If Programming Languages Were Religions

bshell writes "With Christmas around the corner I know we are all thinking about religion, or at least maybe wondering why this one religion dominates the rest for these few weeks. A fellow named Rodrigo Braz Monteiro (amz) posted this list comparing each programming language to a religion. Guaranteed to make you chuckle and generate a good long thread here on slashdot. Great way to pass the time as work winds down this week and we relate to our own programming faiths during this very special time of year. Merry PHPmas." Fortunately Pastafarianism is referenced.

Comments

What do you mean if?

[genner]

PHP is the one true way.

Re:What do you mean if?

[MikeDirnt69]

Have you heard the news (from Ceiling Cat)? http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pllolcode/

Re:What do you mean if?

[genner]

I won't say lol coders aren't my brothers since they code the fundamentals but we all think they're a little weird.

Re:What do you mean if?

[Anonymous Coward]

where in the hell is the "it belongs to idle" crowd when it's necessary?

Re:What do you mean if?

[Foofoobar]

Nuh uh... Nuby is.. er I mean Ruby is.

Re:What do you mean if?

[thetoadwarrior]

The one true way to writing bad code. ;)

Re:What do you mean if?

[maxwell demon]

Idle, of course.

Re:What do you mean if?

[TehZorroness]

No. There certainly are endless ways of writing truly atrocious code.

Re:What do you mean if?

[DiegoBravo]

But few ways so actively promoted by the language.

Re:What do you mean if?

[Phred T. Magnificent]

Certainly not. Everyone knows that "There's more than one wrong way to do it."

Re:What do you mean if?

[mcgrew]

In the beginning there was the word, and the word was assembly. It is the basis of every other language. No other is so pure, so simple, and yet at the same time so complex.

You try writing a playable battle tanks game for a 4Mz Sinclair with 4k of memory in any other language. I say it can't be done.

What kind of punk kid would write a religious creed about programming without even mentioning the language that all other languages are written in (or at least the languages they were written in were written in).

Get off my lawn. Damned kids. And take your burning cross with you.

Re:What do you mean if?

[Larry Lightbulb]

Assembly is fine enough, but you really should read it in the original machine code to understand what it's all about.

Re:What do you mean if?

[mazarin5]

In the beginning there was the word, and the word was assembly. It is the basis of every other language. No other is so pure, so simple, and yet at the same time so complex.

If your original assembly disagrees with my C, then the assembly is wrong!

Re:What do you mean if?

[Dialecticus]

To continue the analogy, Assembly isn't a religion; Assembly is quantum physics. It's just as mysterious as a religion, but no other language could exist without its underpinnings. It is the foundation of one's very existence (as a programmer) even though one does not directly perceive it on a day-to-day basis.

Re:What do you mean if?

[DigiShaman]

If Assembly was a religion, it would closely match Naturalistic Pantheism.

Re:What do you mean if?

[Skrapion]

What's a Mz? Mertz?

Anyway, where's the love for machine code? What do you think your assembler was written in? (Actually, your assembler was likely written in C ;)

Re:What do you mean if?

[PMBjornerud]

What kind of punk kid would write a religious creed about programming without even mentioning the language that all other languages are written in (or at least the languages they were written in were written in).

Get off my lawn. Damned kids. And take your burning cross with you.

Assembly isn't a religion. It comes from the dawn of time, before religions, when magic was real.

Re:What do you mean if?

[Toshito]

Hey kids, what about microcode?

We don't use some fancy high level language like machine code!

Re:What do you mean if?

[mcgrew]

Typo, I meant MHz

Where did C come from? The first C compiler had to have been written in assembly, although later assemblers could have been written in C.

I had to hand-assemble the assembly code for that tanks game, as afaik there were no assemblers for that machine. I doubt seriously I could do it today.

Re:What do you mean if?

[mcgrew]

There were no assemblers for the Sinclair 1000, so to write that tanks game I had to first write the code, then assemble the machine code by hand using pencil and paper before using its BASIC's POKE command to enter the machine code. That's after converting the hexadecimal to decimal for the BASIC. Geekiest fun I ever had, even more fun than making a *computer out of three pieces of wood, two potentiometers, a battery, and a voltmeter.

I know it sounds like a "trudged through the snow uphill both ways" but it's true. Of course, I think I was a lot smarter back then. I'll bet some others did the same thing, I had a chess game for that machine that certainly had to have been written in asssembly.

*the "computer" was more like an electric slide rule. I built it from plans out of a Popular Science article when I was in 7th grade.

