Time to switch to BSD
I should spin up a couple of BSDs in the house and proudly raise a flag with the Beastie on it in front of the house. D(a)emon wearing basketball boots. Hmmm... this is appealing...
Ubuntu's wiki page this morning temporarily played host to a bit of info from religious group Computers4Christians, whose aim is to propagate the use of its operating system to spread the word of the Lord. It is not known who is behind the hijack. While many open-source advocates might appear to be on a mission from God …
I think "pagan" religions are more threatening to Christian fundamentalists than Christian demons would be.
Eeesch! "pagan" religions are not more threatening, Christian fundamentalists are just more offended by their existence.
Early christianity was just the low-brow freebie version of the Cult of Mithras.
<quote>If the Christian OS ever crashes, does it just restart itself three days later?</quote>
Cute
But, I wonder, in the event Christian OS gets infected with malware, are you required to secure the services of an exorcist???? "In the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior; get out of our Holy OS you demonic infestation."
Why do "believers" need computers ? Doesn't their Deity already provide them with a direct link to all that they need to know ?
I am always amazed at just how much coercion/publicity etc that the "pushers of belief" require to spread their particular version of dogma.
From my point of understanding : If a Deity truly existed there would be no need for religion..
"From my point of understanding : If a Deity truly existed there would be no need for religion.."
Your point of understanding is wrong.
Look not at the religion itself but on the effect it has on those who believe in it. You might think it's horseshit, but it was probably the one thing that stopped the person taking their own life.
It can be very hard to judge something or other people by something that isn't yourself.
Source: an episode of depression several years ago and very nearly topped myself. It was only the local priest who would take time and talk to me. Not pushing my belief on anyone else with the above. Just giving another point of view.
"Look not at the religion itself but on the effect it has on those who believe in it".
Do you truly believe that religion has only positive effects ?
Or, more tellingly, look at the effect on people who believe in it have on others.
Yes, there plenty of people who receive acts of charity performed by believers who feel it is their duty to do according to their faith.
There have also been plenty of others who have been killed or persecuted by believers who feel it their duty to do so according to their faith.
Arguably it was a human who was driven to their course of action by their belief in a deity that shaped their moral values.
Disclosure: I'm not a Christian so I have no vested interest. However I also have no issue with people believing what they want to believe and think Militant Atheists are the worst thing since Militant Missionaries - at least they invented a practical sex-move...
"Arguably it was a human who was driven to their course of action by their belief in a deity that shaped their moral values."
I could counter-argue by stating that anyone in search of self improvement has made a positive decision to improve oneself. The merit lies in their decision to self improve, not in the means by which it was done.
Militant Atheists are the worst thing since Militant Missionaries
Both are 'evangelists' seeking to convert others to the same world-view as themselves.
It's these 'there can be only one' world view types are the source of most of humanities issues. Be it One God, One Faith, One Party or one interpretation of scripture.
They'll bother everyone with leaflets on the streets, today, but given half the chance they'll all gleefully return to herding people into rivers and stacking kindling round non-conformers.
Sort of like politics then? Come to think of it... both are very similar.
Two definitions to politics -
1 Activities connected with governing.
2 Activities connected to positioning of an individual within an organisation.
Depends on the politics - in the jovial, frontal lobotomy public face of British politics, the combatants appear to prefer getting the mental best of an adversary in the political ring*. They like to pretend it's all in the name of the 1st definition, but it's become all about the 2nd a long time ago.
* Which has been all posture, spin, and coached handwaving lessons these days.
In the evangelists eyes, an adversary is someone holding an opposing world view which because it's not their viewpoint it is a threat that must be eradicated if its proponents cannot be converted or won over, they must be purged. While The evangelist may be political motivated or a true believer, the politically motivated one may be reasoned with or bribed, the true believers are the real dangerous ones.
I am glad it worked for you, but really and truthfully, one does not have to be religious to care about strangers.
And of course, religion has been responsible for many deaths and traumatic experiences, such as children in their care. Doubly heinous since that is also breach of trust in a privileged position.
Caveat - I treat religion and personal faith as separate concepts. I have no issue with the latter.
@Pollik
Slight correction.
religion has been responsible for many deaths and traumatic experiences
should be
religion has been an excuse for many deaths and traumatic experiences
In my opinion anyway.
Wars are fought for three things, Money, Land/Resources or Power, religion is a tool to get people on your side.
Yes, religions are used to attack people when they are weaker... it's much easier to lure them into their creed in such situations. It's exactly the time you need to be more vigilant...
