When you say "around 99% tech people I know in-person do not believe in God", this may be biased based on your location. For example, my country (Brazil) is predominantly catholic. So, I'd say around 99% of people in tech I know believe in god in some sense.
There is a huge misconception, mainly in the US, with this evolutionist vs creationist thing where a correlation was created where evolutionists are mostly atheists, and believers are mostly creationists, so there must be a "clear distinction" between people that understand science and people that believe in some kind of god.
IMHO even great speakers like Neil DeGrasse Tyson fail epicly doing the same thing they complain about creationists, they reject arguments of anything related to God in a very unscientific way: "oh, so you believe in God? so there is an old guy floating in the clouds? so his special ability is to turn water into beverages" - How is this different from believing that, as Carl Sagan said, there are dinosaurs on venus? It is just making up a lot of assumptions out of nothing.
I have noticed this about the Ruby on Rails world. After working in Rails jobs at 5 different companies in 2 cities, I've met and worked with scores of other Rails devs, but I've only known only one other Rails dev who was even Muslim, and no one who was Salafi. Some would be disheartened by this, but I take it as a source of pride.
I was not born into a Muslim family, but I embraced it later in life. So I love Islam a great deal and consider it to be the best thing that has ever happened to me. But I do not get into debates about religion or God with co-workers or on the internet, because I don't feel it's appropriate. When I'm at work, I'm not there to proselytize; I'm there to make great software and earn money. And on the internet, it's just too pointless. If I'm talking to you about Islam, then I'm not doing it for fun -- I'm doing it because I want you to become Muslim. I find it very unlikely that someone who never believed in God in their life would start believing just because some stranger on the internet talked them into it. Rather, the end result is always a flame war, and that doesn't really encourage good manners.
To you, yes. Plenty of other Muslims find it utterly illogical why some random people who happened to be in the right place 14 centuries ago should be taken as any sort of authority. It's as black to them as it is white to you. We all think our own particular beliefs are the logical and common-sense way of looking at things.
In matters of faith, all judgments are subjective by definition. It's human, but delusional and dangerous nevertheless, to assume that they extend to hold objectively.
If I would say "I don't believe in God", I wouldn't be talking about God, because then I no longer talk about the One, but about two things: myself and God. Then I merely criticize my own limited image of God. Which is fine.
Besides that, my religion is a school for love. Loving is tricky: strong emotions, complex beings with individual edges and blind spots, very close to each other, causing friction. Much more tricky than for example driving cars. Yet, we all agree that attempting to learn to drive cars all on our own is not a good idea. Sure, like love, in the end driving cars is about developing intuition and following our instincts, and we can make it work somehow after lots of bruises, but its better to have some guidance and mentoring along the way. We need to learn about the basic rules that make traffic safe, or we'll end up hurting ourselves or others. The same is true for love. Wisdom traditions that provide guidance on how to love (aka religions) are useful tools that add value here.
My parents come from different religious backgrounds, my father was raised as a Lutheran while my mother as a Kardecist. Neither cared a lot about their religions, so while they tried to give me the general notions of their religions I was free to make my own mind.
So, having no pressure to follow my parents beliefs, and founding no logic reason or need for the existence of a God, I found myself an Atheist.
I can't believe on it because I can't find any logical reason to do so.
Also, knowing how much evil was done in the name of religion I came to have a strong opinion against the notion of faith. I really think religious faith, that is, believing without proof, is a disease that must be eradicated. No good that came from it justifies all the bad things that came along.
I always wonder about this stance. Are you against property ownership because of the evil done by those wanting to own what others own? Against money (lots of evil done in it's quest), etc? This really seems like a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I believe it living a good life, not hurting others, being empathetic, etc... But don't feel the need to go to any church or anything like that. I think most organized religions scams preying on the weak.
I am a practicing Mormon (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), and do in fact believe in God and the specific doctrines of my religions. I go to church every Sunday, pray and read the scriptures regularly, and plenty of other things besides. The majority of tech people I know in person are also religious, although I am very well aware that this is largely due to selection effects in my choice of friends and places of employment, and not necessarily reflective of general trends in the industry.
