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Poll: Are You Religious?

6 points by asim ↗ HN
I'm curious to know what people here believe. I guess I've wondered based on a skew towards engineering whether people are opposed to a higher power or if it's actually something that makes them reflect and see that there must be a creator.

16 comments

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synack
Only about text editors
anovikov
I think there's a big difference in what it means to be religious in the US and rest of the developed world. Extremely few people in EU are religious (at least as long we mean Christian) in a way that passes for "religious" in the US. So you should interpret results with care.

I personally voted "yes" without a bit of doubt, but i understand in the US i'd be probably labelled as "none".

asim
What does it mean to be religious to you? Like what does it actually mean on a day to day basis? Is that different to what life would be like without say some form of God consciousness?
anovikov
None at all. Being a religious Christian in Europe is mostly about accepting the general values of Judeo-Christian tradition and not being overtly atheist. Almost no one goes to church or observes any religious traditions at all, yet most people claim to be Christians.

As long as someone doesn't badmouth Jesus nor claims that religion is "opium for the masses", they pass for Christian in EU.

LinuxBender
Militant Agnostic.
mrkeen
Agnostic ("not knowing") is just a label. How do you act in the real world?

If a Book says not to eat the bacon, do you stop eating the bacon because of what the Book said? You can't be agnostic about bacon.

JohnFen
Why can't you be agnostic about bacon? An agnostic stance would likely be that what the Book says is just one view and isn't necessarily reflective of truth. Whether or not they actually eat bacon is likely not determined by whatever the book's stance is.
mrkeen
Did you or did you not eat it?
JohnFen
I'm failing to see how whether or not you did has anything to do with your opinion of what the book says, unless of course you are a believer in the book, in which case you aren't agnostic.
LinuxBender
A militant agnostic knows they do not know and nor does anyone else.
overu589
Couldn’t there be different kinds of “higher power”? Our greatest mistakes lie in our expectations, for they obscure and misattribute those actual things we could not anticipate.
mrkeen
It would be necessarily so. A creator would need his own creator if you buy into the sentiment that we require a creator.
overu589
Universal Potential is Godhead!

Either way you look at it.

JohnFen
> whether people are opposed to a higher power or if it's actually something that makes them reflect and see that there must be a creator.

I think that's a false dichotomy. Most people who are atheist are not "opposed to a higher power" at all. You have to think something exists to be opposed to it.

marssaxman
I sometimes find religious or spiritual concepts useful as abstractions for describing aspects of life in our complex world, but I don't take them literally.

I think that my values and motivations are basically those of a spiritual person, and if I lived in some past era I might have become a priest. In the present, though, I am just an atheist who cares a lot about community and social justice.