Cause geeks often look at the world logically and listen to George Carlin. :-) - Robert Scoble

The gods don't scale. - Jack&Cleo

side effect of asking lots of tough questions, you start to get some answers that make sense. - Nathan Eckenrode

As a fellow geek we better be sure we're right, because if we are wrong it's gonna be bad. - Blackopsmanners

Blackopsmanners: my idea of hell is being forced to sit next to Jesse Helms for eternity. Of course HIS idea of hell is probably sitting next to me. So, who is in hell? - Robert Scoble

Geeks are generally tech freaks and when you see item after item made by man changing the way your life is lived then it becomes pretty easy to accept that man invented god not the other way around. - Jeff Jones

I cannot disagree more Trevor. Atheists are the ones saying "we don't have all the answers". Deity based religions certainly claim to do so. - Jeff Jones

Trevor: Jeff is right. I used to be very religious. I found that most of the people who were religious were not humble at all and weren't able to look at the world without having any answers. Our minds are very strong pattern recognizers. It takes a lot of humility to turn off the pattern recognizer and just accept you don't have the answers. But, this is why I call myself an agnostic. I'm not certain there is not a God. Just like I'm not certain there is one, either. - Robert Scoble

Trevor: I was in a church of people all of whom considered themselves as "genuine Christian." Part of the problem is that religious people assume they really know what makes someone a "real believer." - Robert Scoble

I'm a card-carrying member of a deity based religion as Jeff calls it. Christian is what I am and I certainly don't claim to have all the answers. In fact, I have very few. That's why I need/desire the deity. Right? Sadly, there is an unfortunate number of folks on both (many?) sides of this argument who give their own group a bad rap. I'm just trying to not be one of them. The way I see it, God is the one who created the patterns we're recognizing so I'll accept that He has the answers I need. - Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™

Lisa: the thing is, anyone who professes to "believe" has already put something in their pattern recognizer that simply isn't there. Or, have you really seen God? But I'm going to beg out of this. I learned in the 1990s that these conversations never convince anyone and just piss people off. So, "Hide" is earned, have fun. - Robert Scoble

just think of a computer software program that has a certain set of rules....if then statements, etc....then think of DNA and explain...then who set the rules? randomly appeared? - Pokai

You're welcome, Trevor. (For what?) Robert: I'm sad that you're hiding the conversation. Nobody's pissed off. (Yet??) And I'm certainly not reading that anyone is trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm simply seeing different opinions here. And I like that. As far as seeing God: not in the way I'm assuming you mean. But I see the God-Effect everywhere, not to be confused with the Scoble Effect. ;-) Ocean, Wind, my own body-muscles, bones, blood, organs, blah, blah, blah. Standard argument. :-) - Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™

thanks lisa, I think we should whip Scoble into the posted 60 foot monster wave (by Mitchell Tsai) and see what happens to his belief system....then he can tell us what happened to George Carlin :) - Pokai

Because few deities are open source. - Craig Thomler

I am of the view that historically and currently that Established Religions are a cause of a lot of Evil in the world and that has always been a major switch off for me about any Church. - David W

because they don't like the fact that there is something they cannot explain? or maybe because they don't like the fact that there is something that is (could be) controlling them? - Timo Zimmermann from twhirl

I think the questions of humility/uncertainty vs. "we know whats best" views of religion can correspond well to the tech world...there are entrepreneurs looking for what has been the missing, the algebraic X, the unknown that hasnt been built yet or thought of (think of major advances like RSS or SNs a la twitter or friend feed...and then there was the aol way of thinking where they thought they could comprehend entirely the social aspects of the web in a closed platform...geek doesnt always = athiest - joshuabacker

One reason the I am turned off by religion is that each one tends to believe that their version is the only version. Some even to the point of professing to kill others that do not believe the way they do. There is very little tolerance of other points of view. Most Christian religions profess tolerance of others and I'm sure their are some groups that do practice this, but I find significant hypocrisy with most religious institutions between what they preach and how the really act. - Jeff P. Henderson

ok kambiz, interesting, but what makes the same genetic material become a frog, dog or human? - Pokai

@Pokai, Mutation. - Jeff P. Henderson

I really loved this part of the article:The absence of proof does not mean there is no proof at all; but it does give a strong reason to doubt if there is any. Geeks have conditioned themselves to think logically, just as the religious have been conditioned to replace logic with trust in what they are told. What can be extracted from this is that geeks are not atheists simply because they may know "more" but also because they choose to think differently (whether or not they think superiorly is a question for another debate). - Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™