Furthermore, I find my education in computer science strengthens rather than diminishes my faith. Education in general strengthens my resolve that my religion is largely ascientific (not non-scientific, but rather outside the realm of applicability for scientific investigation); since it can be neither proven nor disproven by empirical evidence, I am free to continue to believe in it if I like, and I prefer to believe. Education in computer science specifically gives me a fairly unique set of tools compared to the average Christian apologist for investigating the internal logical consistency of my beliefs. For example, while I'm a big fan of C.S. Lewis and his works on the subject, I am also rather fond of the computational approach to the Problem of Pain (aka the Problem of Evil), as overviewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTb6zhqHLI .
Beyond that, though, I had in mind more the amateur Facebook/Tumblr apologist than the more professional, philosophically-educated sort.
>Education in general strengthens my resolve that my religion is largely ascientific (not non-scientific, but rather outside the realm of applicability for scientific investigation).
Yes. There's a distinction that I've found not many people make. The prefix "a" doesn't seem to be easily grasped, it seems. I know it's semantics, but it changes the meaning.
Immoral and amoral aren't the same. Some people also confuse atheism and agnosticism.
And what you're saying makes sense: Since you can't prove either the existence or lack thereof, it is silly to mock those who believe (what many atheists do) or those who don't (what many theists do).
I won't say I'm a religiously observant person (lifestyle), but I'm not insensible to religion.
I think Prophets lived in a time where it wasn't enough to make a sex-tape to get that kind of following: They had a product people wanted really badly.
What product can brag of being thousands of years old and still affecting billions of peoples after the founder and most original staff are gone.
Furthermore, I'm interested in religions' shared values: If you Venn diagram religions' values, you'll end up with "Being a decent human being".
To my knowledge, no religion preaches killing, stealing, cheating, etc.
Religions I know of actually elevate the value of work (and perfecting what you do), to being clean and taking care of yourself, to such a high place as to be equivalent to prayer (Islam, and also Judaism if I recall correctly).
Again, I find it amusing when supposedly "logical" people scoff at those who are religious as being "illogical": How logical can you be if you're using Hungarian notation.
How "scientific" can someone who claims to be, be, when they assert that God doesn't exist simply because there's no proof (anyone who follows even a mildly scientific method (if one can) knows that the lack of proof of the existence of something isn't a proof of its non existence.. Implication being abused, black swans, etc).
And vice-versa: You can't accuse someone of being illogical if they don't "believe" in something they can't prove. If it were proved (either exists or not), it wouln't be called "believe", but "know".
I also think that if you plot intelligence versus theism, you get a Gaussian distribution: Extremes represent hard-core atheists and hard-core religious people, who use the same stuff (mocking and ridiculing) the "others".
I stick to being good. Leaving people better than we met them. Sleeping better than we woke up.
Anyway, back to coding.. and making better code than I made yesterday.
Finding God seems more of a life's work rather than "read this, wear these and you are good to go"
Unfortunately, the quest for the true nature of the universe has been reduced to Scriptures and the yes/no question "Do you believe in God?". The human mind is biased toward dualism, so it feels natural to talk about something as a competition of two mutually exclusive arguments.
Another issue I have with belief == religion is merging morality and the Truth. Religion delivers both in one convenient package. However, they are not necessarily bundled together. I love Jesus Christ's teachings but I'm not Christian.
Truth is, many of our predecessors treated religion with much more self-inquiry than strict believers do today. Biblical literalism was not a given. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism
Your response covered essentially what you "don't believe in". I am genuinely interested in hearing what "you believe in"?
Another way to put it is that God is always and everywhere: the matter you touch, the thoughts you have, the questions you ask and answers you get. :)
I will up vote your comment as well. Thanks for participating in the conversation!
But there isn't enough rational evidence for one. Even supposedly rational arguments like Intelligent Design fall laughably short, arguing that life is too complex and sophisticated not to have been created by something even more complex and sophisticated.
My take is that anyone who does 'believe' is either doing so out of cognitive dissonance, for emotional/psychological reasons, or just plain-old fear of being stoned to death (figuratively or literally depending on where you live).
Apologies to anyone offended. Just an opinion.
The idea of God is so singular that I'm not sure regular logic can be applied here at all. What other thing do we rationalize about that is similar to the idea of God?
Are you sure that you're being rational or are you simply using one type of rational logic which lends itself mainly to materialism?
I guess the other problem is - what exact definition of "God" is anybody using at any given time?
EDIT: I don't mean for you to answer all of these questions, but it's fun to think about! :)
To have any kind of rational discussion about whether God exists, you first have to define what a God is. Either that or have some pretty strong evidence that can be used to draw a box around the question you're asking.