Re:What do you mean if?

[mcgrew]

There were no assemblers I know of for the Sinclair 1000, so I had to first write the assembly, then hand-assemble the code on paper, convert the hex values to decimal again with a pencil.

I guess I could have used mud and a stick to do the assembly and hex conversion but it was pretty low tech as it was.

Re:What do you mean if?

[WindShadow]

A good programmer can write FORTRAN in any language

wow

[stoolpigeon]

amazing how offense free that is. that had to take a bit of effort.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the part about only accusing Islam of murderous tendencies?
It's sad that only biases which disagree with our own internal ones are noticed.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally found offensive that he compared C++ to Islam. C++ is much more peaceful.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Like how you ignored the part about Fundamentalist Christians burning people at the stake.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

This one learns quickly.

Re:wow

[rthille]

He didn't accuse Islam of murderous tendencies, he asked that if you were a muslim that you not kill him.

Like it or not, Muslims are more likely to kill in response to perceived offenses against their religion, and his post makes light of that fact. If you're a moderate muslim and you find that offensive, then you need to do two things: get over it, since free speech is a right in the U.S.A. and therefore you're likely to find offensive speech living here, or on the internet; secondly, you should be decrying the violence promulgated by extremist muslims in the name of Islam. Part of the problem with moderate religionists is that they give cover for the extremists under the umbrella of "respect for religion". If they want their religion to continue getting respect, they need to police their own.

Re:wow

[aaron alderman]

1. Insult the religious.
2. Insult programmers.
3. ????
4. Prophet!

Re:wow

[theaveng]

If two anonymous posters speak to one another, does anybody hear them? ;-)

Re:wow

[theTrueMikeBrown]

mod parent up (funny)

Re:wow

[jkiller]

This is all wrong. COBOL is like Judaism... it controls most of the world's money.

Re:wow

[digitig]

If they want their religion to continue getting respect, they need to police their own.

Er, how? The moderates usually have no authority over the extremists, so how should they police them? In what sense are the extremists the moderates' "own"? Your logic is like saying that I am responsible for the murder and torture of Baby P because as a British subject I am responsible for policing my own. Just how might I have done that?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

amazing how offense free that is. that had to take a bit of effort.

Are you kidding? Without evidence, he accuses fundamentalist Christians of being "perfectly willing to burn people at the stake" and claims they all discriminate against Mormons, suggests that anybody who isn't born Jewish "will think that it's insanity", that Hinduism "doesn't look like it could be useful for anything" ... it may be bigotry dressed up in wishy washy language, but it's still bigotry.

Re:wow

[troon]

Seconded. I'm a Christian, a bit closer to Java than PHP, and am used to getting a bit of a slapping from ignorami spouting bigoted claptrap only lightly based on truth (yeah, and I know that's what most of you lot think of us...). This article made me smile: very clever, knowledgable of the nuances of the different faiths, and no unfounded digs at any of the (major) ones.

Re:wow

[tbannist]

It's a difficult question to answer, but it's one that the moderates are going to have to figure out. Any group that can't police their own extremists will, sooner or later, find themselves dragged into a war with everyone else. That's the nature of fanatical extremism, they want a war. And if they try hard enough, eventually they're going to get one.

As for Baby P, I assume the people responsible are headed to trial for their crimes? Thus Britain is policing it's own even though the example you chose isn't even roughly the same situation.

Re:wow

[HungryHobo]

Ya but he mentioned nothing of the chance of rape at the hands of fundamentalist christians.
Since catholic priests love the rape, or so the media coverage would tell us.
How much video footage of muslims sitting at home reading the paper are you shown? there's a billion of them out there but all you ever see is are the rabble rousers and nutcases.
Imagine if all they ever saw of america on their TV shows was Westboro Baptist Church protests,KKK protests and rednecks talking about how they'd love to shoot all dem damn muslums and George Bush. They might decide that Americans were all violent fundamentalist nutcases. And they'd be exactly as right as you are.

Re:wow

[jonaskoelker]

Visual Basic would be Satanism - Except that you don't REALLY need to sell your soul to be a Satanist...

Speaking as the dark lord of hell, I'm offended by the insinuation that I want to possess the souls of VB "programmers"!

Re:wow

[LandDolphin]

Imagine if all they ever saw of america on their TV shows was Westboro Baptist Church protests,KKK protests and rednecks talking about how they'd love to shoot all dem damn muslums and George Bush.

