who believed the Earth was 7,000 years old etc. Their programming ability was just fine.

I've read a book that started with the author thanking God for granting him the insights presented in the book. Some of the more militant atheist might be offended by that. I just skipped past it and dug into the actual content, which wasn't too bad. It was no shock that none of his code contained any creationist arguments.

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