Although he once called himself an atheist, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg now recognizes the importance of religion.
Just before noon on Christmas Day, the 32-year-old billionaire posted a message to his Facebook page reading: “Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah from Priscilla, Max, Beast and me! …I hope you're surrounded by friends and loved ones, and that you have a chance to reflect on all the meaningful things in your life. May the light of your friendships continue to brighten your life and our entire world.”
The holiday greeting garnered thousands of responses. As the Washington Post’s Julie Zauzmer noted, one commenter wondered: “Aren’t you an atheist?”
Zuckerberg replied: “No. I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important.”
Silicon Valley, like Hollywood, is notorious for anti-religion bias. In April 2014, Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich was pressured to resign when it came to light that he had donated $1000 to California’s Proposition 8 campaign to preserve traditional marriage. At the time, Slate senior technology writer Will Oremus commented that although Eich was “well-qualified to lead an organization dedicated to upholding the vitality and openness of the Web,” his “personal views made him untenable as Mozilla’s leader.”
Zuckerberg, on the other hand, defended conservative Facebook investor and PayPal CEO Peter Thiel when he donated $1.25 million to the Trump campaign.
“We care deeply about diversity,” the Facebook CEO wrote in a leaked missive to his employees. “That’s easy to say when it means standing up for ideas you agree with. It’s a lot harder when it means standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints to say what they care about. That’s even more important.”
Following the recent controversies over fake news, Facebook announced its intention to start policing content and flagging stories for review by liberal-leaning ‘fact-checking’ organizations. When MRC president Brent Bozell raised his concerns with Zuckerberg, the latter assured him that nothing of a political nature will be targeted.
Things are looking up.
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