Yeah, you'd never see that kind of stuff on day time television talk shows... Wait, what?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

as a muslim i can not agree more.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

By formulating a more complete, functional and successful child/family services system and causing the government to implement said system.

Just because that is a very difficult thing to do does not affect your level of responsibility for doing it, nor to diminish to any extent your own personal failure to do so.

Of course, neither you yourself, nor society as a whole hold you responsible for this failure. Your own personal decision to not dedicate your life to this cause will not be criticised, and certainly not by me; I don't remotely give a crap.

Re:wow

[sjames]

Like it or not, Muslims are more likely to kill in response to perceived offenses against their religion, and his post makes light of that fact.

It's not really intrinsic to Islam. It just happens that the surrounding culture of the area most strongly associated with Islam is more likely to kill over any sort of slight. Muslims who grew up in other surrounding cultures are MUCH more moderate as a whole. My personal experience is that Muslims who grew up in western culture are much LESS likely to attempt to impose their religious beliefs on others than fundamentalist Christians are.

AS for 'policing their own', what in the world is an American Muslim family supposed to do about the Taliban? Bombard them with greeting cards from the 'lighten up collection'?

Re:wow

[pnewhook]

Part of the problem with moderate religionists is that they give cover for the extremists under the umbrella of "respect for religion". If they want their religion to continue getting respect, they need to police their own.

Ah yes, so as Christians we were supposed to have policed the following:

- Christians who think the crusade massacres were a good idea (massacre)

- fundamentalists who go around shooting abortion doctors (murder)

- the protestant catholic fighting in Ireland (terrorism)

- the Salem and other witch trials (murder)

- the 500 years of the dark ages when Christianity ruled over science and anyone questioning the authority of the church was killed (murder/massacre)

Basically violence has nothing to do with religion. People will use ANY religion as an excuse to justify their view they they are right and everyone else is wrong.

Re:wow

[Blublu]

A good start would be for them to publicly condemn acts of terrorism by muslims. Have you noticed that whenever a christian commits an atrocious act in the name of their religion, the pope or someone immediately condemn the act? As far as I know, nothing like that has ever happened with muslims. This makes it look a hell of a lot like the muslim world as a whole is in favor of terrorism.

Re:wow

[jason.sweet]

I personally found offensive that he compared C++ to Islam. C++ is much more peaceful.

You think so?

Try publishing some cartoons of Bjarne Stroustrup, then we'll see how peaceful it is!

Re:wow

[Arthur Grumbine]

mod parent up (funny)

Your need to tell the mods HOW to mod the GP speaks volumes...

Re:wow

[Nathrael]

That you got modded down could either prove you wrong or right...now we just need to find out who found you, a C++ programmer or a muslim.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Man... you ruined my day. I'd never heard about that.

I'd kill those bastards.

Re:wow

[SpiderClan]

My favourite part of this post is "Without evidence". This is not Nature, it's a joke. References will not be checked and there's no peer review before you can publish it. That being said, isn't there a history of fundamentalist Christians literally burning people at the stake? The other stuff you're complaining about are hyperbole, not bigotry.

Re:wow

[theTrueMikeBrown]

well... I thought someone would mod it as informative

this _is_ slashdot after all

Re:wow

[the_womble]

Ludicrous

By that logic the attacks on Iraqi Christians by Islamic fundamentalists are justified, because they are at war with the (supposedly) Christian US.

Also, countries with conflicts with ethnic minorities are justified in treating all members of a minority as enemies because some have taken arms against the state?

The good bit is that we can now hold all Americans responsible for George Bush's actions.....

Re:wow

[glavenoid]

That begs the question: Are the extremists part of the original (moderate, in this case) group?

Re:wow

[soddit]

the protestant/catholic fighting in NORTHERN ireland has fuck all to do with religion and everything to do with nationalism.

Re:wow

[Otter]

The second sentence is untrue (uh, yes, you can convert to Judaism), at which point I gave up.

Re:wow

[rdnetto]

You, as part of the the British populace, formed a government, which included a police force that you appointed to police your own.

Re:wow

[maxwell demon]

this _is_ slashdot after all

Admit it: You only posted that sentence in order to get moderated "Informative"!

Re:wow

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The moderates usually have no authority over the extremists, so how should they police them?

Leave the group.

If the organization or group you are in is being lead in a direction you are opposed to and you have no say in that course, then you should leave. To stay is to explicitly condone the actions of the leadership. The best contemporary example of this in the context of religious groups is in fact the "Mormon" Church of Latter Day Saints, which has seen many followers leave because of the way in which it conducted itself during the Proposition 8 vote.

