Following these philosophical principles themselves- it seems like a simpler and more accessible treatment of these ideas would be vastly more effective then a more rigorous and complete one- because the ideas are indeed simple.
also, just because someone writes poor code doesn't mean they don't know how to write good code - intent isn't always clear, and it's a mistake to assume ignorance based only on the output
It’s similar to why a big portion of the world believes in Christianity and another portion believes in Buddhism. Basically only one or none of these religions is correct rendering at least one population of people believing in a completely made up fantasy concept.
Much of what is preached in software is religion and what is preached by the majority can be completely ludicrous. The majority believing or not knowing something doesn’t mean anything.
The same is true for software design- an approach is not literally true or false, but either works for its intended purpose or does not. Conflicting philosophies can both be “true” just with different underlying goals or values.
To circle back here, my point is that this information is presented in a simple way that will let people reading it design better software. Saying they have no right to present it without a much less accessible and more complex framework that would likely make it less useful to the intended audience does not make sense to me.
FWIW, I am also a functional programmer, but would love to see people that are not follow some of these ideas.
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There is only one kind of truth. “All truths are God’s truths.”
If Christianity is not true, then it is false. If Christianity and Buddhism strictly contradict each-other, then at most one of them is true.
Christianity is not meant to be a, what, psychological trick? It makes claims, and these claims should be believed if true and disbelieved if false.
I posit almost all intelligent monastics and religious people are smart enough to tell the difference between objective truth and religious truth- but it is taboo to explain this to lay people as they will be confused and think it means the religion is "fake" or a "trick", however I don't feel the need to respect said taboo. Perhaps I will learn to respect it by trying to explain it to people unsuccessfully.
[1] David Chapman may be able to: https://vividness.live/visionary-and-objective-truths
That is positing a conspiracy theory level of deception.
At least as far as Christianity goes, the "intelligent monastics and religious people" write down their beliefs, and have done so for millennia, and they read each others writings. What you suggest might be possible with an oral tradition, but not with a written one. Christianity is very much concerned with objective truth, and one of the distinguishing characters of it (and some other religions too) is a belief that there is an objective truth.
There's no deception- it's something that (as this discussion shows) is very subtle and dangerous to the religions when misunderstood- but not dangerous when understood correctly. It is written down repeatedly in religious texts, in a subtle way with plausible deniability, but clear to those that can read between the lines. Writing in that way was the essential basic art of any intellectual until very recently, it is only now (sort of) safe to plainly state nuanced philosophical and religious concepts without facing persecution. Nietzsche argued you still should not do so even if you can.
It's also both quite obvious and relatively unimportant on its own to people that would be capable of understanding nuance, and could be quite harmful to the faith and the stability of the religion of those not able to understand.
Can you give me an example of what you mean? From Christianity, as its the religion I know most about.
However St. Augustine is someone that I am particularly certain had a clear understanding of this, and I can see it in how he frames most of his ideas.
Another example, would be that ancient religious texts are not careful at all to avoid making numerous objectively factual contradictions- as the anti-christian crowd loves to point out over and over while also completely missing the point. If the people writing them thought that was important, they would have avoided doing so- contrary to modern opinion, ancient theologians and philosophers like St. Augustine were not idiots.
William Blake is a more modern person that, while just about the furthest thing from a monastic, clearly had a deep understanding of what I am talking about. Carl Jung also extensively understood and discussed a lot of esoteric things in Christianity including this, and wrote about them in a relatively clear modern way.
Can you give me an example of one?
> To me as a young kid, it was immediately obvious that there were deeper ethical principles being explained in these stories, and one had to be an idiot to be worried about if they were objective factual details or not
Again, an example? You are suggesting for example that there is no redemption or afterlife but they convey some point?
> If the people writing them thought that was important, they would have avoided doing so- contrary to modern opinion, ancient theologians and philosophers like St. Augustine were not idiots.
Does Augustine contradict himself? In a single work (different views in different works could be a change of mind)?
> You are suggesting for example that there is no redemption or afterlife
I am suggesting no such thing, only that dwelling on this issue is to miss the point, and even worrying about it would be an obstacle. One must deeply feel these ideas and practice accordingly to follow this spiritual path- even getting stuck on arguing that they are true would be an obstacle to that.
Myself, I would say I am non-religious, but have a lot of respect for the purpose and value religions offers people, and that one benefits greatly by understanding and filling those roles and needs in other ways even if not practicing a religion. I very much dislike the Richard Dawkins follower crowd that hate religion with a passion, but have no understanding of it, and have no connection to or understanding of their own emotions, unconscious, or spirituality to their own detriment.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-06-05
It makes a humourous and compelling argument that a big part of Christianity is encouraging its adherents to follow the game-theoretic optimum in a way that will convince someone even if they are a bit credulous.
