After seeing the top post related to OneBody the open source Church project I found myself curious as to how the rest of hacker news identified themselves spiritually. Sometimes we make assumptions about a particular group of people and this poll seems like a great way to challenge those assumptions and take a closer look at who makes up the hacker news community. So....<p>How do you identify yourself spiritually?
(Please comment if you choose Other.)
You can be an Agnostic Atheist.<p>Agnosticism is about whether you believe you can prove the existence of God or not. Atheism and Theism is about actual belief in God.<p>One can be an Agnostic Atheist or Agnostic Theist.
Agnostic atheist= I don't know whether we can prove God exists but I don't believe in God<p>Agnostic theist= I don't know where we can prove the God exists or not but I do believe in God.<p>Being an agnostic is not the "I'm not really sure" category people have made it to be.
Having grown up in the church, I have honestly never found a good replacement for the sense of community and support that a church offers. Its a shame that no other non-religious organizations have been able to replicate it.
It looks like this thread is being moderated off the front page, but it's something that I think is interesting too.<p>I was astonished about the overwhelming response the church software got. Don't get me wrong, it's a great effort, but the sheer amount of votes it received seems somewhat out of proportion for what you'd expect a comparable project to get. So I'm curious if this Show HN maybe released some pressure in that regard.<p>But I do think the poll's setup is mistaken, as are people who feel their particular faith should be reflected accurately. It would have been better (and less fraught with squabbling over definitions) if we kept it simple and allowed people to self-identify as non-religious, somewhat religious, and very religious.<p>To me, the intensity of faith would have been more interesting than the precise flavor. I also think there is a community aspect we could have captured as a second variable: "how engaged/motivated are you by being part of your religious community?" - I suspect this is a big factor as well, maybe in some cases even more so than the actual belief in the supernatural. Who knows, but I would have loved to get some data on this.
Classifying Hinduism and Buddhism as "religions" in the Western sense of the word is imprecise and misleading at best.<p>You can be a Hindu atheist: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka</a><p>Swami Vivekananda popularized the Ramakrishna school of thought, but they themselves deny to be called Hindus.<p>Goa deputy Chief Minister considers himself to be a "Christian Hindu": <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/politics/india-hindu-nation-im-christian-hindu-goa-dy-cm-francis-dsouza-1634437.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.firstpost.com/politics/india-hindu-nation-im-chri...</a><p>Hinduism in not an organized religion like Abrahamic religions. The definition of Hinduism is very fluid in practice.<p>Similarly one can be a Buddhist atheist as well.<p>PS: Also please add Sikhism and Jainism to the poll -- two other major Indian religions!
"I used to be an atheist until I realized I was god." - J. Krishnamurti<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism</a>
At first, I was an atheist, and I pitied religious folks for their incredible stupidity.<p>Then, I learned about agnosticism, and I realized it better describes what I believe, and that my <i>lack of belief</i> in God is possibly incorrect. I still pitied the religious for their blind faith.<p>Then I realized one day, while pondering the subject, that because it is not possible to experimentally test for the existence of God, nor to derive any conclusion based on logic, then the question itself is in fact "extra-logical." It cannot be resolved with the scientific method, or any other means of rationalization. To even attempt to do so is itself irrational.<p>The question therefore must be, simply, "Do you <i>believe</i> in God?" This question does not attempt to bring logic, science or rationality into the picture. It is a question purely of faith, of which I acknowledge I have none.<p>So, in the end, I am still an agnostic, but one who now accepts that there can be quite rational, scientific thinkers who <i>have faith</i> in the existence of God.
I chose "other" because even though I do believe in God and follow the teachings of Jesus, I don't align myself with modern Christians who seem determined to be the opposite of what he taught. Hate, especially irrational, pointless hate, is something I simply don't understand and don't want in my life. I know a lot of it is politics instead of faith, but that's no excuse; in fact that makes it even more despicable.
The data is clearly not representative. Take a look at number one post in Show HN titled " OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years". This post has 740 points | 203 comments, clearly very popular (number two has 77 points | 46 comments).<p>Does it mean atheists are more open responding to polls about spirituality?
<i>Sometimes we make assumptions about a particular group of people and this poll seems like a great way to challenge those assumptions and take a closer look at who makes up the hacker news community.</i><p>HN polls haven't been trustworthy for years. Too many people giving too many false results. Pg noticed this when there was a poll asking about the age of HNers and a bunch of people responded with "Over 80." He mentioned he'd make their fonts extra huge so they'd still be able to read HN.