Here was a church leadership which injected its organization voluminously and inappropriately into a contemporary political issue. They turned an institution of private religious belief into public political party. Their church is now feeling the backlash from this, and attempting to take off their political cap as quickly as they put it on is simply not possible.

By staying in their church, Mormons explicitly endorse their churches actions and stances. Ostensibly on the issue of gay marriage, but more importantly on the long term decision that the LDS church can and will inject itself and its considerable demographic and monetary clout directly and voluminously into any political debate that takes its fancy. Many european states, learning from experience, outrightly ban such behavior, but in the US, obviously things are different.

You can stay and support the actions of your church leaders, or you can leave. There are other sects, and other interpretations. The same goes for Muslims, particularly those in western countries, who frequent mosques with radical imams. Protestants break off and form new churches all the time. Even catholics can pick other pulpits if they take exception to their current priest. Staying to avoid social difficulty, or pretending that your presence is not being used to support your church leader's views and actions, are not valid excuses. Staying to "change from within" is only valid if you are actively doing so, otherwise it too is an excuse.

People can and should leave a church if that church's actions or beliefs go against their own principles. To stay is to abandon those principles.

Re:wow

[adrianwn]

You're easily offended. Too bad for you, the rest was rather funny.

Re:wow

[BrokenHalo]

Like how you ignored the part about Fundamentalist Christians burning people at the stake.

Mmmmmm. Well I suppose I might be burned at the stake for wondering (since I'm an old man with a long memory) why FORTRAN doesn't rate a mention.

It's are no longer trendy, but many of the routines we know and trust (think: the Boeing math library) were built on it.

In the same vein, would it be too much to ask where PL/1 fits in? Back when I was in my 20s, I used to find all sorts of serious syscall routines written in PL/1 on various mainframe systems whose manufacturers are now consigned to history. Anyone remember PRIMOS? GCOS (God's Chosen Operating System)? AOS/VS? For a long time, my whole career revolved around these now obscure operating systems, and it was fun - sort of like being a privateer, never really in the main stream of the industry.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

quran 8:55 "all non-muslims are the ugliest beasts on earth"

So tell me, is this a lie by allah ? Or is it the truth. If you're truly a muslim obviously you see this as the truth.

So you racist muslims can shut up and crawl into a little shameful hole, along with your god and paedophilic prophet.

Muslims are filthy animals. (please explain why I cannot say and believe that and you muslims can)

Asshole.

Re:wow

[danieltdp]

Hey, that's LISP. Oh, wait. I mean that's Zen!

Re:wow

[Dramacrat]

Ah, yes. The big bad Catholic Church, the one that united Europeans and kept Mongols and Turks at bay when religion had larger sway. Maybe it was bad for science at some point in time, but it provided the security necessary for Europe to, you know, remain European. Pop quiz: name one Christian Theocracy which has existed in the last 400 years?

Re:wow

[Poltras]

If two anonymous posters speak to one another, does anybody hear them? ;-)

Maybe they're one and the same, like some kind of trinity...

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

FSM hears all.

Re:wow

[The Wooden Badger]

Absofreakinlutely. The only reason religion gets brought up in regards to Northern Ireland is that one side happens to be Catholic and the other side happens to be Protestant. There isn't any thing religious about the conflict at all apart from that. If they were all one or the other the Irish would still be pissed (angry) about British occupation, rule, whatever you want to call it. It would be really nice to call it what it is and stop calling it a religious conflict.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say he risks being modded redundant! That's why I am posting anonymously :-)

Re:wow

[tbannist]

An interesting question, but largely irrelevant as long as the extremists claim they are a part of the group, and that claim is not obviously and meaningfully repudiated. Remember, no group is ever perfectly homogeneous, so every group has factions within it. It will usually be difficult for people external to a group to accurately identify faction members within that group. And if it's difficult, many people won't make the effort to do it.

In the particular case of Islam, efforts to curtail the extremists seems to often be conflated by people in the larger, more moderate group, as an attack on that larger group. And the actions of the extremists often seem to have some level of approval from the moderate group's leaders. Thus leading me to the obvious conclusion that both moderate Muslims and extremist Muslims share a common group. I suspect this is a view shared (rightly or wrongly) by the majority of non-Muslims.

Re:wow

[Icegryphon]

That was just the early days of Java(dark ages). Don't get bent out of shape.

Re:wow

[Archangel Michael]

Would that make ... OSS developers .....

Non-Prophets for Non-profits?