It's really no different from what con artists do... after all, that's what religions where invented for.
Why is it wrong? How do you measure right and wrong? The usual tests for truth in religion are "I read it in a book" and "in my heart I know it is true" (often a bit both). I am a scientist. In science, the test of truth is an experiment. A good experiment is well documented so anyone can check the experiment actually tests the conjecture. It should be repeatable so any who doubt the results can do the experiment themselves. There is in fact a well documented experiment to test for the existence of the christian god. I am not convinced that the published results are entirely accurate, so I would like to re-do Nebuchadnezzar's experiment.
Any volunteers?
Nebuchadnezzar didn't perform an experiment though, so you can't repeat it.
Interestingly there is a significant amount of scientific theory which we find ourselves unable to test, and yet seem to be defended religiously by people who don't understand them fully...
I'd suggest that the original premise (From my point of understanding : If a Deity truly existed there would be no need for religion..) is about as valid as "If democracy truly existed there would be no need for voting".
Religion isn't needed per se - a relationship doesn't *need* the structure of organised religion (I'm assuming that it's organised religion that is being objected to). However it's common for groups to form when they have a common interest/relationship, and it'd common for those groups to have a set of behaviours which reflects their common interests/relationship.
Nebuchadnezzar's experiment requires a fiery furnace and three people with faith that their god will protect them. You can find the experiment documented here along with Nebuchadnezzar's results. It is possible that the source document is not entirely reliable, that Nebuchadnezzar never conducted the experiment and the results were fabricated. I would prefer not to make such allegations without evidence.
There are countries where preaching Christianity is a crime that carries the death sentence. A quick web search for "missionaries burned alive" gives a distressing number of results. Clearly Nebuchadnezzar's experiment has already been tried repeatedly (although possibly not by the man himself) and the results contradict the original publication. Perhaps the experimental subjects lacked the required faith. Perhaps they were not given sufficient opportunity to change their mind about the strength of their faith as Nebuchadnezzar did (allegedly).
I would gladly abandon conducting the experiment if the existing evidence is widely accepted as proof of the non-existence of god. Until then, any volunteers?
"Source: an episode of depression several years ago and very nearly topped myself. It was only the local priest who would take time and talk to me."
I am sorry for your depression and glad you were helped. But I would say it's a very edge case for claiming that supernatural forces exist just in case belief in such can help people in that way.
If religion didn't exist, you could just as easily have been helped by a rational humanist for example.
If the guy who had helped you had believed in a different God than you, say he seriously appeared to believe in the old Norse gods, would that have helped and justified such belief?
To be clear: some of the effects of religion can be helpful on occasions but that does not mean that religion is the only way of achieving such effects; nor does it mean that all effects of religion are beneficial.
"I am sorry for your depression and glad you were helped. But I would say it's a very edge case for claiming that supernatural forces exist just in case belief in such can help people in that way.The problem here is that rational humanists don't go on the street to help their fellow human beings. Them who believe in Big G do because they are commanded by Big G to do so.If religion didn't exist, you could just as easily have been helped by a rational humanist for example."
My oldest son is a believer who does that kind of thing. The existence/non-existence of God is irrelevant. The belief in God and His commandments is not.
"The problem here is that rational humanists don't go on the street to help their fellow human beings."
Actually they do. Not all of them, and not all the time, but the same is true of Christians. The big difference is that atheists help other people to make the world a better place for everyone. Christians do what they do to buy comfort for themselves in their afterlife.
@ Fluck Kores
What's the name of this atheist equivalent of The Salvation Army? I don't seem to have come across it. What makes you the expert on why my son helps the homeless on the streets? The reason my son gives is that having been helped, he wanted to help others in turn as a kind of payback. This has nothing whatsoever to do with belief in an afterlife.
"You must live in a rough neighbourhood."Not particularly. The Sallies fund-raise in Australia's pubs regardless of locale. I never heard of them being attacked; rather the reverse. Pretty much everyone gives them their loose change knowing it's for a very good cause. I'd rather punch out the secular fund-raisers who phone incessantly that you know are only doing it to make a quid for themselves. At least with the Sallies you know your hard-earned is going where it's needed: to poor relief.
Whereas my wife's SSRI's helped her depression. I could tell she was better when she could no longer stand the side effects and took the decision to go cold turkey and could not be dissuaded. Not the actions of a depressive.