The existence of God is a non-question, because we have neither a definition, nor evidence, nor a way to prove or disprove even if we could agree what it was that we thought we were talking about. You, me, nor anybody else has the slightest figment of a clue, not a scrap. Nor apparently can we, because conveniently all major religions also define God as unknowable and untestable.
Sure people can have faith if they like, maybe they've been touched by a deity and I haven't (personally I doubt it), but anyone taking a rational position that there either is, or isn't, a God, is just expressing a fantasy that originates in their own emotional needs.
To try and dress up either atheism or theism in rational arguments is absurd.
It seems a little disingenuous to say that there is no definition of God. Google will even give you one if you search for: define God. Wikipedia holds that "In Classical theism, God is characterized as the metaphysically ultimate being (the first, timeless, absolutely simple, and sovereign being, who is devoid of any anthropomorphic qualities)..."
What kind of definition could possibly satisfy your requirements though? Can you give an example? If you're going to limit your thinking to so-called "scientific" or materialistic terms, then let's take an example definition from science. What was the definition of oxygen before it was discovered? How about dark matter?
In any case - it's not true that all major religions define God as unknowable and untestable. Take a look at the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna explains that God can be known through meditation.
Lastly, "rational" means nothing more than "based on or in accordance with reason or logic". It's completely reasonable and logical to debate revealed knowledge.
There's no useful definition. Defining something as being 'metaphysically ultimate' doesn't describe any of its properties.
> What was the definition of oxygen before it was discovered? How about dark matter?
Both oxygen and dark matter were hypothesised based on observations. The definitions suggested by those hypotheses were then tested (dark matter still hasn't been discovered).
Through what experiment are you intending to discover God?
> Krishna explains that God can be known through meditation.
Define "known" in a way that bridges that context and this discussion and I'll buy you a Porsche.
> It's completely reasonable and logical to debate revealed knowledge.
No, sorry, revelation is faith, not knowledge. 'Revealed knowledge' is an oxymoron.
We observe a force, we hypothesize about it based on those observations and we try to build tests for those theories. That's my point with the free will, mind-body problem, substance dualism argument. We observe free will, we build rules for our civilization around it, each of us can observe its existence. Admittedly, some people are willing to throw it out, argue against it, claim that we have no "free will" that it is merely action and reaction, we can only do what we are biologically programmed to do (that destroys most civilization's systems of rewards and punishment, btw) and I would say that most people, based off of their observable experience with their own minds and actions are unwilling to accept such a notion. Some people try to explain it away by saying that it's nothing more than randomness, like the kind we observe in quantum mechanics. I would say that most people are not inclined to equate "randomness" to "free will" either.
If you observe free will and accept its existence you now have a great deal of work to do in order to explain it, hypothesize about it, test it, etc. especially if you are only accepting materialism in the traditional sense. This, like many scientists have in the past when observing strange matter (anti-matter, neutrinos, gravitons, etc), leads many people to decide that there must be some other "force" or "power" outside of the observable material world in order to make sense of one's ability to think, act, react freely.
We can observe gravitational lensing. We can measure the differences between gravitation force exerted by the Earth. We can calculate gravity well enough to slingshot probes across the solar system to other planets. Sure, we don't know its fundamental cause but we can define it by its effects. You cannot do that with "God", or gods, or gaian omni-spirits.
> We observe free will
How?
The smartest people I know are at least agnostic, recognizing that something else is going on but struggling with the ability to identify it. I don't trust the atheists, to me it means they haven't thought about it enough or they think we're all bio-robo-zombies (sounds like a good B movie). If you think we're all bio-robo-zombies, I get worried that you might be a bio-robo-zombie.