Re:wow

[Ibiwan]

Ah yes, so as Christians we were supposed to have policed the following:

...YES!

Re:wow

[AviLazar]

Er, how? The moderates usually have no authority over the extremists, so how should they police them? In what sense are the extremists the moderates' "own"?

Anonymous reporting "Police, yes, Joe The Plumber plans to bomb this building.". Joe the Plumber gets arrested, Bill the Plumber will think twice since he may get arrested if he gets caught because some anonymous person reported him.

Re:wow

[YttriumOxide]

Note in advance: I think ALL people that truly believe in a religion have a mental illness. This is regardless of what the religion is, but I do have a particular distaste for the Abrahamic religions, as they seem to espouse the most hatred in their religious texts.

Now, that is a pretty horrible quote from the Qu'ran, but there are equally as horrible ones from the Christian texts, and indeed very horrible ones in texts that are shared by pretty much all of the Abrahamic religions.

Re:wow

[Dr_Barnowl]

Basically violence has nothing to do with religion. People will use ANY religion as an excuse to justify their view they they are right and everyone else is wrong.

Imagine if you could present a complete mathematical proof with no wiggle room at all that a particular cultural viewpoint was just plain wrong.

Your average secular Joe might think about it and concede that they were wrong, and something might actually change for the better. Or they might just say "that sounds very nice, but I like my old opinion better".

A theist can stick their fingers in their ears and chant litanies, and is indeed, far more likely to, because their doctrine includes inbuilt mechanisms that tell them to resist all questions and doubts. They might even obey the instructions in their doctrine that tell them to destroy those with world views that conflict with theirs.

A scientist would examine and attempt to verify the other fellows position - and if he was right, may actually thank him for the enlightenment.

Yes, people will do violence for other reasons. But religion is inherently inflexible in a world where the one constant is change, produces a sense of entitlement to use any means - because the end is "Gods Will", and religious texts often contain actual explicit instructions to do violence to individuals and cultures that do not comply.

I do not concur that religion and violence are unassociated.

Re:wow

[tbannist]

Not so, by my logic, attacks on Iraqi Christians would happen. I made no claims as to the moral justification of such attacks.

Policing your own is merely the best way to both show that you repudiate the actions of your extremists and prevent them from dragging you into a war only they want. In the case of Islam it turns the war from Islam versus everyone else into extremists versus moderates. This might not sound good for Islam, but I'm pretty sure that the extremists are not as numerous, well armed, or funded as "the rest of the world".

My analysis isn't about what's right or wrong, it's about what the consequences are likely to be.

Re:wow

[genner]

Speaking as the dark lord of hell, I'm offended by the insinuation that I want to possess the souls of VB "programmers"!

Yeah I always figured those souls went directly into hells trash bin.

Re:wow

[jbeaupre]

Pretty close. Even if you can't physically stop someone, at least saying their behavior is out of line is a start. The alternative is to remain silent, which leaves only the stupids of the world out there marketing their ideas. Even in the battle of ideas, showing up is half the battle.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't watch CNN much do you?

Re:wow

[Canazza]

Even the burning at the stake is exaggerated.
Burning in the UK was a common method of executing criminals in the UK, regardless of whether the crime was religious in nature or not

Until 1790, every woman convicted of counterfeiting gold or silver coin of the realm, was sentenced to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution and there " to be burned with fire till she was dead."

Re:wow

[Canazza]

I don't think he was easilly offended, more... easilly /facepalmed

Re:wow

[tehcyder]

So if one terrorist says "I'm a Muslim" then everyone who doesn't immediately renounce their own Islamic faith is a terrorist too?

Utter tosh.

Re:wow

[Locutus]

I found it interesting that the list author stated that Java was based on C but then says it's so different that it has many of it's own rules. Just how can it be so close to C but then so different and what about the complete lack of OOP in C? Maybe the basic syntax of the language but the core of Java is its OOP mechanisms.

And the bit in C# about the "one company" is wrong, the problem is not one company but which company it is. Unless you've had your head in the sand for that last 20 years, that one company has done everything, both legal and illegal, to make sure developers can only develop for Windows. Java, until recently was also controlled by one company, Sun Microsystems.

The author is very naive to the history Microsoft has in the software development market over the last 20-something years. He definately left off the fact that the 'religious' leader of the Delphi language was purchased away from Borland along with dozens of other Delphi language engineers and assigned to invent something to thwart the threat of cross platform Java. Microsoft settled out of court on the corporate raiding of Borland. Remember, Delphi was also cross platform so Microsoft got a double win for gutting Borland of their Delphi leadership and starting a Windows-ized alternative to Java.