My anecdote trumps your anecdote and that is the problem with anecdotes, it is top trumps ALL the way down. Remember the plural of anecdote is not data. Data is a proper study takes only particular and not too many salient points from each anecdote in forms which make those from different arms of the study directly comparable. Put too many features of the anecdotes into your data and the confounders in your stats multiply so fast your significance evaporates. IOW garbage in, garbage out.
I have designed experimental protocols and analysed a ton of results in very different forms. I'm published in Nature doing one sort of analysis nobody had ever even attempted before.
I also know that there is good data that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy outperforms SSRI anti-depressants in both efficacy and value for money in mild to moderate depression. Do you know absolutely for sure your priest knows nothing about CBT? or does not use methods incorporated into CBT? IOW you likely got the gold standard, best in class depression therapy there is, which works on a completely secular level too. If I were a priest seeking to help folk I would seek to do a course or buy a book on CBT. I would bet odds that seminaries around the Western world are teaching CBT even if not by name.
Religion, if anything, kept me depressed longer. I felt like drugs and therapy were cheating and that if I wasn't getting better it was because life on this sinful earth was supposed to be miserable. Sez so in the scriptures! Maybe it was just my cross to bear, right?
YMMV. I had identity issues that my religion strongly objected to me investigating, which didn't help.
"it was probably the one thing that stopped the person taking their own life"
You know, whenever I look for something, I always find it in the last place I looked.
Religion just happened to be the last thing you turned to before you extracted yourself from your suicidal phase, so it feels like it was the only thing that helped, despite it being just the first thing that helped. I hope you find the will to pursue a sounder path out of depression, because mere religion is almost guaranteed to let you down.
Back to the topic: the religious seem to think that secularity is theirs for "potential conversion". It seldom is. It's very seldom welcomed. And if someone wants religion, as you did, they'll go find it. A Christian Linux is a terrible idea. Let's say you'd been told by Clippy that "It looks like you're writing a suicide note... you should go talk to a priest" -- I've a sneaking suspicion we wouldn't be having this conversation today.
Why do "believers" need computers ? Doesn't their Deity already provide them with a direct link to all that they need to know ?
In some cases the two are not mutually exclusive, at least in the mind of the believer. TempleOS is an interesting story, both as a retro computing exercise and of the person behind it.
(Terry Davis)'s done this work because God told him to. According to the TempleOS charter, it is "God's official temple. Just like Solomon's temple, this is a community focal point where offerings are made and God's oracle is consulted." God also told Davis that 640x480, 16-color graphics "is a covenant like circumcision," making it easier for children to make drawings for God.
The article goes into some depth about how Davis developed schizophrenia in adulthood, thought oil companies and men in black were following him, and eventually decided God was talking to him. God wants an operating system for direct consultations with his believers, and also likes beamers and the Beatles.
From my point of understanding : If a Deity truly existed there would be no need for religion..
An interesting thought. If one argues that all religions are based on the need for absolute belief in one's deity or deities, then if said deity actually exists, belief - and thus religion - would not be needed. When you bump into your deity in Tesco or it appears in a pillar of flame when you're about to exceed the speed limit, then no belief is required. You have absolute knowledge. Religion based on belief is then as pointless as a religion based on mud or carpets. It's there.
(I do like a good bit of theological disputation - El Reg again demonstrates that it is the Numero Uno of commentardism)
> if said deity actually exists, belief - and thus religion - would not be needed
Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the theme of his best-selling book, Well That About Wraps It Up For God.
As a Christian I condemn this action entirely. If the disto is good enough then it will be used and doesn't need this sort of approach. Many of the applications used are easily added to other operating systems. This action is more harmful both to the distro, the organisation and the wider Christian community than it helps.
I am truly sorry, I clicked the wrong box. I thought that your post was balanced in a way that some others are not, My click went in the wrong place. I can blame some nerve damage but clearly need to improve my mouse control, which is not normally this bad - others might not agree but all discussion should be honest and where possible balanced.
"Ubuntu's wiki page was temporarily taken over by religious group Computers4Christians this morning"
Or an anonymous troll who was trying to put the project into a bad spotlight.
This kind of project is something I prefer to steer clear from because I can't help spot a bit of fanaticism. Doesn't have to be that, but that's my impression. But the thing is: if you look at their website you'll notice that they do seem to respect copyright and everything else. All their work has proper mention of credits, links to other works, licenses are made clear.
Although they definitely look a bit fanatic to me I don't think they'd stoop this low. Seems a bit out of place and character to me.
