It’s all so easy for us ultra rational geeks to dismiss religion and people who have strong beliefs in something that is unseeable or unprovable, but in doing so, you are doing yourself a great disservice.
There are billions of humans, and the vast majority of them have a very strong faith in something that is not rational. For some, it’s a god, for others, it’s a king or a leader, for others, it’s a country, for some, it’s some cause and for a few, it’s in their own ability. This type of thing would not stick around within our societies were it not useful. And indeed, it is very useful, it’s actually one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. As a human, you are drawn towards having an overwhelming and powerful blind faith in something – and you are drawn towards this for a supremely rational reason. Faith motivates. As a rational person, I would not fight in a war. I’d just get myself killed, and that would not be nice. If I were in Nazi Germany, the rational thing would be to not help any jew. It’s dangerous and has no advantage for me. But why would I do it? I would do it because of my inner conviction that it’s the right thing to do. I would do it because even if everyone around me was telling me the opposite, even if I were alone in my quest, I would persist because I know that I am doing the right thing. That’s what the religions preach. They are telling you to simply decide within yourself, and simply believe that you are doing the right thing, and not be constantly swayed by the winds of rationality. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the rational person will change his mind more often than the person who believes. I’ve seen people who believe in a cause continue to stick with it for years and years, even when they were the only ones left. Rational people on the other hand, when they see something new and that makes more sense logically, they will change their mind. People who have faith have one absolute advantage over those who do not – their path is always clear. They know what they are doing, they know why they are doing it, and even when they doubt, they can always fall back in blind trust in some invisible thing. And they are happier, because as each step along their route unfolds and turns out to be right, their faith increases and their belief that the problems will always be overcome with more faith grows. Using the word “faith” is an instant turn-off for most geeks, but you can replace it with “passion”. It’s the same thing. It’s like a person who is passionate for nicely designed things. Why does he insist on making it nice when average looking would do just fine? It’s because he believes it should look good – and he believes as blindly and irrationally as any person crying out and speaking in tongues in a baptist church. Don’t dismiss blind belief in something. It’s an extra-ordinary tool. It’s fundamentally human, and when you rationalize it away, you are are taking away one of those quirks that make us human – those strange things like love and laughter and revenge that should not be there, but are, and separate us from machines. An extra-ordinary programmer believes that software should be beautiful. A rational programmer believes that software should be bug-free and work. One does what is required of him, and the other does has an inner belief in the way it should be. The religious person will think – if I follow the path of my god, and strive to achieve the tenets of my religion, then all will be right with me. The artist will think – if I work on making this thing absolutely lovely, then all will be right with me. The programmer will think – if I strive on making this some of the best code I can write, then all will be good.People with faith don’t dwell on the “why”. They don’t second guess themselves. They don’t think “why do I believe in a god”. They don’t think “why must this be beautiful”. They don’t think “why must this code be very well written”. They just know that it must be that way. Their internal compass tells them so.
The concepts of programming vs religion seem far apart, but faith is all about a belief in a “way” without questioning the “why”. Once you give up the doubting, then you are working on faith and belief, and it makes some things easier, and some things harder.
Having faith in what you are doing streamlines your journey. You stop questioning, and start forging ahead as quickly as you can, and it turns out you are then able to achieve much more.
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I really enjoyed this article. Came in the right time of my life too.
It sounds like you’re a rational person trying to rationally justify your admiration of a designer/programmer who has religious beliefs.Assuming that people of faith don’t dwell on the “why” or question “why do i believe in god” is fairly ignorant and just perpetuates the way main stream media portrays religious people as whack job fundamentalists. You presume that they have faith/passion to be great artists/programmers because they lack logic or rationality- and good for them because that just hinders smart people.Just because someone has faith in a god doesn’t make them any more or less capable of designing/programming anything great. Inspiration can come from many places, whether they be secular or not. Having passion is just a human trait, regardless of whether it’s by divinity or rational logic.
