Comment by timinman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by timinman | Hacker News Reader

I think his 'theory' that discussions have more potential to be divisive when they involve our identity is dead on. His advice to 'keep your identity small', follows on from that premise well. Many people let their identity get polluted by what they do for a living to such an extent that they find it very difficult to cope when that is taken from them.

I have always been opinionated - I'm analytical and I enjoy forming opinions. Since moving to Europe, I have learned not to let political opinions become so ingrained that they become part of my identity. I have seen so many things done differently and still done well.

My question is this: Which things are worth being part of my identity? Values I esteem? Relationships I hold dear? Family roles? I think it is fair to say that belief (or disbelief) in God is a foundational human issue. If you are a believer, I think that belief demands something - it necessarily becomes part of your identity. I am a believer, so I don't know if same is true for non-believers.

I am a believer, so I don't know if same is true for non-believers.

Well, everyone is a non-believer in something that others believe. Assuming you don't believe in, say, Isis, do you think that non-belief becomes part of your identity?

This is an excellent point. I find it interesting that so many things that I use in my own life for orientation are not even noticed by a broad section of humanity. Philosophy, technology, religion, politics, these are often monumental issues to certain people while rarely even noticed by others. It's interesting that the human experience is so diverse especially intellectually. It's hard to escape the belief that what I follow is IMPORTANT though. As well as the follow up thoughts of "If only more people paid more attention to X the world would be a better place...".

No. I realise that I over-simplified that part by highlighting only two opposites: belief and unbelief. I do realise there are degrees of distinction between belief in a deity and atheism, and there are polytheism and agnosticism as well.

I could have asked a question: for those who don't believe in god(s), is your Atheism a significant feature of your identity?

To answer that question: yes, but I wish it didn't have to be. The only reason atheism is a part of my identity at all is because it makes me a minority, and one that public opinion in the US ranks below even rapists[1]. If atheism were the norm and the religious were a minority, atheism would no longer have to be part of my identity, which I would greatly prefer.

[1] http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2011-25187-001/

> I think it is fair to say that belief (or disbelief) in God is a foundational human issue.

I think it is quite a bit of a stretch to call something a foundational human issue when there is no consensus agreement as to what the words involved even mean, even among members of the same sect. If you could define the term 'God' in a meaningful way which all humans agreed upon, then we could maybe start to discuss whether belief in God were a foundational human issue. As it stands currently, the phrase 'God exists' is nothing but a shibboleth.

I think that the fact that people have been looking for meaning to their existence in God, Gods or other higher beings for years even when separated by oceans shows that this is a fundamental human issue.

While the execution of this is different in many ways, monothiestic - polythiestic it does show that human beings strive for a knowledge about things that are beyond our understanding. And it isn't like there haven't been Athiests all along http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_atheism. I think that this shows that the curiosity of "where do we come from" is fundamentally built into the human psyche.

I agree that there are many questions that any given human will be very likely to ask itself at some point in its life, and perhaps to dwell upon at some length. The example you gave of "Where do we come from?" is one, along with "Why am I here?", "What am I meant to do?", and many others.

Where I disagree is your leap from those questions to some notion of a "higher being". First, as mentioned previously, this term is undefined and you cannot have a meaningful conversation without defining the terms. Second, we have already answered some of the "big questions". We know where we come from: billions of years of evolution through natural selection. No "higher beings" necessary. And third, for the questions that still lack satisfactory answers, in most cases that is because they are wrong questions (http://lesswrong.com/lw/og/wrong_questions/).

There may very well be "big questions" that actually merit being asked and that may rightly be considered foundational human issues, but that does not by any means lead to the conclusion that the question of the existence of some undefined "higher being" is a foundational human issue.

The idea, much less the concrete evidence, that science (evolution) can explain everything is about five minutes old compared to humanity - and humanity has looked to the super-natural to answer the big questions for as long as they have been able to express those questions. It doesn't get much more fundamental than that.

Fundamental does not mean old, it means essential. Age has very little to do with it. Never leaving Earth is a part of human life as old as humanity itself, and yet we have proven that it is not an essential one.

Saying that evolutions answers where we come from is a little like traveling to another country, and when a local asks "where did you come from?" answering "the airport".

It sounds like you're looking for an answer to a question more like "Where did the universe come from?" That's an entirely different question.

We're part of the universe, so that question is still contained in "where have we come from," at least from some values of "we".

But even after that, there's still the appearance of life in the universe and the appearance of life on Earth.

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