If you approach the bible with a good knowledge of negotiation and game theory, a lot of it can be interpreted in that light. There is a lot of good advice to get people to move to the global optimums that can be reached if everyone cooperates. It isn't subtle about it. There is no conspiracy to hide that it is good advice even to someone who doesn't particularly believe in afterlives, miracles or god-given ethics. There is a very neat division between the common read and the read of someone with a good grasp of social dynamics, negotiation and game theory. No conspiracies. Just a lot of people who can't handle complex social negotiation.
There is also a lack of evidence it works. I do not think Christians are consistently greatly more socially cooperative than atheists. Maybe more inclined to help people on the fringes of society - e.g. running food banks here in the UK, very active in poverty charities globally but while good, I cannot believe it has a sufficient consistent effect to provide an advantage to a society that follows it.
Fear of hell as a motivator is limited to some Christian denominations but is not often mentioned by other denominations (I am mostly familiar with Catholic and Anglican churches) or in the Bible, or Christian writings, or in sermons or in religious discussions. Christian universalists and others do not believe in any form of hell at all!
It might work with a religion once established (religious societies do better because of that cooperation) but it does not explain how religions spread in the first place. Its a lot more likely to apply to a religion that has been long established in a relatively stable setting so it is credible as an explanation of much of ancient Jewish law that seems strange to us now (e.g. what to eat, not plucking fruit from young trees etc) that often seems off from a modern perspective.
One example theory I remember reading at some point was the prohibition against eating shellfish: In the area the religion arose, it would have most likely gone bad by the time it was brought that far inland.
Shellfish are susceptible to harmful algal blooms like red tide, that can make them very dangerous.
Coastal foraging cultures that don't have bans on eating shellfish, instead have complex knowledge about when, where, and how to prepare and eat them. It's the same with mushrooms- cultures either universally ban them, or deeply educate everyone about them. All cultures globally with access to these foods have a system here- it's not unique to Judaism.
I take a Jungian view that a major useful thing religions offer is a framework for relating to the unconscious. One key part of that is to have a clear sense of ethics, and to align ones actions with it, which is generally good for your mental health.
Take CS Lewis as an example. He write strong and clear defences of the incarnation, miracles etc. as objective facts. He was either trying to deliberately deceive or he did not actually understand older writing, and the latter is not really credible given he was the professor of mediaeval and renaissance literature at Oxford.
> The mystique of this is openly part of the draw for people to sign up for it.
Not in my experience of priests, monks and nuns and people who consider becoming clergy.
Another possibility is that if you get what I'm saying here, you might re-read CS Lewis and have a very different perspective on what he was actually saying- because those Christian "truths" are extremely important, and exist for a good reason - and one can write a strong clear defense of them from the perspective I am coming from.
I read a lot of old philosophy and religious texts translated and commented on by "well respected" scholars, and it is not uncommon at all that I can tell they are seeing only the surface of the ideas... which can make it frustrating and difficult to read when the translator wasn't 'getting it.' The level one needs to be at to be a well respected philosopher, and just to succeed as an academic are not close at all, and there is no guarantee that the latter will be capable of fully grasping the ideas of the former - it is probably the norm that they cannot. If they could they would not be just a translator or scholar, but a powerful philosopher in their own right.
An intelligent person whose mind is fundamentally oriented towards communicating deeper meaning, does not operate on the level of obsessing over banal binary verification of facts- and they need to be able to assume their reader is already capable of thinking abstractly in this way as well. To put it simply one must assume intelligence in the reader to communicate deep ideas and meaning, and neglecting to "explain how to be intelligent" is not deception- when it is not even something that can be explained.
It might be better to think of it as a potentially useful fiction. Our culture is full of those.
Morality doesn't exist in any objective sense, which means "murder is wrong" is not, strictly speaking, true. That doesn't mean it isn't useful for us to collectively treat it as if it's true. You might even argue that that's the nature of all shared truth.
Yeah, I'm disagreeing with that passage.
> [I]f Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith
Faith can be useful even when it does not reflect an objective truth. In fact, you might say that faith can only exist at all in the absence of objective truth. I don't need to have faith that a triangle has 3 sides, or that ice is cold.
If we do take seriously the idea that Christianity must either be true or false, then it's obviously false: Most religions contradict each other, and none of them have any concrete evidence in their defence. The natural conclusion is that all religious beliefs are false. But then we have to interpret society as a place where most people believe obvious falsehoods, which is just not a useful lens. There is a huge difference between a falsehood like "triangles have 5 sides" and a falsehood like "Jesus was reborn." Nobody would believe the former, but many people believe the latter. We must distinguish useful fictions as a category beyond the dichotomy of simple truth or falsehood.
You have picked religions with as little as possible in common. It would be rather different if you had picked any two monotheistic religions for example: one could be entirely right, and that would mean the other was partially or mostly right.. Despite your choice, there are many things in common: a path to redemption, monasticism, wealth being a barrier to redemption, meditation and mysticism... its quite possible those common elements might be right.
The same with software. Some things that are widely believed may be true and other false.