Speaking as a Christian, I condemn this action. Vandalism is fundamentally incompatible with the teachings of Christ. So are the hate and intolerance that so many non-Christians think are central to the faith because of a very loud vocal minority. This is just one more instance of some idiot who seems to have missed the important parts of Christ's teachings making us all look bad.
"Here's a novel idea - if you find it hurtful then actually read your Bible. It's the quickest way to become an atheist."Given that the first explicit writing in favour of atheism was French Catholic priest Jean Meslier's Thoughts and Feelings of Jean Meslier ... Clear and Evident Demonstrations of the Vanity and Falsity of All the Religions of the World written in the early 18th C, maybe it's the slowest rather than the quickest.
Ooh, downvoted by defensive christians.
Has it ever occurred to you that you got downvoted for being a jerk?
I've personally no problem with people who disagree with my religion. I've even debated the subject in a civilized manner with multiple people and have always walked away from such discussions with no hard feelings and a mutually improved understanding of the other person's point of view. But what you did above amounts to nothing more than an unprovoked textual jab at someone simply for having a different worldview than you do. It was stupid and petty.
You don't share my religion. That's fine. You're entitled to your own beliefs and worldview and I'm not going to cram mine down your throat. I don't think it's so much to ask the same courtesy from you.
Bit of an over reaction there isn't it? I didn't say anything that could be construed as cramming non-religion down your throat. I merely pointed out how ridiculous and bigoted some of the book is that you hold dear and you got defensive.
We should always be free to criticise ideas and maybe, just maybe, if you find it offensive then that says more about the religion than the person pointing at the bad stuff in it.
Good luck finding your porn if you use Bible.cc as a search engine...
Oh, I don't know about that. There's some nice stuff in the Bible. Sex, some of it including incest and even bestiality, and assorted fetishes with hair, chains, whips, clothes with lots of colours... something for everyone, actually.
The wiki home page is the target when you login, so often people think they're on their own page, and go to edit it, not realising they're editing the main landing page on the wiki.
We frequently have to revert edits on the home page, to undo these little beginner mistakes.
Would have been more fun if Ubuntu Satanic Edition made the mistake.
(not an invitation).
C4C maybe in breach of FSF License policy by calling their OS "Christian OS", when in fact it is correctly Lubuntu (Ubuntu based) configured for "Christians" terms and uses.
Even then, if Arian Nation, Skin heads and White Supremists use this OS as "Christians", how does this speak to the image of Christian Religion.
I am confident that if Muslim "Jihadists" terrorists configured Ubuntu for their perspective and teachings of Islam with an "Jihadist OS", then Christians and US/UK governments would be all over Canonical (owners of Ubuntu) about denouncing use of Ubuntu under such terms.
Quite true that religion has had its worser moments, but so has atheism if one looks at Stalin, Pol Pot etc. And since different religions disagree, teaching and inspiring different things, you can't blame one for the fault of t'other. And people may say they don't believe anything, but they still have a working assumption. ... Often that God doesn't exist, but then he might ...
That's the thing that frustrates me as an agnostic when I see comments taking the stance of "bad things having happened means that any possible 'good' doesn't count." Pretty much everything capable of making a positive impact on humanity will also have been associated with or used to cause harm—and a lot of the time, the people saying "bad nullifies any good" would protest angrily if somebody made parallel statements about their favorite part of computer technology, like computer games or the Internet.
Despite your claim that Médecins Sans Frontières provide the same services as The Salvation Army, it appears this is false. The only other organisations providing poor relief where I live are Anglicaire, St Vinnies and Hobart City Mission all of which appear to be Christian Organisations.
"Doesn't the "Red Cross" count, they are neither political not religious ?"They would if they provided the same services as The Salvation Army, but they don't. Sallies provide cheap and free accommodation for the homeless, drug and alcohol counselling for addicts, court and prison services... The Red Cross collect blood and provide transport for the elderly to get to non-urgent medical treatment. Important too, but not the same services. As stated earlier, the Sallies collect donations in the pubs on Friday nights and have an annual door-knock. The Sallies are volunteers for the main part. The Red Cross employ telemarketers and I have grown to loathe telemarketers. Not that I have trouble with telemarketers since installing Call Guardian.
FWIW we do support Médecins Sans Frontières even though they provide no services in our country and never have. We also support the Menzies Research Foundation and other sectarian charities. But my original question was "What's the name of this atheist equivalent of The Salvation Army?" There isn't one.