It is religion and it is a religious war, or atleast that is how it has always been handled inside of Microsoff. IMO.

LoB

Re:wow

[Joe the Lesser]

5: GOTO 1

Re:wow

[cmtonkinson]

Only if they're alone in the woods.

Re:wow

[SputnikPanic]

This is all wrong. COBOL is like Judaism... it controls most of the world's money.

The list made me smirk in amusement. This, though, made me laugh out loud. Thank you, Mr ... um ... Killer for improving my morning.

Re:wow

[Hasmanean]

It doesn't matter, since the money was controlled by just one small Cabal.

Now there were reports of a massive Y2K problem which would crash most programs in the world, particularly ones written in COBOL, but revisionist history of software professors today think that it was all a hoax, and that it never really happened.

Re:wow

[Red Flayer]

Even catholics can pick other pulpits if they take exception to their current priest.

Technically, it requires a special dispensation to change your parish... parishes are defined geographically. While the Catholic Church won't force anyone to attend Mass at a particular parish, there are some restrictions (depending on the parish). For example, when I married my wife (who is Catholic - I'm atheist), she had to be a member of the parish we were married in. Maybe that's because that particular parish had very high demand, since the building is magnificent... I'm not sure if other parishes have the same restriction. We later moved, and when our daughter was baptized, the same restriction was in place... possibly also for the same reason (though it was a different parish).

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Right On! And what about PASCAL?

Up with the people!

Re:wow

[MarkvW]

The Unionists are Irish and they are not angry about British Occupation. The British Occupation shields them from Catholic attack and enables them to attack Catholics.

Saying it's not a religious conflict is about as silly as saying it is a religious conflict. The very important religious dynamic cannot be ignored.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

And how much footage do you see of Catholic Priests sitting around reading the paper? The same argument applies here -- only the "newsworthy" aspects of a religion are reported.

Re:wow

[JoshJ]

There are at least a half-dozen quotes in the bible saying that unbelievers should be killed, and a bunch more saying that people who perform certain actions (which aren't unethical from a secular perspective) should be killed. And of course, there's "be not yoked with unbelievers".

It's not a Quran-specific thing. All the Abrahamic religions have no respect whatsoever for those outside of the religion. The mentality boils down to nothing more than "hate everyone who's not one of us".

Re:wow

[Just Some Guy]

Out of your examples, the only one related to modern Christianity was about the abortion doctor murderers, and they are loudly and publicly condemned by all but a few nutcases. Honestly, you'd be hard pressed to collect a worse set of evidence for your hypothesis.

Re:wow

[digitig]

It's a difficult question to answer, but it's one that the moderates are going to have to figure out. Any group that can't police their own extremists will, sooner or later, find themselves dragged into a war with everyone else.

My point is that they're not "their" extremists; they are extremists with some arbitrary characteristic in common with those you say should control them. You might as well hold all black people responsible for any atrocities committed by black people, all heterosexual people responsible for all atrocities commited by heterosexuals, and so on. When feminists accuse all men of being rapists, whilst I deplore rape I'm bound to say "actually, no I'm not". And it's not my responsibility as a man to sort out "my" rapists (it's my responsibility as a participant in society to support the efforts of society to sort out rapists).

Re:wow

[moderatorrater]

Here was a church leadership which injected its organization voluminously and inappropriately into a contemporary political issue

Depends on how you define inappropriate. The religious leaders sent around word that individual members should support Prop 8 based on the church's beliefs. This isn't something that's new and it isn't something that the church hasn't done before. Whether you think it's appropriate or not depends on your individual beliefs.

They turned an institution of private religious belief into public political party.

They turned an institution of private religious belief into an institution of religious practice, which the Mormon church tends to require anyway. The Mormon church isn't a church where you say and think the right things and you get into heaven, it's a church that also requires a lot of work. Political activity is encouraged from the pulpit anyway; this is one of the only examples where a certain political position was encouraged from the pulpit.

The overall feeling in the Mormon church as I've seen it has been that their beliefs and teachings should be evident for everyone to see, especially if you're a member. If you're surprised by the church taking this position then it's your own fault for being there in the first place.

Re:wow

[dwandy]

Your logic is like saying that I am responsible for the murder and torture of Baby P because as a British subject I am responsible for policing my own.