I feel like atheist and agnostic are too concrete.<p>I view it like non-Americans view thanksgiving. You can read the wiki page and it makes sense, but I'm not going to go out of my way to do it too. It's not really something that applies to me.
I grew up in a family of catholics, went agnostic, went militant atheist, and then realized the universe is so fucking weird and likely beyond our ability to ever truly comprehend it that "who am I to judge others for believing in ridiculous things?".<p>Which is to say, I think all religions we have that claim to have any kind of historical meddling from a 'creator' are rather obviously fictional and borderline ridiculous, but I don't have any better answers to "the big questions", so I'm fine letting people believe whatever they like without opposition or debate so long as what they believe doesn't result in the oppression of others.
I believe that there is commonality between referents for the term 'god'. I believe that there is wisdom to be found in most religious systems of belief. I call myself omnignostic.
Other - Using standard nomenclature in a non-standard way I'd call myself a "Spiritual Atheist."<p>I had been an atheist of the "cold" variety: life spontaneously arose from non-life in an undefined fashion, and everything relevant to the conversation evolved from this first life.. only the "observable" could be real.<p>Seemingly non-local consciousness-connections (a dream where something bad happens to someone and they die that night, you think of someone in that moment they call you, esoteric initations into new-agey meditation [law of attraction, remove viewing], they way the universe seems to be inscrutably "nicer" to me the more buddha-like it is [e.g. when regularly meditating])<p>The reasons my metaphysics changed are nearly ineffable; and are certainly not objectively verifiable (at least by me). The ramifications are easy to grok:<p>- The universe is a holy playground
- The universe has some sort of intention
- The more your intentions fall in line with the intentions of the universe, the more satisfying life is.<p>There are also some non-obvious (but ultimately important) "actionable" ramifications: primarily that sometimes the best way to solve a corporeal problem is to get the spiritual aspect (ie, the interface between you and the universe) in line.
Really, only one other Buddhist? I guess that makes sense with only 13 Christians as of this posting. I took the precepts, don't know that I particularly consider myself religious but I still subscribe enough to check the little up arrow.<p>Edit: nevermind, poll took off;)<p>Edit 2: zenjzen, you also appear to be hellbanned.
Other - I identify with [insert own name here]. Let me explain...<p>I dated a woman once who dated a woman just prior to dating me (I'm male). We were having beers with a mutual friend and upon hearing that fact, our mutual friend said "wow, I didn't know you were bisexual Jen" (not her real name). Jen's response..."I'm not bisexual...I'm Jen. I don't believe in labels."<p>I'm not Atheist, Agnostic, or Lutheran (the religion my parents chose for me). I'm Chad.<p>I haven't used a label for anyone's politics, religion, sexual preference, or other complicated matters since. Thank you Jen. The best part...you get to focus on getting to know someone on a personal level instead of arguing about definitions :)
I put Buddhist, but consider myself atheistic to many concepts, but agnostic to others (see: Simulation Argument), and pan-theistic in general - as in, the term reflects a unity of the Universe that any true Cosmos fan should come to see, for instance. (Proof of such is hard won by sceptical scientists.)
Stats with this kind of options are could be seen as rather divisive and can give a false impression if interpreted without nuance.
Religion influences the decision to become an entrepreneuer. So are all the Agnostics and Atheists the employed hackers while the believers the bosses? <a href="http://www.voxeu.org/epubs/cepr-dps/religion-influences-peoples-decision-become-entrepreneur" rel="nofollow">http://www.voxeu.org/epubs/cepr-dps/religion-influences-peop...</a>
I've turned agnostic recently from being a sole christian. The more time I spend with computing and learn about machine learning/AI, I think that we can and will create self-aware AIs. At that point, we'll have to question what reality programmed us?
I was working this job (tech writer) at this tech place (little computers) a few months ago (temp). The population was evenly split between christians and potheads. I suppose it says something.
Here are the poll results in graph format:<p><a href="http://hnlike.com/hncharts/chart/?id=8088478" rel="nofollow">http://hnlike.com/hncharts/chart/?id=8088478</a>
Spiritual atheist. But when I get the time I'm going to start a new religion: Ovumist.<p>The holy tract: <a href="http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html</a>