I agree david. I wonder why intelligence is their defense. - Pokai

Continued from previous post: I liked that part for the reminder to keep thinking. I don't ever want to be conditioned to think one thing only whether I'm wearing my Christian hat, my geek hat, my caretaker hat, etc. I don't think we can generalize either way. I agree with David - and with Jeff regarding hypocrisy. It's one reason I hesitate to enter into discussion of beliefs. I know I'm being lumped right now by some of you; but I'd rather try to state my own point of view than sit back and be lumped. - Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™

I unhid this for a second just to see what direction it went in. I'm hiding again. Some things haven't changed in 10 years, I see. Sigh. See, I used to participate in every religious thread in Visual Basic Programmer's Journal's CompuServe forum (after moving them to that magazine's "OffRamp" which is where we moved stuff that went off topic). The conversations always degenerated just like this one has into calling the other side names. No one ever learns anything. So, Lisa, sorry. I'm getting older I guess - Robert Scoble

than you kamrani and jeff for your clarification, - Pokai

Bye, Robert... Does this mean you won't come to the parties I host at the Ritz once I move to HMB?? ;-) I'm sure I'll get the chance to discuss greater issues such as religion with you at some time when there will be no name-calling. :-) - Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™

i think scoble just faked hiding, but he is still reading...funny how scoble made the first comment on this post... - Pokai

Oh, no. Do not doubt. Scoble is THE hider. :-) Eventually, he may look back, but he is the best of the hiders. I hide because he has inspired me to do so... Seriously. I always forget about it until he evangelizes it. Then I hide again. - Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™

This is a misconception - Alan Wilensky from twhirl

wow, I step away for a night, and look what I miss! - Andrew Badera

FWIW, I was born, christened, raised Roman Catholic. I was even an altar boy, but that was mostly due to the boredom I experienced, sitting in the pews. I don't claim to have all the answers -- I lean more towards labeling myself an agnost than atheist these days -- but I know, quite for certain, that organized religions don't have it any more right than I do. - Andrew Badera

Nobel physics Stephen Hawking: No need the God model - Igor Poltavskiy

Creators of religions (or any influential belief system) are interesting (perhaps as much for their pathologies as anything else). Followers of belief systems created by others are not interesting, at least in that aspect of their lives that is organized around a script that they didn't create. They are sleep walkers. - Sean McBride

First, not all deity-based religions claim to be the right and only way. In fact, Judaism is based on the idea that it is right for Jews and probably not right for anyone else. It's partially because of this sense of exclusivity that probably fuels Antisemitism. Also, when a lot of people say 'religion', they usually mean just Christianity because it's all they know. It's unfair to other religions to be so blindly grouped. - Akiva

I was raised in a Christian household and definitely see HUGE problems with Religion and the "Church" at large. In fact, I am so bothered, I stopped going to church as a result and am routinely offended by the all non-sense/crap espoused by religious groups and church organizations. I believe God exists. I have no unbelief in this regard as I have personally experienced some wonderful spiritual events (2 miracles in fact - 1 documented by dental x-rays). I see tons of fallacies with religion - very sad. - Susan Beebe

Akiva - ethnic nationalist ideologies -- particularly messianic ethnic nationalist ideologies -- are by definition exclusionary, polarizing and a trigger of violent conflict with ethnic outsiders. Universalist religions like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are largely attempts to overcome the problems and limitations of ethnic nationalism. - Sean McBride

On my good days I'm an agnostic, my bad days an atheist. On the whole all religions try to describe the same thing, make sense of our world and how we should conduct ourselves. I remember being at my Grandmother's funeral (Catholic) and thinking that the words (return to Christ etc) were so comforting ... and it was then that I thought they were wrong. Those words are designed to be comforting and that was by human design IMO. Seek god in your own way and live accordingly - see Stranger in a Strange Land. - AJ Kohn

Where do you get those statistics that geeks are typically athiest? Faith takes courage and conviction. I am a Christian as are many of the riders I know. - Dave Ploch

Sean, last I checked, 'universalism' isn't achieved by oppression, forced conversions, or the outright murdering of people of differing beliefs. Furthermore, Buddhism shouldn't be grouped with Islam and Christianity because Buddhism isn't a proselytizing religion. In fact, I would say that Buddhism and Judaism are more universalist than Christianity and Islam for this very reason. They say, 'You do your thing and we'll do ours.' Not, 'You do our thing or we're coming after you.' - Akiva

Faith mentality: don't question me, don't challenge me, believe and do what I say. Hacker mentality: question everything, challenge everything. Guess which mindset produces the more interesting creative work. - Sean McBride

