Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

12 pointssciencelover48 comments

I'm a bit torn on this one. Often times in the hiring process I'll encounter really promising candidates that excite me, but then I open their Twitter/website and their first choice of words to describe themselves are "Jesus lover" or "Follower of Jesus", and it immediately turns me off.

I think religion has its place in the world, but the indications I get from those statements are that this individual ultimately hasn't progressed very far intellectually or challenged their beliefs strongly enough. I fear it is a limiting mindset, no matter how impressive their resume is, and that this will translate on the job as well.

What's your experience with hiring or working with "Jesus lovers"?

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I've worked with a pastor/church leader who was also a developer who was the kindest, nicest person ever. Their code wasn't amazing but he was a great leader and could sense trouble and help people out (religious help or just every day advice).

I've known non-religious people who are utter assholes and I would pay to never work with again. As long as someone isn't trying to convert me in the middle of the work day I couldn't care less who or what they worship.

On the flip side, this sounds like the people who complain when popular tech people talk politics on their twitter. Unfortunately, politics and religion have been around a lot longer than programming/tech and both of those things affect lives greatly.

> Politics and religion have been around a lot longer than programming/tech and both of those things affect lives greatly.

Good point.

This post reflects more poorly on you than it does on the so called 'Jesus lovers' and I say this as an atheist. You are unambiguously in the wrong rejecting candidates for their religious affiliation unless there is something else more problematic in their twitter profiles.

I suspect OP is saying this with the context of how the "Jesus Lovers" are advertising. I suspect it's a fear of the overly vocal ones - ie, perhaps they(OP) thinks hiring someone with that label would be like hiring someone holding Jesus signs on street corners or dudes at colleges with microphones.

Which isn't to say that hiring those people is bad, but i suspect OP has been burned by people who can't keep their personal lives personal. Many religions inherently push you to share and spread the religion, so it's not unreasonable that a lot of religious people focus on pushing their agenda.

With that said i don't think a twitter profile is a good indication on whether or not someone would let their religion get in the way of their work and/or work relationships.

Would you feel OK hiring someone whose first choice of describing themselves is "Jesus hater" or "PROUD ATHEIST"?

The point is not that they love Jesus, it's that they are projecting it in the most publicly visible way.

I would not have a problem with hiring someone describing themselves as a "proud atheist". I would have issues hiring someone describing themselves as a "jesus hater" just as I would have a trouble hiring someone who described themselves as an "allah hater". I think most reasonable people would feel the same. Any self professod "* haters" would elicit negative responses from followers of * and hurt team morale. On the other hand "jesus lovers", "allah lovers" and "shiva lovers" work together everyday without issues.

Not only it is illegal[1] to discriminate based on religion when hiring people, it is also unproductive because you're stopping yourself from hiring people to do a job based on their beliefs not their skills.

Your username is "sciencelover". I assume therefore that you are opposing Christianity to science. Let me help you reconsider this position by suggesting you to look at this article listing Christians in science and technology (You might be surprised to see some significative amount of famous scientists like Lavoisier, Pasteur, Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and many many others): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christians_in_science_...

[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices....

Agreeing with this comment 100%. For the record, I’m an atheist. You can cause your company into big trouble for discriminating based on religion, and like julienreska says it’s also counterproductive; you’re robbing yourself of potentially talented, good people.

I love this comment.

Something that I, as a christian, believe is often misunderstood about religion and science is that they are not opposed to one another. If you talk to many Christians today they will agree that science and religion build off of one another and support each other greatly.

I would recommend the books "God and the Astronomer" and "I don't have enough faith to be an Atheist". Both touch on this combining of science and faith, the first book more so than the latter.

This encyclical is very interesting too: http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/do...

FIDES ET RATIO (Faith and reason) [..] Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves [..]

First up I'm an atheist.

Really weird to see people admit to blatantly discriminating against people who have a religion.

In the UK what you're describing is unlawful.

> but the indications I get from those statements are that this individual ultimately hasn't progressed very far intellectually or challenged their beliefs strongly enough. I fear it is a limiting mindset,

Can you see that here you're doing exactly what you describe people with a faith of doing? You're not examining nor challenging your beliefs.

You'll say that you haven't met many scientists who also have a faith, but you're not examining why people with faith don't want to tell you about it, and how that factors into your confirmation bias.

> You're not examining nor challenging your beliefs.

I literally made this post to challenge my beliefs.

