Frankly my knee-jerk reaction on some of the above comments was to start picking apart their reasoning and thinking of ways to explain why they're wrong. I was gearing up to drop some bombs. I have done this a lot. The internet is full of it. And it sucks.
There's so much of "I'm just pointing out the flaws in other people's reasoning". It's more than just snootiness; it's exhausting for everyone, even the out-pointer and out-pointed. It saps energy and....damn it...I'm doing it right now. The end result is just a cloud of bad feelings.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could write something on the internet and people would just listen....fuuuuu...and maybe some people would agree, and you wouldn't have to have an argument? What a world!
I wish HN was way, way harsher with its commentary. I understand your perspective and realize I'm outnumbered here, but basically we fundamentally disagree (and that's okay!).
I'd rather see more arguments about controversial topics from people with differing perspectives who bring data and logic to make their points. I hate that many things feel heavily censored on this site.
I hate when people feel that harsh criticism isn't nice
I'm extrapolating here, but it sounds like you may often have this misconception w.r.t. metacriticism?
IME the issue people typically have with unnecessarily "harsh" criticism -- at least in engineering circles -- is that such unnecessarily harsh criticism is often counterproductive or at least wildly unproductive. I mean, what was the desired outcome here? Is criticizing some rando's spiritual practice supposed to benefit somebody, somehow?
I'm 1,000% in favor of speaking out or better yet, acting out when folks' religious beliefs interfere with others' freedoms. But I think that pretty clearly is not what was happening here.
I'm an atheist, but for the most part I enjoyed reading others spiritual practices.
It is useful to learn about others; empathy and understanding are incredibly valuable even if one views the world from a strictly Machiavellian lens (though I hope that folks do not).
There is also much that the non-religious can learn from the religious. What I got from many posts here was a sense of the purpose, meaning, and/or serenity that many of these folks derive from their spiritual practices.
Call me crazy, but those are qualities many of us would like to enhance in our lives. I think there is much to learn from them.