And I'll be damned if I'm gonna trust a bio-robo-zombie with this decision. (See what I did there? Oh, come on that was pretty good. ~sigh~... this is why no one invites me to parties)
Why? I know plenty of philosophers that are great with rational arguments that spend their time in atheism or theism. I know several who believe in God or some kind of higher power simply because of free will. Can you give a definition of free will? Can you provide evidence of it or prove or disprove it even if we can agree what it is that we think we are talking about? Just because we may not have the slightest figment of a clue, not even a scrap, doesn't mean that we can't feel strongly whether free will actually exists or not or posit experiments or rational arguments to explain its existence or non-existence one way or the other. Do you believe in free will? I do and I know several philosophers who do too, who feel that since they feel so strongly about its existence, despite it going against everything we understand about a physical universe (causal relationships, action and reaction and whatnot) that there must be something else going on in the universe other than mere atoms bumping into atoms, the existence that we can observe. Sounds like a pretty rational argument that dresses up atheism or theism quite nicely. Maybe you just haven't explored enough rational arguments or questioned your own ability to think and act freely to even reach the questions? Maybe you have. I don't know you, but I do know that there are all kinds of ways to talk about atheism and theism in very rational ways.
For the reason I highlighted in the post you replied to.
You're welcome to explain why you think I'm wrong, but saying 'I believe X and so do my friends' doesn't satisfy.
I'm saying that without the ability to even vaguely define what a "God" is the question "does God exist?" is a non-question.
Sure you can define God as the 'metaphysically ultimate being' but that's a cop-out definition that means nothing. 'Ultimate' just means there isn't another one after that... ranked assumedly by some magical badassery rating.
I might as well ask you "is there a Fnooob?" on the basis that Fnooob is the metaphysically penultimate being. You have no basis on which to answer the question because the question is nonsense.
We're all familiar with stories about various gods because we've been fed them since childhood, and that familiarity makes us think we know what they are, but we really don't.
From a Lutheran perspective this is entirely correct, as we hold that faith is a gift from God that works in us despite our reasoning.
The Bible recognizes this, as we Christians are 'fools for God."
The world should think of Christians as being nuts: We're told to reject power to become meek, we're told to have one spouse when we want to dominate, we're told to give our possessions away and share in the suffering of others, and that we are to love our enemies.
Some of the main reasons for this is
- having recognized that the teachings are consistent with my embedded worldview and ethical code
- a perception that living according to these teachings is much more beautiful, much less likely to hurt others or get hurt myself, mostly free from anger and bitterness, etc. The often repeated opinion that "God gave you your life and his teachings are the owner's manual" seems to hold true for me.
Just like using a software library without reading the source code.
As Catholic we also understand that not everything that Jesus said was written in the Bible, thus the Catholic Church, which Jesus Christ instituted, also includes sacred Tradition. thus we believe not in sola scripture (the Bible alone) but sola verbum Die (the word of God alone) which includes sacred Tradition. The Bible actually mentioned that not everything Jesus said is in the Bible: John 21:25 "But there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written"
I should maybe mention that by embedded worldview, I meant more like little seeds. By no means do I have a complete ethical, philosophical, moral system which explains EVERYTHING in the universe. I think philosophy is the job of philosophers, theology the job of theologists, etc. But Catholic teachings were a very logical next step from the way I feel about certain things.
The Catholic rules on abortion are cruel and cause very great harm to women. A woman was raped in her home country. She left that country and sought asylum in Ireland. She discovered that she was pregnant and sought an abortion. Abortion is only possible in Ireland if the mother's life is at risk. She was suicidal, and the two psychiatrists needed agreed that her life was at risk. The third doctor, an obstretician, disagreed about the mental health status of the patient and so she could not get an abortion. She went on hunger strike, intending to kill herself or kill the unborn child. She was subjected to forced naso-gastric feeding to keep the fetus alive until it could be delivered. She agreed to a caesarian section at about 25 / 26 weeks.
This is 2014 in a developed European nation.
And this is under their "liberal" new law, introduced in 2014 after the death, in 2012, of Savita Halappanavar.
The Catholic church spent considerable effort to prevent contraception being made available in Ireland. This delayed the availability of contraception for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraception_in_the_Republic_...
This cruelty is a direct result of Catholic teachings.
Sexual orientation and contraception are two very serious issues which I feel greatly underqualified to form global opinions about. The situation in Ireland seems to me like a misunderstanding of the Catholic teachings, given that AFAIK the teachings are meant to be followed in one's personal life because of one's personal faith, and not by forcing them on others by means such as state laws.
The only comment I can make is by following the teachings in my own life and not having sex outside marriage, I don't conceive children* with women whom I abandon later, therefore
- I don't hurt women by making them take contraceptive pills with unknown side effects,
- I don't hurt women by forcing them to carry out a child they do not want,
- I don't hurt children by causing them to grow up without a loving family,
- I don't hurt women by forcing them to go to abortion,
- I don't hurt children by conceiving them and then killing them in abortion before they are born.
