I'm an atheist; I've read and studied the Bible as part of my catholic education 25 years ago.

Not that I'm strongly against it, but my attention is challenged by many things, and a man who starts an article about becoming a father with a clear sex-is-for-procreation Bible quote makes it sound like his experience of life is not relevant to mine.

You're behaving foolishly. If you spend just a moment looking at it you'd see the author isn't even taking the religious text he's quoting seriously! So your great fear of accidentally interacting with a religious individual is overblown.

Well, since you chose not to read it, and continue to choose thusly in similar situations, you'll never really be able to confirm or deny whether or not"his experience of life is relevant" to yours. Not sure what the point of engaging in discussion on an article you admit to refusing to read is...

So you are basically refusing to read this simply because the author is even willing to be aware of what's in the bible. What a bizarre and anti intellectual stance.

I've been seeing this strange kind of attitude more lately -- for example, I encountered a young person who refused to read books that were more than 20 years old "because they might have bigoted ideas in them since they're old"

But avoiding reading about the past because it scares you is a great way to remain stupid and cede control of the world to others without such hangups.

> God smote Onan, starting a 4,000-year-old tradition of religious people getting angry about wasting sperm on anything other than procreative sex.

I'm not "refusing" to read it. I just reacted on a comment.

Please don't comment on articles that you are unwilling to engage with beyond the headline alone. This is part of HN's rules to keep the discussion from being so superficial

I dunno. 'Ignorance is Bliss'. I only have so much brain capacity and attention, I'd rather direct it to what's important to me than leave it wide open to the sewage-infected firehose of incoming information that is life in the 21st Century.

An article who's title implies the inevitability of parenthood is probably not good mental fodder.

Oh, it didn't interest you enough to read? But it did interest you enough to comment!

In the paragraphs that follow he goes on to explain how people twisted their god's intent while writing the bible, at least on this particular topic.

> a man who starts an article about becoming a father with a clear sex-is-for-procreation Bible quote makes it sound like his experience of life is not relevant to mine

It's not like he believes any of it. He just quotes the bible because that makes for a funnier article.

As an atheist, mention or quotes from the bible are interesting to me because they help explain our current culture. I'm just challenging your proposal that (all) atheists are not curious.

Ah sorry for the confusion! I chose atheism because it seems diametrically opposed to Christianity in the US, but my intention wasn’t to single out atheists :) . The same sentiment I voiced in my first comment could be said about any religion or belief system: I won’t close an article with Buddhist, relativist, Muslim, etc views just because they mention their belief system.

I stopped when they grouped the NYT journalists with murderers and drug-dealers. Clearly someone biais, that also use the bible to make their points. No thank you.

It's because in Scott's recent past, an NYT journalist lied about wanting to write a positive article about him and being OK with using his pseudonym, then instead wrote a very negative article and doxxed him instead. The author is a psychiatrist with some unstable patients, and a blogger with some controversial opinions. It's a whole thing, I read that and chuckled at the tongue-in-cheek humor.

I don't agree with the grouping, but he is making a very specific, personal reference: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex#New_York_Time...>. It's referenced elsewhere as well, as noted in this comment here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38734207>

That's a half-joke, for what it's worth.