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Comment by HuwFulcher | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

That’s a valid point, I think what should be considered though is the interest that the Catholic Church had in encouraging scientific study

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.

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?

You are right of course, it does suggest at a minimum that Christianity did not at all times and in all places where it held sway entirely suppress scientific progress. And in fact I believe that some Christian societies could be rather conducive to science within certain limits.

My point is that for most of recorded European history, professing Christian beliefs was the default. Straying too far from Christian ways would have required considerable intellectual effort and have been socially and economically costly. So there should be little wonder that many great European scientists were Christians.

But I don't think the historical facts can be used to draw strong conclusions about scientific or anti-scientific thinking in the population of Christians living in modern secular democracies, as the context is very different.

I see it as a group of people who somehow believe what infinity is exactly, and a group that doesn’t. As infinity is far away enough, you can find all sorts of people who believe in god(s) and are at the same time intelligent, because the infinte trap is easy to fall into at any level of intelligence by definition.

To make it clear: sometimes I tend to suspect (not believe) that there are some parts of math that we can’t reach, yet or at all, and it has effects which break or create higher-level symmetries and create everything as an imminent result. Think of a monster group as a cute little example of it. That still doesn’t make me think that I’ll be salvaged into paradise if I don’t mastrubate.

Also, I’m not a historian, but wasn’t Christianity the only way to access education back then? That would explain something.

> Your equation of Santa Claus with God reveals your prejudice and stereotyping of religious people.

The person you're replying to never equated Santa Claus with any kind god. It was just a question. Would you take an adult insisting Santa Claus is real seriously? Do you think people are entitled to their beliefs, whatever they may be?

They didn’t explicitly state it but it’s heavily implied based on the context.

No, I wouldn’t take an adult believing in Santa Claus seriously. They’re entitled to their beliefs and if they do their job well then I have no reason to have an issue with them.

The issue I take is with the equivocation they have made. Believing in Santa Claus and believing in a divine entity are two drastically different things.

In what way are they different? There is no evidence any divine entities are real just like there is no evidence that Santa is real.

There's more evidence for Santa! He brings presents and they always appear, just as we were told ;)

The fact that you and I exist is sufficient evidence that the Creator exists.

And the fact that the creator exist is evidence that the creator’s creator exists, etc, etc.

Or is there a stop? And then what? Your stance creates more questions than it answers while introducing extra, unnecessary parameters.

> No, I wouldn’t take an adult believing in Santa Claus seriously.

Why not?

> The issue I take is with the equivocation they have made. Believing in Santa Claus and believing in a divine entity are two drastically different things.

Why? The only major difference I can see is that Santa Claus is explicitly understood as a made-up story, whereas Gods are believed in by others.

So there's social proof on the side of God, but in terms of tangible evidence they don't seem any different.

The fact that you say “a Devine entity” suggests you are a monotheist. As such you are atheistic wrt many many gods. Do you take all believers in all of them equally seriously?

Moreover, what is stopping me from defining Santa Claus as a Devine being?

> Moreover, what is stopping me from defining Santa Claus as a Devine being?

Show me evidence that Santa Clause sent a message to us.

Show me evidence that your $GOD (presumably Jaweh, but then with his image altered by some additions to your holy book only part of your community accepted, the rest rejected the new prophet) has sent a message, and while you're at it, tell my all the others are not the correct messages.

To be pedantic, Santa sends me messages every year through Coco Cola commercials. But I'm going to assume you mean older messages.

Hah! Because one worked/works at Google they must inherently be smart? If those walls could speak...

No. There are stupid people at Google too. It's a company and the hiring bar is high but it's also very specific. You can be an idiot in most things but still be very good at one. I've know a few. At Google.

There have also been hires that were "good demographics." (That's a quote from one of my senior leadership at the time I worked there.) Sometimes you can be rejected by all the interviewers and still make it.

For those who don't believe in religious doctrine, it is the same as believing in fairy tails. They come with equivalent amounts of proof and stand up to the same level of scrutiny.

The very fact that you're implying that being smart and believing in God are somehow contradictory reeks of condescension. Not to mention that you're grouping all religious doctrine for all religions into a "fairy tale" bucket shows that you did not spend time or effort understanding at least the existing major religions on Earth.

Don't leave us hanging like that. Which major religions do you personally consider not to be a fairy tale? Please also include, for each such religion, if you happen to believe in it, and whether it was the religion you grew up with (if applicable).

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