Most of the above happened in my family, and I want to avoid the hurt caused by or to my family members in these situations.
* AFAIK no contraception is 100% effective.
Here are a few:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/ireland-woman-f...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/17/ireland-woman-f...
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/irelands-refusal...
This link appears to have clearer details: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/woman-in-abortion-case...
First of all, I am glad to hear that you want to talk about the difficult cases because it means that you are okay with Catholic teaching in non-rape cases.
With regards to rape, ultimately is comes down to the fact that the child that arises from the rape should not be punished for the sins of the father. Catholic teaching respects the human being and sees the bigger picture.
What is wonderful is that if you want to understand what the Catholic Church teaches anyone can consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) which can be found at: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM . The specific page that you are interested in is: http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/c...
So, you can review the CCC to see what the Catholic Church actually teaches but in asking what anyone think you are getting their opinion and NOT necessarily what the Church teaches.
Finally, you selected a single tragic instance of a rape victim. I think you need to research and follow up with rape victims who have had an abortion and who later regret it. For example: http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/06/13-year-old-rape-victim-r...
Regards
No, it very much does not. The fact that your failed to comprehend this is telling.
For clarity: the Catholic Church routinely abuses human rights. Sometimes this is a direct result of proclamations from the Pope and thus a core part of the religion (eg use of contraception); sometimes this is because of the structure of the church (eg routine physical and emotional abuse of looked after children; transfering child-abusing priests from one area to a different area).
Parent claimed that following the teachings of the Catholic church made them less cruel. This is a weird position to hold considering the very great harm the Catholic church has perpetuated, even in recent years.
Everyone that has enough mental power to escape the mantra of " you are going to hell and burn for all eternity ". Many, many people truly believe that they are going to hell for the use of a condom so they are not as free as you think. They will be punished if they don't obey. That's how religion works, do what we say or you will get eternal punishment in a fiery pit. (but as George Carlin said .... god loves you)
However on the other hand even though I am not religious myself, I see nothing wrong with faith. Especially faith which someone challenges themselves.
I have a MA plus additional grad level work in quantitative social sciences. Many but not all fellow grad students were either atheists or agnostics.
I am fairly technical, in addition to grad level stats I have added semantic analysis, database and web development to my skill set in the past few years and combine it all in data science consulting and building my own web apps.
I worked in a start-up for awhile where 2 of the other top technical contributors including the founder were practicing Christians. We also had team members in India or from India who were likely Hindu. I don't think our religious beliefs were ever a topic of conversation at work. And, only rarely came up in personal conversations.
I was born in catholic family and was baptized and sent to church as a kid. I very soon found it to be rather boring and brain washing and proclaimed myself an atheist before I was of full age. I simply did not need the god hypothesis to explain the world around me.
As a philosophy major, I think something dissuading me from the religious persuasion is that most attempts to define/describe God are either different kinds of logical games (God = Beauty; this is what beauty is; therefore, god is // God = Perfection; this is what perfection is; etc // God = Nature, Light, Truth, etc etc) or completely illogical ones (The Bible says that God is true, so he must be!).
The Problem of Evil, in particular, sways me from placing faith in a god like the Christian one.
I miss the Indian comicbooks with the blue men, though.
If that doesn't sound crazy enough, see its commandments: 1. You should know that God doesn't exist. 2. But you may ask god to help you do things that you think are somewhat out of your control. Eg: Please God, give me a good GPA this semester. 3. You have to acknowledge that just saying stuff won't actually make it happen, but doing it might. 4. You may or may not fight self righteous wars in favor of this religion.
Do they talk about it? Some religious people are not particularly evangelical, especially in the workplace, so maybe some of them are observant religious and you just don't know about it.
(Btw: I'm atheist if it helps.)
Einstein was not an atheist. Neither is Neil Tyson. The smartest people know what they don't know and seem to have some humility with respect to the question of human existence.
And I wouldn't call Einstein religious, at least not the late Einstein. Nor would I call having "humility with respect to the question of human existence" being religious.
Basic inquiry is a trait of smart people. Dogmatic religion requires, maybe even demands for its own existence, that most enquiry (i.e. the "why" questions) be put aside on faith alone. Smart people just tend to not accept the "faith" argument. Smart people tend toward experimentation and logic, over blind faith.