Eyes Above The Waves

Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Repatriate Kiwi. Hacker.

Sunday 6 March 2016

My Self-Identification

The Hackernews discussion about me leaving Mozilla touched on how I identify myself as a Christian at the top of my blog. I do it for a few reasons.

One person said it does turn me off because of what it might imply As far as personal biases. That's close to one reason why I do it: my Christian worldview should pervade everything I do, and I think it's honest to declare those "biases" openly so people can take them into account. When this leads some people to form negative first impressions, I think that's better than letting them proceed with false assumptions.

A pitfall for that approach is that so many people's impression of what it means to be a Christian is inaccurate. But that's another reason why I self-identify this way: the more "ordinary Christians" stay in the closet, the more people's impressions of Christians are shaped by the extreme cases the media likes to dig up.

One reason I don't do it is virtue signalling. For the great majority of people who encounter me through my blog, being a Christian is no virtue.

Some people in the Hackernews thread saw it as proselytising. It really wasn't, just as "repatriate Kiwi, Mozilla hacker." was not encouragement to move to New Zealand and work on Firefox. Having said that, I'm all for proselytising in the right context. You can't be a Christian, believing that you have found the key to having your sins forgiven and being granted a relationship with the God of the universe, and decide to keep it to yourself. Sure, I often find proselytisers of various kinds annoying, but I respect them for following through on the logic of their convictions.

Comments

Steve Fink
I have to confess, your tagline bothers me a bit. But in my case, it's because somehow all of the early words are long and kind of unfamiliar, so my brain settles on the final "Kiwi. Hacker." Which leads me to think of something like http://www.simplifylivelove.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/DSC_0008-1024x680.jpg (no, seriously) As for the Christian part, I interpret it to mean "I am a Christian and that is important to me." I suppose if you were to put that in the header of an academic CS research paper or every rr commit message, I would find it off-putting, but on a personal blog, it... well... what's the problem again?
Josh Cogliati
"A pitfall for that approach is that so many people's impression of what it means to be a Christian is inaccurate." What effect does it have in how you act that you are a Christian? What effect does being a Christian have how you treat scientific evidence? (Context: I am Unitarian Universalist, if pressed for detail I might say I am an imperfect follower of Jesus Christ, Buddha and Richard Feynman. I suppose in practice I don't think my morals have changed much since I considered myself a United Methodist. But I do try to take seriously the possibility that I am wrong, and that I need to try and make the world better.)
Robert
> What effect does it have in how you act that you are a Christian? A large question with large answers that don't really fit in a blog comment :-). One powerful effect is that I naturally like to think of myself as an awesome person and being a Christian sabotages such thoughts. A couple of fundamental truths are that I'm a sinner and that forgiveness for my sins is entirely by God's grace and not earned. Every time I think "I'm so great ...", "I must be right ...", and "I deserve ..." an inner voice is yelling back "no, no, no". Another effect is that having a rational basis for action is really important to me and without Christianity (or possibly some other religion based on truth claims that bridges the is-ought barrier) I'm afraid I might become a bit of a psychopath. No-one wants to see that! > What effect does being a Christian have how you treat scientific evidence? It makes me treasure scientific evidence because I'm acutely aware of man's capacity for self-delusion in his fallen state and the scientific method, properly applied, is one of the best mitigations of that. The same awareness makes me skeptical of many reported scientific results. (Though another big factor there is having actually participated in "scientific" research myself :-).) As a Christian, I don't need to make science answer questions it can't, so it stays in its proper place. > I do try to take seriously the possibility that I am wrong, and that I need to try and make the world better Good for you!
dx
>Every time I think "I'm so great ...", "I must be right ...", and "I deserve ..." an inner voice is yelling back "no, no, no". That doesn't sound good! I barely know you and it's obvious that you're outstanding, it's silly to deny it. The version of christianity that I was taught didn't include anything like that, and I've never heard of anyone else who takes it that way either. If this kind of thinking is actually lowering your self-esteem, you should seriously reconsider.
Robert
C'mon, I'm sure your version of Christianity included Romans 3 and Luke 18 :-). I'm good at some things, sure; I'm not into false humility. But "I'm a sinner" and "forgiveness for my sins is entirely by God's grace and not earned" are also facts.
Evan Jones
I am an atheist but believe strongly that you have a right to identify as a Christian, and to proudly proclaim it on your blog. That should not affect anyone's opinions about your technical abilities. I know sadly we do not live in that more perfect world. However, I think it is worth occasionally reminding people then that we are not one-sided. Each of us have different beliefs and lives, but we can still work together and have interesting discussions about software. I think racism and sexism are bigger issues in our industry than religious discrimination, but they are all different sides of the same problem. Thanks for writing about it.
Robert
Thanks for the support!