So what’s about women? Is passion for women religious? We don’t need religion to do what we enjoy to do.Here’s what you might call a belief, but this is really an observation. Enjoyment is the primary factor in mastering any skill (and being skilled might have nice side effects). You can only master a skill if you love the process itself. Those who only want the result don’t get far. That’s why you should “follow your heart”.The question I’d like to answer before I die is how do we acquire passion and how can we let other people feel the same kind of joy we do. Maybe some kinds of joy are easier for us to experience, and others are a bit harder. What conditions would simplify the jump. If I can find a joy in business, then I’m going to make money.A bit on good design. Good design is an effective interaction at it’s core. If the most comfortable temperature for you is 25C, and water freezes in your house, it’s not an effective interaction between you and your house, it’s not a good design. (The house might be ok for snakes to live in, it’s the interaction that is wrong). So why would anybody question good design. It doesn’t always stand for good graphic execution or clearness, it means effective. Who doesn’t want to be effective. That’s reasonable, that doesn’t require you to be religious or passionate.
Your are confusing morality with faith and religion. It has already been proven that morality that not arise from neither. Morality is something that is inherently human.
I don’t think a rational programmer expects things to be bug-free (unless it is for safety critical systems) — they expect that the bugs that are fixed make sense against the trade-offs of effort to fix, risk of defect injection, and severity of the bug
Regarding religion: The path is not so clear for all with faith. Imagine being a rational religionist, and given the many doctrines that oppose each other within the same faith (e.g. different denominations), how do you ascertain which ones are right. I have found that many are based off a modern day perspective which leads out the historical context. Take for instance 3 days and 3 nights for Jesus’ death and resurrection. I’ve seen some nutty theories trying to crush 2 days and 2 nights (e.g. Friday and Sunday) — because they lack the textual hint of Mt 28:1 which has “After the Sabbath” in english, but Sabbaths is plural in the Greek. This then becomes easily explainable when you realize that the passover celebration had an annual Sabbath, and there was also a weekly Sabbath, then you find it possible to have a rational 3 days and 3 nights, just as other texts state. Just a minor example 
Religious faith and reason, or rationality, are not opposed to one another.I highly recommend the following resources: Fides et ratio, Veritatis splendor, Spe salvi, Fr. Copleston vs. Bertrand Russell: Debate on the Existence of God
This type of thing would not stick around within our societies were it not useful.This is simply not true. There are plenty of useless things that stuck around for a very long time — medical treatment with leeches, for instance, lasted thousands of years (yes, I know they are now used again; no, not for the same things as they were previously thought to be useful for). Second, the question of what is “useful” depends upon who you are. It is certainly useful for priests that people have faith — otherwise, they would have to get honest jobs. It is useful for doctors that their patients believe their treatments work (whether or not they do). And it is useful for men to believe that women are stupid, because it reduces competition for jobs. When people find it useful that others believe something (true or false), they will go to great lengths to promote it. . If I were in Nazi Germany, the rational thing would be to not help any jew.That’s rational if you place zero value on the lives of other people. I don’t know many people who don’t care at all about other people.Rationality is simply this: your process for deciding what to believe about the world leads you to form true beliefs. That’s all there is to it. You think of someone rational as someone who doesn’t appreciate beauty or struggle, but this is a confusion. One can be perfectly rational while still having normal human values. By normal human values, I mean things like appreciation of beauty, freedom, love, joy, fun, etc. Questions about how these goals are likely to be achieved are the domain of rationality. But the values themselves are at their heart facts about humans. Rational humans are curious how those values come about, and how best to achieve them, but they are themselves still humans, with human values.
Geeks have their own religions. Open source, open standards, which enable sharing with competitors, build communities, etc.. Geeks didn’t know if these things would work out, but they are unreasonably passionate about them. These community building efforts have been slow and failed in key places (like getting designers to contribute) and yet the passions run high.The open movement, and any movement is a religion as far as the brain is concerned. You couldn’t tell them apart with a brainscan, even though the dogmas are a bit different.
You might also be interested in this article I recently read, which directly addresses your specific concerns about religion and happiness or effectiveness.
I loved this post. I agree, being completely rational may not be necessarily a good thing because it is always possible that some of this rationale is rooted in something that isn’t completely true.Whenever one of my religious friends asks me what do I have faith in or what is my purpose in life if not for Christ? I always tell them I have faith in myself and my purpose is to be successful in whatever I do and make a positive impact on the world.I would add to Alisey’s post saying that enjoyment is closely followed by motivation as another factor.
Belief or faith is only helpful or beneficial when it matches reality.