Parent is telling you: "if A is so simple and obvious, why does nobody do A", your counter argument: "if many people believe A it does not mean it is true". This is entirely unrelated, the point is that these things are NOT obvious to the average programmer, he/she would benefit from learning this, and claiming that these things are broadly "stupid and obvious" is petty and false.
Also, the things you're saying just don't add up with your criticism that the author is missing some fundamental part of software philosophy. If the author is only missing something, then it still makes sense for the majority to learn the things he is saying, at least, as explained by your parent.
Finally, if anything can be compared to religion, it surely is the evangelism of functional programming zealots.
> If the author is only missing something, then it still makes sense for the majority to learn the things he is saying, at least, as explained by your parent.
Sure but from my pov he’s teaching mathematics while skipping over algebra or addition. We can all agree that something huge is missing if you don’t learn algebra or addition.
> Finally, if anything can be compared to religion, it surely is the evangelism of functional programming zealots.
I don’t deny it. Nobody can really prove their viewpoint to be true. Even the atheist is a zealot. The only way to not be a zealot is to be a zealot about being unsure of everything. But then that makes you a zealot. People insinutated a lot of things because I used religion as an analogy.
The ONLY point I was trying to make is that a majority or large group of people believing in or doing plan A doesn't mean shit for plan A.
I don't think you understand either the parent or me. The point is that the majority of people do something wrong that the author is trying to help prevent, so just by virtue of that being true it stops being "stupid and obvious".
> We can all agree that something huge is missing if you don’t learn algebra or addition.
We can indeed all agree on a separate topic, but that does nothing for the topic we are actually discussing. The core of your entire argument is that somehow FP is fundamental to solving complexity, you seem to think that everybody already agrees with this. We don't.
> Even the atheist is a zealot
No, he is not. Being an atheist or not is a completely internal world view, being a zealot implies being vocal and aiming to convert or convince others.
> The only way to not be a zealot is to be a zealot about being unsure of everything
No this is also not true, see above. Things are not as black and white as you think.
> People insinutated a lot of things because I used religion as an analogy.
The point of an analogy is to improve the discussion through clarity, you made a bad analogy and in doing so made the discussion worse and less clear.
> The ONLY point I was trying to make is that a majority or large group of people believing in or doing plan A doesn't mean shit for plan A.
Which, again, is missing the point. The majority is already judged by the parent, namely: they are doing something wrong. Hence it does not matter that the majority is not always right, the point of the parent is already that the majority is wrong. You are trying to argue for something that nobody brought up, you are arguing against the statement: "the book is good because everybody is doing what it describes". Nobody is saying that, and so you're arguing into the void.
On “Missing the Point” You keep insisting I’ve misunderstood the parent, when in fact I’m the one highlighting the exact same oversight the parent (and you) are making: popularity of a method—or “everyone doing it”—doesn’t prove correctness. You’re so busy telling me I’m off-target that you’ve inadvertently circled right back to my original statement. Bravo for that rhetorical pirouette.
The Religion Analogy My analogy wasn’t about the specifics of Buddhism vs. Christianity any more than referencing “Homer’s Odyssey” requires you to believe in sea monsters. An analogy’s job is to illustrate a point. You chose to interpret it literally, which is about as productive as reading a metaphor and then complaining it’s not a physics textbook. If you can’t separate form from function, maybe you shouldn’t be lecturing people on clarity.
FP, Zealotry, and the Real Topic It’s downright adorable that you think I’m pushing some “everyone agrees FP solves everything” agenda. I specifically said “nobody can prove a viewpoint absolutely”—which you just argued against by, ironically, claiming some vantage of universal correctness. This might be the first time I’ve seen someone label atheists as ‘not zealots,’ then turn around and call me one for not fitting neatly into your black-and-white categories. The mental gymnastics are impressive—Olympic-level, even.
Majority vs. Correctness You keep shouting that the majority is wrong, that the book is aiming to correct them, and that somehow I’m “arguing into the void.” Yet my entire point (and this is the third time I’ve repeated it, but apparently you need a replay) is that a majority doing something doesn’t automatically validate or invalidate a claim. And guess what? You agree. You literally said the majority is wrong. So if I’m “missing the point,” then so are you—just from the opposite side of the mirror.
On Being a Zealot Contrary to what you claim, being “vocal” about something doesn’t automatically make you a zealot any more than whispering your opinions makes you right. If you’re content to wander around in that nuance-free zone where anyone with a perspective is a fanatic, you’re welcome to it. Just don’t be surprised when folks point out that you’re holding an umbrella indoors to avoid a hypothetical downpour.
In short, you’re so determined to prove me wrong that you’ve ended up echoing my very premise—that “everyone doing X” doesn’t magically prove X is correct—while scolding me for saying precisely that. Next time, maybe aim for consistency before you break out the condescension. It’ll save you the trouble of repeatedly shooting down a position you’re already occupying.