You could hire someone as a way to challenge your beliefs.

My best guess: people are really bad at generalising someone's aptitude in one area to another. It's a common joke in academia actually, where obviously and genuinely intelligent people failing to manage basic tasks is common.

So, assuming you are correct in estimating their aptitude towards picking a religion/lack of (I'll say nothing either way), it'll generalise poorly to their aptitude as a developer.

"... but the indications I get from those statements are that this individual ultimately hasn't progressed very far intellectually or challenged their beliefs strongly enough."

And they might feel the same way about you if you told them your belief that I quoted above.

People are diverse. Even people who describe themselves in a personal account as a Jesus lover will have differences in their beliefs and how they express those. You might not even know about their beliefs in the workplace.

Also, the church today isn't like the church from a hundred years ago. The church accepts that God can work through science. Meaning you can believe in both simultaneously.

Be careful there. Some of the smartest and fairest people I've known are Christians and Jews, and not. You don't have a lock on intellect or self-challenging, as your post might suggest.

signed: a small-a atheist.

This isn't about being religious. It's about being overtly religious.

As a former Israeli, a country where ultra-orthodox Jewish women work as developers and ask you to leave the door open as a sign of modesty or to keep the kitchen Kosher and where Jewish colleagues all leave for a prayer once or twice a day, I simply learned to live with that and look for the person behind the religiousness.

Some were great developers, some were not- the same as any other person, the only thing that would hole me back is someone that tries to force beliefs on me either explicitly or implicitly.

So you wouldn't have hired Alkhawarizmi, who was a pious muslim? after whom Algorithm is named and who is considered the father of Algebra.

You are reducing people to binary 0 and 1's. Humans are far advanced and complex creatures than you believe them to be.

I think the poster's point is that people are reducing themselves to 0 or 1. That's essentially the problem with identity politics, people are complicated with many facets; why would you latch on to 1 identifying trait?

And that is where the issue is. Just because you have a specific belief/views, doesn't make you more/less stupid or more/less intelectual. Having a specific religion doesn't suddently turn off your brain and tells you not to become a good developer, a good person or good scientist.

You're completely correct but I'm not sure that negates the point.

What a person's specific religion is isn't interesting, just like their hobbies aren't interesting. They just don't say a lot about the person.

What _might_ be interesting, is if you only have one interest in life. e.g. Bubba Blue (from Forrest Gump) isn't someone I'd want to spend a lot of time with, even though I like shrimp.

> experience with hiring or working with "Jesus lovers"?

The profile is Ned Flanders!

Solid character, diligent employee, mostly a joy to manage.

Relative to intellect-- Assuming you value diversity of thought, a differing worldview can be refreshing and helpful.

This is essentially my childhood best friend. If you looked at his FB, you'd see a giant list of Catholic posting as if he has no other part to his identity. He's also far and away the most career successful person from my cohort of college friends who studied Biochem, recently got picked up for a lucrative position at Amazon of all places, all while being the only person my age I know with a wife and a kid. Diligent is definitely the keyword.

Not hiring someone because of their religion - that's illegal in most free and democratic countries.

Would you feel the same way about someone who believed fervently in the singularity?

I don't think religious prejudice for hiring decisions is excusable in a society that values freedom. You each might have your own world views but professionalism should prevent you each from forcing them on each other.

Have you evaluated their motivation or basis for their conviction?

Or are you not open to the idea that a "Jesus Lover" could be a person of character and conviction like yourself, but from a different perspective?

Character and conviction is not the issue at all. It's more technical ability and extra-logical/rational thinking that I'm concerned about.

Then what's the problem? If all you are doing is evaluating them for technical skill, then only the resume and interview performance should matter. Personal beliefs such as religion don't enter into it.

My (mis)conception is that it implies inability to advance too deeply into a particular problem. Because if you went deeply enough into the "Jesus" problem you'd understand it's myth/story-telling.

Plus, it's one thing to be a Jesus lover. It's completely another to wear it extra-proudly on your technical website/profile.

> Because if you went deeply enough into the "Jesus" problem you'd understand it's myth/story-telling

Yes, it is exactly like the marriage problem and some people still don't divorce.

"Jesus lover" on their twitter feed tells you little about their personal variation of Christian theology. Entirely possible they're not literal word bible believers.

My biggest suggestion to you is to have some actual conversations with a variety of Christians. I'm willing to bet you have some serious misconceptions about their beliefs.