Being responsible for, and policing are not the same thing.
Policing means that you (society) don't tolerate certain actions, and you take legal steps to sanction this behaviour.
Being responsible for the action puts you on the other side of the pointy stick - the pointy side.

as a ./-er, I know I don't have to say that I didn't read your link, but I can only assume that this murder and torture isn't going with repercussions to those deemed responsible, so you (Brits) are in fact policing your own, and this still doesn't make you (personally) responsible*.

*uh ... unless of course, you're one of the ones being held responsible :)

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but I think you're quite wrong here.
First of all: For most religious people their belief is more than just the guys at the top. It's not like your average soccerclub/politcal party, where you "just leave" if you can't stand one of the club's execs.

Religion is a whole beliefsystem, leaving your church behind basically means saying: "Well, Mr. Pope - I really don't like the way you treat XY, that's why I won't believe in your god anymore." From a religious point of view that's utterly stupid. While I do appreciate your view as being pretty sensible, I don't think you quite understood how religous people tick.

That said, there are quite some religions that make quitting pretty hard. There have been some cases where people who tried to leave the Islam behind were murdered by extremists because of that.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, people will do violence for other reasons. But religion is inherently inflexible in a world where the one constant is change, produces a sense of entitlement to use any means - because the end is "Gods Will", and religious texts often contain actual explicit instructions to do violence to individuals and cultures that do not comply.

Even if they are, these instructions can violate the fundemental principles of the religion. It took centuries for Christian theologians to come up with the concept of a "Just War" and even then it still had problems in light basic tenants of the faith like "Love your enemy".

I do not concur that religion and violence are unassociated.

However, they are no more or less unassociated with violence than other forms of group identification.

Re:wow

[digitig]

The GP referred to "moderate religionists", not "moderate Muslims". A particular religion may have problems, but that doesn't mean that all religion has the same problems.

And for what it's worth, Muslims do condemn the violence: Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) wrote "The gross injustices of 9/11 and 7/7 exposed the distorted ideas and misdeeds of those who have turned from the path of Muhammad and his work in guiding humanity to peace and happiness. Victory in Islam is not to cause destruction; but to see people enter the religion in crowds, not running away from it!" link, and many other Muslims have condemned such violence. But that doesn't reflect the consensus view of Islam that the media has constructed, so it doesn't get reported.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't (well, won't might be more accurate, but who's arguing about details here?) convert into it if you think it's insanity. You really should have kept reading, TFA cleared this up.

Re:wow

[Tack]

The parent's post might be worded rather harshly and somewhat unfairly, but the general point is valid.

During the Danish cartoon incident, I was quite surprised that the primary reaction of moderate Islam wasn't condemning the violence of their fellow Muslims, but rather insisting that the cartoonist should not have insulted their prophet.

Re:wow

[Builder]

What are you talking about ? Care to give us some context for your comment?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

i think it was the roman catholics that did all the witch burning - not the fundamentalist christians.

consider:
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/b/burning_times.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_at_the_stake

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel the same way about certain countries

Re:wow

[digitig]

Leave the group.

What particular group? The GP referred to "religionists", which is a matter of belief, not a matter of being in a particular group. Somebody could leave Al Qaeda and join a pacifist organisation like the Quakers, it seems they'd still be condoning violence according to the post I replied to.

Re:wow

[Shotgun]

Er, how? The moderates usually have no authority over the extremists, so how should they police them?

The moderates police the extremists by objecting loudly and clearly to the abuses of their good name. You have your greatest leaders go on TV and say that people who hijack planes and fly them into buildings have no place in your congregations or the heaven you believe in.

Here, let me demonstrate. People who burn crosses to intimidate others will have a special place reserved for them in hottest section hell. The DON'T know Jesus Christ, haven't a bit of understanding about what he taught, and I will refuse to congregate with anyone that will openly express such views. I have left a church when the Pastor told me that, "We need to just understand the older people in the congregation."

That's how you police the extremist. You marginalize them. You don't try to understand them, or have an open mind to their point of view. Harming people in the name of God is not to be tolerated in any way, shape or form.

Re:wow

[Hognoxious]

All the Abrahamic religions have no respect whatsoever for those outside of the religion. The mentality boils down to nothing more than "hate everyone who's not one of us".

Those are just words, but do you think adherents of those religions are equally likely, on average, to put them into practice?

Re:wow

[someone1234]

Insult the pope and you get the same.
Insult the queen and you get the same.

Re:wow

[COMON$]

Now I thought that Islam was more of a Java and Fundamental Christianity as C++. Christianity follows many of the rules of Judaism discarding many for updated reformed behaviors. While Java is a derivative of C++ and follows many of the same concepts but is radically different as you study it more.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

That verse was part of a story about the Egyptian Pharoh _and_ you mistranslated it too.

