His answer regarding religion is in no way similar to Sherlock Holmes' rationale for not remembering the earth rotating around the sun.

This is not a good topic for a message board debate.

I read only the bit where he said that his whole world is very rational and he has only given the religion issue 3 minutes of thought. Maybe I missed something, but it seemed like a plausible explanation for somebody rational being religious. In fact to stop thinking about it after some point might be the only way to explain the existence of religion.

Why would it not be a good topic? I have often pondered asking HN how to deal with it, because I have a lot of religious friends and I am scared of losing them if I bring up religion as a topic. I would be interested how other HN users deal with that issue (assuming there are others who are not religious).

Also, religion might be the greatest hack ever.

Yes, you missed the message he was trying to communicate. He was being sarcastic.

Yes, you are likely to lose friends if you insist on debating their religious beliefs as if they were favorite programming languages. You do not endear yourself to them when you refer to religion as a "hack", in either common definition of the term.

The best way not to "deal" with this problem is to avoid it. Hence: bad topic for a message board debate.

If you feel any further urge to discuss this issue with me, and aren't just trying to score message board points about religion, my contact info is in my profile and you can feel free to ping me about this. I've invited you to talk to me about religion; feel free to take me up on it. Know that your parent comment is light grey because Patrick's response was intended to communicate almost the opposite of that invitation.

I think there's an interpretation of his comment that says he actually has given it significant thought.

> So basically religion doesn't impact you, and therefore you chose to not think about it at all?

I suppose you don't believe in sarcasm.