Akiva: Judaism (especially in its Zionist mode) is an ethnic nationalist ideology or cult organized around the interests of a particular ethnic group. Ethnic nationalism is the direct antithesis of universalism. Buddhism bears little meaningful resemblance to Judaism or religious Zionism. Christianity and Islam have committed many crimes over the ages, that is true. Aggressive fanaticism and intolerance seem to be central features of nearly all monotheistic/Abrahamic cults. - Sean McBride

I don't want to seem ignorant or prejudiced, but is Judaism not highly non-universalist? Laws against marrying non-Jews etc. - Alexander Carlill

Alexander, the best way I can put it is how a Rabbi once put it to me: 'It's better to be a righteous non-Jew than to be a non-righteous Jew.' In other words, Judaism prefers people to follow a different religion that is better suited to them rather than be forced to become Jewish. To me, that's more universal. Live and let live. - Akiva

Sean, and there it is. I'm ringing the bell. - Akiva

Alexander: Judaism is intensely ethnocentric at the core, but various currents in the Jewish tradition have tried to move in a more universalist direction -- Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, secular Jewish movements (how about Einstein?), etc. Notice how much of the Old Testament revolves around wars between "Israel" and other ethnic/nationalist groups ("the nations") -- it's the dominant motif of much of the Bible. - Sean McBride

Akiva: I see. I'm going to stick with atheism for the foreseeable future, but I think I'm relatively righteous... Thanks for the info. - Alexander Carlill

Alexander, oops, yep. I should've written 'a different religion, agnosticism, or atheism.' I did not in any way mean to imply that only religious people can be righteous. The two, sadly, are sometimes mutually exclusive which is something Judaism seeks to avoid. - Akiva

Akiva -- to which branch of Judaism are you referring? Some factions are incredibly intolerant; others are the soul of tolerance. Some of Israel's chief rabbis have made public statements that are extremely intolerant towards various ethnic and religious groups (including towards other Jewish religious factions). One finds the same problems in the Christian and Muslims worlds -- fundamentalist voices of intolerance often drown out more reasonable voices. See, for instance, John Hagee on Roman Catholicism. - Sean McBride

Sean, how about not hijacking this post to yet again aggressively espouse your opinions on Judaism (and Israel)? - Akiva

Akiva -- has the discussion suddenly become too sensitive for you in some way? You sound like you'd like to censor it. Let me ask again: which branch of Judaism are you referring to here? Orthodox? Conservative? Reform? Reconstructionist? Seems like a perfectly reasonable question. Also, a great deal of Christian fundamentalism in America revolves around Israel, does it not? Bush reportedly started a disastrous war in Iraq largely because of his religious beliefs. Iran may be next. - Sean McBride

Sean, it's very clear that you have a bone to pick and you can chase me around FriendFeed until your Keds fall apart but I am not going to feed your hunger. Thus, reasonable or not, I am not answering your questions. You seem only to be interested in answers that can fuel your soapbox, anyway. If this makes you feel superior or victorious, that's fine. That's a delusion I will lose no sleep over. - Akiva

Akiva -- you haven't replied in a rational way to a single particular point I've raised here -- your responses have been emotional. And this is very typical behavior for religionists of all kinds -- they have difficulty handling a rational discussion about non-rational beliefs. Judaism is a very complex subject -- the tradition includes numerous competing and contradictory factions. Overgeneralizing about Judaism, Christianity and Islam is an intellectual error, in my opinion. - Sean McBride

Actually, my responses have been very rational. I'm just addressing your motives and not your points. You just can't seem to understand the fact that you are not entitled to someone's answers just because you ask them questions. - Akiva

Akiva -- you're addressing motives, and not the substantive points being addressed in this thread? That is not how reasonable people conduct rational discussions and debates. If you can't handle logical, factual and civil challenges to your beliefs, probably public discussion forums aren't a favorable medium for you. :) For others here, I will simply reiterate: there are several strains of Judaism, some extremely intolerant, some very tolerant. This is a fact known to any serious student of world religions. - Sean McBride

Ah, more smug responses with implied insults. Gotta love the Internet. - Akiva

Akiva -- a simple question: is Judaism a monolithic tradition (as you have implied), or is it a diverse and self-contradictory tradition? Do the ultra-Orthodox agree with Reform Jews? Do the ultra-Orthodox even agree with one another? (They do not.) No wonder geeks and hackers for the most part try to steer clear of religious squabbling and wars! -- it tends to be a real energy-waster. - Sean McBride

Akiva: I wasn't accusing you of implying anything, merely commenting on my own situation. So no need to apologise. - Alexander Carlill

Jack: but neither does twitter, and geeks love that. - Alexander Carlill