Why Is the Vatican at a Tech Conference? (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a BBC report: As Bishop Paul Tighe sat down for our interview, he joked that not only is he probably the only priest at South by Southwest, but also the only person with grey hair. His presence here marks the first time the Vatican has attended the South by Southwest Interactive conference, and their panel - titled Compassionate Disruption - is one of this year's most talked about events. "In a world where increasingly [we're] not invited to part of conversations, I think if people are interested in having us, we're delighted to be here. "I want to learn and get a feeling for what are the things that are driving a generation of people who are in many ways shaping the world as we know it. He glanced around the room. "Really deep down, I see a lot of people looking for some sort of connectivity." That's certainly true -- though I get the sense for delegates here that means good wi-fi, rather than a strong sense of faith. So Bishop Tighe's mission is to get this industry to find real value in both.

Comments

Re:Because the tech industry is soulless

[Maritz]

Religion is a huge net negative for our species. So it's not so bad that a lot of developers aren't christian.

Re: Because the tech industry is soulless

[meta-monkey]

Religion beat areligion because religionists are violent and enforced their delusional views on everyone, with the penalty for nonconformance frequently being execution. The Catholic Church was a big instigator of this: they frequently burned people alive who didn't agree with their theology. Remember the Spanish Inquisition?

Remember Stalin? The religious at least have some internal nagging that makes them reluctant to employ violence in pursuit of their delusion views. The areligious have no such restraint.

It's not religion or areligion that makes humans violent. Humans are just violent, and trying to blame that on religion is a cop-out.

As for China, we'll see how long their current system lasts. Christianity is growing like wildfire there.