By SF GATE
Added: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Thanks to Dawn for the link.

Reposted from:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/12/15/findrelig.DTL

One big thing I've learned over the past four years of writing this column is that a person's spirituality will often surprise you.

The way we connect with the divine is profoundly personal, whether we're members of an organized faith or prefer to blaze our own paths to God and Goddess. I've discovered that evangelist preachers aren't always prim and proper, scientists can wholeheartedly embrace ideas they can't prove, Buddhists aren't always tranquil and polytheists may happily believe in one God. Even atheists can have what I would describe as deeply spiritual lives.

The latter realization came by way of my interview this week with Mike Lee, a name familiar to Mac geeks around the world. Lee and his team developed the wildly popular iPhone app, "Tap Tap Revenge" (over one million downloads within four weeks of its release) and recently released Puzzllotto for the iPhone, an app that combines real-world charity with a digital adventure through a dark jungle populated by big-eyed critters and strange spirits.

Lee, 32, describes himself on his blog as the "world's toughest programmer." That toughness was born out of surviving an abusive childhood, which was followed by a mostly unsuccessful search for meaning in the Christian, Buddhist and Shinto faiths. Lee, who grew up in Hawaii and now lives in Cupertino, eventually became a committed atheist. Still, he continues to cultivate the values that were important to his samurai ancestors, believing that "a life lived according to the virtues of rectitude, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor and loyalty should please any reasonable deity."

I discussed discovering the divine in programming code and electronic connections, saving the Madagascar Lemur and altruistic capitalism with Lee via e-mail.

Click here to read the interview:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/12/15/findrelig.DTL

TAGGED: ATHEISM, MORALITY