SeanAhern's Journal: Social discourse on Slashdot

It's discussions like this, full of a boatload of misconceptions about the role of religion, charity, and politics, that make me want to just go to ars full time.

I'm a professional, successful scientist, working at a world-class scientific laboratory, doing my best to make an impact on basic energy, climate, and materials science. I'm also a conservative Catholic Christian, exactly the type of person that most of the people in this discussion are railing against. If you followed all of the bile, you'd think that being a scientist and being a Christian were completely incompatible. I have never believed so. In fact, I consider them inextricable.

And it would seem that my colleagues find the positions compatible as well. I don't have the statistics here, but I believe that something like 75% of scientists believe in God.

Yes, I know I should get involved with the conversation, try to pull /. away from the teetering liberal bastion it is, but discussions like this just make me tired. It takes a lot of energy to keep it up.

Edit: I decided to toss my hat into the fray.

main articles

[stoolpigeon]

Decent discussion is incredibly difficult to find in the main threads. It is there sometimes but you have to filter through a ton of noise to find it. A lot of people have completely given up on it. I still read them because I find things that are worthwhile, but I've also had to get pretty good at avoiding the junk. The journals are where the good stuff happens. And even there - you have some crap, but the volume is more manageable.

Don't bother

[robi2106]

Although if you have the free time, it may be a good way to hone our rhetorical typing skills. But other than that... it is useless to talk about that sort of thing on the front page. Too much ignorance shouted at the top of someone's karma posting limit.

jason

Random Political Highjack

[Planesdragon]

Yes, I know I should get involved with the conversation, try to pull /. away from the teetering liberal bastion it is, but discussions like this just make me tired. It takes a lot of energy to keep it up.

What makes you think that atheism is somehow more liberal than conservative?

Re:Random Political Highjack

[SeanAhern]

What makes you think that atheism is somehow more liberal than conservative?

It's a fair question.

I present it as such because of the efforts of many liberal political entities to remove any trace of religion from public life. It's not done to promote atheism, per se, though of course it does exactly that. It's being done as if any private expression of religion in a public forum is a governmental endorsement of religion.

It's an atheistic agenda being pushed primarily by liberal entities.

I'll reverse the q

Re:Random Political Highjack

[Planesdragon]

Good answer.

What makes you think that this movement [atheism] is not a liberal one?

Personal expereince that religious people can be very liberal, and atheists very conservative.

Then again, I also seperate agnosticism and atheism, which leaves a lot of the "atheist" movements as not.

Re:Random Political Highjack

[SeanAhern]

Personal expereince that religious people can be very liberal, and atheists very conservative.

That can certainly be true. My personal experience would say that religious people can be very liberal, but it's a fairly rare conservative who is an atheist. But that's just me.

Then again, I also seperate agnosticism and atheism, which leaves a lot of the "atheist" movements as not.

For discussions such as this one, it can be important to separate the two. And be sure to define whether agnosticism means "unsure