The Bible as historical non-fiction is most certainly absurd, no implications about that. Not saying so out of sensitivity to those who believe otherwise does reason a disservice, just as not calling out Bolzmann because I don't want to offend him. If this makes anyone unwelcome, they should avoid places where their fragile ego might be challenged by rational conclusions. In a place like hacker news, I see no reason to let sensistivity toward faith restrict my speech any more than sensitivity toward programming language choice. Invite me for dinner and I will respect your religious and any other beliefs. Have a scientific debate in a web forum with me, and I will speak without concern for challenging you. It's not a personal attack to say the Bible is absurd - it's the truth.
By the same standard, "SOPA sucks. Just like PHP/Java." is appropriate. "PHP/Java sucks" may be appropriate when discussing programming languages, but dragging it into a thread about SOPA does not help.
I'm not sure I understand your point. "SOPA sucks. Just like PHP/Java" is a useless statement, since the only thing the two have in common is "sucking."
The Bible is an alternative theory of the origin and purpose of existence, and is directly analogous to the matter of this thread.
Comments
The Bible as historical non-fiction is most certainly absurd, no implications about that. Not saying so out of sensitivity to those who believe otherwise does reason a disservice, just as not calling out Bolzmann because I don't want to offend him. If this makes anyone unwelcome, they should avoid places where their fragile ego might be challenged by rational conclusions. In a place like hacker news, I see no reason to let sensistivity toward faith restrict my speech any more than sensitivity toward programming language choice. Invite me for dinner and I will respect your religious and any other beliefs. Have a scientific debate in a web forum with me, and I will speak without concern for challenging you. It's not a personal attack to say the Bible is absurd - it's the truth.
By the same standard, "SOPA sucks. Just like PHP/Java." is appropriate. "PHP/Java sucks" may be appropriate when discussing programming languages, but dragging it into a thread about SOPA does not help.
I'm not sure I understand your point. "SOPA sucks. Just like PHP/Java" is a useless statement, since the only thing the two have in common is "sucking."
The Bible is an alternative theory of the origin and purpose of existence, and is directly analogous to the matter of this thread.