> I think religion has its place in the world, but the indications I get from those statements are that this individual ultimately hasn't progressed very far intellectually or challenged their beliefs strongly enough. I fear it is a limiting mindset, no matter how impressive their resume is, and that this will translate on the job as well.

This is straight up bigotry.

Some of the greatest scientists of all time have been Christians. Some have followed other religions with similar devotion.

Your bias is without basis. Faith is an important component of many people's lives.

I work for a company that is overtly Christian. They advertise it on their web page, they have morning prayer meetings, they have a chapel and a chaplain. They donate to Christian causes and partner with Christian colleges. It's also not a hiring metric (obviously), and it's not used to discriminate against anyone, and many of my very successful co-workers do not profess any religion.

Judge people on their technical ability, not your opinion of their faith. Judge people on the content of their character, not your opinion of who they pray to.

I firmly believe in separation of personal life and professional life. I have a few developer friends who are devout catholics. They are good developer and great people, never had any problems. Most importantly, they never ever publicize or evangelize their religion.

On the other hand, I have a coworker who never stop talking about religion to the point where no one wants to work with him and management will never fire him. He basically was a team of one who gets random tasks assigned just to keep him from talking to other people.

The point is, if someone who shouts religion or politics or anything that's divisive at the top of their lunges, I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole.

A lot of people use religion for the community aspect of it, and branding themselves as "Jesus lover" is more about that rather than them being a strict follower of said religion and intolerant of differing opinions.

I would look past it and give the candidate a chance to prove themselves in an interview just like any other. If their resume shows a successful career at previous places, it's very likely they are able to separate religion and work thus their religious affiliation had no impact on their work.

>What's your experience with hiring or working with "Jesus lovers"?

Two of the smartest people I ever came across were devout Christians. One of them is an IMO finalist and was at the top of our year, when I was reading Mathematics at a top UK uni. The other one never failed to be at the top of his year from first grade up till masters level, and is now an emerging big name in a very hot HN related field.

This post is blatant flame bait and HN is totally falling for it, hook line and sinker. Posted by username 'sciencelover' no less.

Not related. I know a few people that are both really smart and the worst case evangelists. The issue is not so much technical as it is cultural. It is really annoying being invited in someone's church in order to have your soul saved. As someone with disability, I have it more than others.

Note that this is probably illegal in many places.

Anyway, many people don't understand what science is about. Do you filter "battery breakthrough enthusiast" and "nutrition fad advocates"?

The "Jesus lovers" in my country aren't that extroverted, but religious inclination doesn't have to correlate negatively with intelligence. Many smart people are not religious of course, but I have met counter examples.

If I compare the average Youtube atheist with the average Jesuit, I have no doubt who will win a debate about earthly topics and that isn't only due to educational advantages.

>> the indications I get from those statements are that this individual ultimately hasn't progressed very far intellectually or challenged their beliefs strongly enough

That attitude is intolerant and toxic.

Would you really not consider a candidate because of their religious or political beliefs regardless of their other job qualifications?

In many places this type of discrimination is illegal.

Have you ever used Perl or Ruby?

Expanding on your question:

Perl was created by Larry Wall who is a Christian (New Life, Church of the Nazarene).

Ruby was created by Yukihiro Matsumoto who is a Christian (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

Is believe in science also not a religion?

But besides that I have met some amazing geeks who are religious nuts too. Most don't talk about their religion at work. But some can get annoying.

This one guy would use weird jesus love us language during outage. It drove every focused on troubleshooting mad. Another guy decided he will convert me to Christianity. Loved long discussions with him. I might have turned a bit atheist though. But he started it. Atheism is also a religion in my view.

Another person I worked with turned out be extremely religious and racist on twitter. He was nicest guy at work. But once I saw his Twitter, I just felt repulsed by him especially racism. He quit eventually to start his own bible startup.

These are just extreme examples, most religious people never mentioned religion until I became their friends on facebook and saw they were Jesus lovers

Does your resentment towards "Jesus lovers" extend to "Muhammad lovers" and "Krishna lovers"?

Study the life of Jesus and it'll make more sense. Working with them is great.

I'm an atheist.

Don Knuth is a devout Lutheran. Has he not progressed intellectually?

FWIW, the first thing Don Knuth introduces himself as on his website is "Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University", not as a Jesus Lover.

The question, as the inquirer has clarified, is not about religious people, but about applicants that are ostentatiously and obtrusively religious.

lmao ur dumb

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