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Comment by spindritf | Hacker News Reader

> I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist?

That's because the underlying assumptions are false. Being religious doesn't require one to be "clueless about rationality" and supporting SOPA doesn't requre the supporter to be clueless about technology -- they may as well hope to benefit from breaking the Internet.

As every regulation (the more severe, the better) it will give an advantage to established companies over startups and newcomers, maybe even allow the former to became gate-keepers of the Internet business; DMCA allowed for attempts at censorship (silencing criticism by claiming trademarks), SOPA will take it to a whole new level; supporting SOPA signals loyalty to the entertainment industry; etc.

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Of course, if a company is hell-bent on killing startups, there is also no reason to invite them to Demo Day, even if they understand technology well enough to know how to kill startups.

Being religious doesn't require one to be "clueless about rationality"

Absolutely correct. You don't have to be clueless about rationality to be religious; you can also explicitly reject rationality, even though you understand it.

But if you don't reject it, then it's quite difficult to accept any of the Big Three religions and simultaneously convince yourself that you're embracing an evidence-based worldview. That's not to say a few haven't spun up enough cognitive dissonance to manage it, but it's exceedingly difficult and rare.

And as a rule, yes - to someone of the current generation, it does cast serious doubt on someone's scientific abilities when it comes to light that they are religious, especially since it's no longer as socially unacceptable to reject religious beliefs.

> But if you don't reject it, then it's quite difficult to accept any of the Big Three religions and simultaneously convince yourself that you're embracing an evidence-based worldview.

Every worldview is based in faith. The very act of considering any evidence requires trust (faith, if you will) in the value of input provided by our senses. There is no and there cannot be any evidence for that value either way.

Best we can do is analyze reasons for our beliefs, keep them logical, and consistent with experience. Which, coincidentally, is one of the meanings of the word "rational."

> And as a rule, yes - to someone of the current generation, it does cast serious doubt on someone's scientific abilities when it comes to light that they are religious

That's normal and OK -- we all hold a (pretty large usually) number of conscious and unconscious prejudices. So much for evidence-based worldview btw.

> Every worldview is based in faith.

This is just religious apologetic and it's not really true.

This is the definition of faith in this context:

> Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without evidence supporting the claim or disregarding all evidence to the contrary

Religion is explicitly not based on evidence, and is explicitly not disprovable. You believe something despite no evidence, that is faith. Believing something as a best guess based on what actual evidence you have is not faith.

Hume, who was certainly no religious apologetic, would differ.

That's interesting, do you have a particular source in mind that I can read more?

My very limited knowledge is only that Hume was fairly critical of religion and that it wasn't really clear if he was a complete atheist because if he were any more hostile to Christianity than he was he would have been persecuted. Maybe I am assuming too much about the person I was replying to, but it sounds to me like he is defending Christianity as an equally defensible way to live your life, so I don't think invoking Hume here is actually supporting his argument.

It's worth clarifying that my claim is that I am trying to claim that faith is a subset of belief. That you can't possibly know anything for sure is incompatible with Christianity and all current major religions, and to act like making conclusions based on evidence with confidence levels is the same as saying you know Absolute Truth Just Because is clearly absurd.

The best original source is probably An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, though it covers much more than the point I'm talking about. The point I'm talking about is that, according to Hume, there's actually no reason to believe that the future will continue to be like the past. Without this premise--which must be accepted without evidence--empiricism is broken. A basic treatment of Hume's argument is available from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/#CauIndInfNegPha

You are doing this:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority...

Please. Your comment isn't helpful or productive; I am simply referring to an argument rather than rehashing it myself, as you can see from the follow up thread. If you want, you can follow that thread and learn some good philosophy. It would certainly be more enlightening than a smug link to a logical fallacy site.

Your religion-hate is false, and consequently your original argument too.

Rationality, correctly understood, values tradition. The correct attitude for progress is piecemeal reform. That need not start with religion. It should start wherever people's most pressing problems are. If someone's religion isn't ruining his life, but he has other stuff to deal with (a failing marriage, a startup, a scientific discovery he wants to make) then he isn't irrational to focus on that other stuff and leave the religion alone for now.

It's rational to recognize tradition - it's a huge millstone around the necks of those who engage in it and changing their minds will be much harder because of it.

But tradition itself is only valuable to cult leaders.

I've worked with brilliant and rational-when-it-comes-to-work researchers who happen to be sincerely religious.

I'd be more concerned with a scientist who happens to be convinced that he is destined to make great discoveries. (which, delusional or not, may inspire them to feats greater than otherwise). My concern would be for their intellectual honesty - the same concern caused by any strong religious or other ideological precommitment relevant to their work.

>> they may as well hope to benefit from breaking the Internet

Another good reason to turn them down.

I agree (both with you and jackowayed). It also definitely is an admirable move on pg's part.

That's why the Jesuits both benefited from teaching religion and from controlling education and knowledge in several countries in the past.

> Being religious doesn't require one to be "clueless about rationality"

Not necessarily, but it surely opens a window for irrationality, and what goes through that window depends on the stuff that happens to you.

That's usually called 'the call from God' and it is generally something bad like sickness or a the death of someone close.

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