Item — HN Reader

I liked the talk and was about to post a link to it in the $dayjob slack, but this threw me off as well. Still watched it to the end, and I still recommended it to a friend (along with the Youtube channel of the "Software should work" conf), but I'm saddened that the talk paints Christianity as something that is inflicted upon you and that you should strive to get rid of.

It's clear that he had a bad experience, and I'm nobody to tell him what to put on the slides and what to leave out, but my impression is that there are lots of believers out there who do cherish their faith, experience it as a very positive force in their lives, and draw from it the power to make the world a better place around them. Speaking for myself, I'd say faith has been a net positive so far in my life.

2 comments

You’re talking in general about your faith, when this presenter was talking about their specific experience of being raised by conservative Christian parents. I’m not even Christian, and it’s plain to me that there’s massive variation even within one denomination’s congregants, let alone a Baptist vs a Lutheran, for example. It seems like you extrapolated far beyond what he said.

> I’m not even Christian, and it’s plain to me that there’s massive variation even within one denomination’s congregants, let alone a Baptist vs a Lutheran

That's a fair point I agree with. Still, I've met many people who seemingly put all "flavors" of Christian faith in the same negative bucket (implicitly negating the diversity among Christians you call out in your comment). In light of that, my intention was to contribue to the conversation with the very same point you are making, backed by a data point from my own experience: that there are many Christian communities in which faith is practiced in a way that enriches your life, rather than shackling you to a cult.

> It seems like you extrapolated far beyond what he said.

Was it Andrew's intention to talk about Christianity in general? Now you mention it, he might indeed have been focusing only on people "raised by conservative Christian parents".

What if we treat all religions as programming languages for humans? Then a degree program for programming humans at the Omniversity would likely put you through several different religions and then through syncretisms of them.

Most people don't want to learn, so they don't choose to live in the Omniversity.