ANYWAY, IMO, I could care less what any individual believes in. I base my views on people I meet and how they treat me and others during my encounters. I never think, “hmm… what does he/she believe in?” I personally don’t care, and think that should not affect ANY relationships. If someone shares the same beliefs, good for them. If not, grow up and deal with it, being offended is a cop out if you ask me. EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING gets made fun of and thats a fact of life.

I’m bald. I wear glasses. I’m a little fat too. Offend me, I don’t care, i’ll probably laugh with you.

To me, this debate is the same as asking which is better, mac or PC? IT DOES NOT MATTER. both are tools used to get certain results.

Do you believe in web standards? me too! nice to meet you.

How about we get back to making the web a better place and not get caught up in the endless debate of faiths…. many people are on that same road and its a neverending story. I personally don’t want to spend my time there, life is short, I have better things to do.

And, although I can’t speak for him, I imagine he meant “whatever name you call him” to include even something as insignificant as power, money, social status, etc. We all have some sort of “god” that drives us, that gives us purpose and to dismiss this fact can leave one chasing an impotent purpose and never have any clue of it.

Perhaps all of us, religious or not, are simply and understandably afraid of being scorned or rejected for our most deeply held beliefs.

Now, while I enjoyed Andy’s podcast, I simply had to question the need to tell people they need God to have purpose. Maybe that makes me a shallow Christian for thinking that, but I just don’t think the context was right for that discussion. I think that is why so many designers/developers in the community were shocked. They liked the rest of his podcast, except for that one line. That one line caused people to passionately speak out against him, scorn him, unsubscribe from him – whatever action they took.

I am a Christian, I have no problem saying that. I do believe that context plays a big part in this. It is like the guy on the street corner with a bull horn shouting ‘You need Jesus, repent or go to hell forever’ – the context simply isn’t right. What does that man know about the people walking along the street? Who is he to tell someone else what they need – when he doesn’t even know them?

So, that may sound shallow on my part. I still enjoy Andy’s podcast, and I will continue to listen. While I don’t necessarily agree with his approach – I don’t think it is worth scorning him.

Aside from his stance, I was equally surprised at some of the very rude and shallow responses. He spoke about his belief, people didn’t agree, so they spoke out and told him his belief was wrong (essentially saying theirs was right?). So what makes them any different?

Maybe it is about finding a balance between work and personal, between the people you meet face to face and know, and the people you meet online and only know their online personality. It all comes back to context.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. – Mark Twain

In the case of religion (or lack thereof) somebody’s belief “just ain’t so”. I respect those who know for sure that God doesn’t exist and I expect people to respect those of as who know for sure that He does. As Jared said above, “here’s to hoping we all take the high road!”

For that reason, I think a lot of people suppress their beliefs and convictions out of respect for those around them. If you believe that the idea of a higher power is patently ridiculous, this isn�t so hard to do…. I�m afraid of pigeonholing myself as a Christian amongst people who admit that doing so will cause their respect for me to �slip a couple notches�.

Interesting that you say that, because in my conversations with various and sundry web folks, it’s usually the agnostics and atheists who talk about not mentioning their belief (or lack thereof) in order to avoid offending others, and that they feel pressure to keep their lack of religion to themselves in order to avoid losing the respect of others.

Perhaps all of us, religious or not, are simply and understandably afraid of being scorned or rejected for our most deeply held beliefs.

There have been a number of times in my business life where the topic of my faith has been brought up. I don’t make a point of announcing it in business affairs, but if clients, etc., bring up the topic I’m not afraid to discuss it — if it’s appropriate (as in, they aren’t doing it to be combative).

I agree with you that the web development world is seemly agnostic. That has been my observation as well. It’s a shame that the fine folks who work so much with programming, design, math, algorithms, human interaction, order and so forth, haven’t seen what Galileo observed:

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.

Who knows if Galileo was a Christian in the true Biblical sense? (God knows.) But he was keen enough to observe the precision and composition of the world and universe around us and that God was responsible for it.

Your post calls to mind Proverbs 29:25…

The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.

At the end of the day, we all have to make decisions on how much of our personal lives we let come out in our professional arenas. It seems unfair to have to “hide” what one believes from others for the fear of being painted with a very wide brush, but that’s the kind of world we live in, it seems.

Strangely enough, I support everyone’s comment in the matter. Discuss. Learn. Ideally, these incidents should be an opportunity for learning how to live and work together. Here’s to hoping we all take the high road!