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Re:In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace by verisimilitudes on Thursday October 17, 2019 @02:04PM (#21284757)
You wrote that after a mere twenty minutes. Compared to how you've treated other inflammatory topics, one can't help but wonder if this is a sore spot for you. In any case, it's amusing because I'm in that set that would prefer Hacker News to actually discuss computer topics and not those such as this. My computing related articles usually go ignored, since you need to read more than the headline before you vomit forth your personal opinions, though, and the topic means not everyone is equally underqualified to give their opinion to start with.
Re:In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace by dang on Thursday October 17, 2019 @02:10PM (#21284822)
Alas, twenty minutes is plenty of time for a flamewar to get going. When I posted that, the thread consisted of comments like these:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21284379

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21284381

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21284266

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21284355

You're right that there's a sore spot for me, but it isn't religion—it's long experience with how wretched HN threads become as soon as religion is mentioned. But I should have been more careful and not posted hastily and vaguely.

If I hadn't intervened by posting and doing other standard moderation things, though, the thread would likely have become more of a flamewar. These things don't self-correct; would that they did. I made this case more complicated by posting in a way that stirred up additional waves—it was not a splash-free dive, like we usually try for. I was distracted and my irritation managed to grab the steering wheel.