(55) Verily, the vilest creatures in the sight of God are those who are bent on denying the truth and therefore do not believe.

http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/through_the_looking_glass_quran_855/

Re:wow

[Tack]

When you insult the pope, large mobs don't raise the placards demanding "behead those who insult Catholicism." They don't execute people on the streets or burn down embassies.

Re:wow

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

He didn't accuse Islam of murderous tendencies, he asked that if you were a muslim that you not kill him.

Oh, I see. He just made a request of GP that presupposes that GP, being a muslim, is likely to murder him. That's different, yes.

Like it or not, Muslims are more likely to kill in response to perceived offenses against their religion, and his post makes light of that fact.

...and therefore, GP is more likely to kill GGP than you and me are likely to kill GP?

If you're a moderate muslim and you find that offensive, then you need to do two things: get over it, since free speech is a right in the U.S.A. and therefore you're likely to find offensive speech living here, or on the internet; secondly, you should be decrying the violence promulgated by extremist muslims in the name of Islam.

How often do you actually bother to check how various individual muslims and islamic groups decry the violence of other muslims? Like, how much time each month?

I'm going to assume you're an American. What concrete actions do you regularly take to decry the violence that the US government and its armed forces have inflicted across the third world? How much time have you spent doing those actions? And how much does that time compare to the too-small amount of time that you've oh-so-carefully noted that muslims spend decrying the violence of other muslims?

Re:wow

[VJ42]

Pop quiz: name one Christian Theocracy which has existed in the last 400 years?

How about Vatican City?

Re:wow

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

If the organization or group you are in is being lead in a direction you are opposed to and you have no say in that course, then you should leave. To stay is to explicitly condone the actions of the leadership.

Brilliant advice, genius. Now please take note of the fact that Islam doesn't have a central leadership. Are you implying that the extremists are the "leaders" of Islam? Good job there!

Re:wow

[mattwarden]

> I'm a Christian ... and am used to getting a bit of a slapping from
> ignorami spouting bigoted claptrap only lightly based on truth

Hey now, the clergy are only doing their jobs.

Re:wow

[someone1234]

Wait a moment, i thought you talked about MODERATES.
Seems like you forgot your starting point.
Nice try :)

I didn't say muslim extremists are the same as christian extremists.
Obviously the muslim extremists are more violent and apparently less held back than present day christian extremists.

Re:wow

[mattwarden]

Yes, that factual part of history offends me greatly, too.

Re:wow

[mattwarden]

> Basically violence has nothing to do with religion

Are you kidding me? You just gave five examples where religion was used to promote violent acts and then turn around and say violence and religion have nothing to do with each other?

Try this on for size: if there was no purpose for violence, there would be no need for religion.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

To stay is to explicitly condone the actions of the leadership.
 
I understand and basically agree with the point you're trying to make here, but this isn't true: to stay (silently) is to implicitly condone those actions. To speak up in favor of those actions would be explicit.
 
No need to exaggerate when you're right..

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Many european states, learning from experience, outrightly ban such behavior, but in the US, obviously things are different.

What european states are you referring to?

Re:wow

[pbhj]

My personal experience is that Muslims who grew up in western culture are much LESS likely to attempt to impose their religious beliefs on others than fundamentalist Christians are.

That's because they aren't actually Muslims. Because Islam defines a complete culture, legal system and all, people are Muslims if they're born in a Muslim culture .. and the required punishment for apostasy being death helps to keep them from claiming to be anything else.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2426314.ece

Re:wow

[Tack]

I understood the point of your original reply to mean "moderates of other groups behave the same way too." When I pointed out the extremist position of Islam (and implied that it is quite different as things stand today), you then implicitly accused me of a straw man.

The moderate reaction is unavoidably related to the extremist reaction when that extremist reaction represents a significant percentage of the group. When mobs march the streets, embassies get torched, and people beheaded for expressing an opinion and the moderate reaction is "you should not have offended our Prophet," it is a tacit approval of the extremist reaction.

When someone insults the Pope and the fundamentalists by and large do little more than thump their chests and yell a lot, a moderate reaction of "you should not have offended our Pope" sends a much different message in this context.

Re:wow

[mlk]

Which Queen? Then English one? If so then you are way off base. For a start you would have no violence, the most you would have would be an upset letter in the Daily Mail.
The "moderate English" would either laugh (if it was a funny joke made at HM expense) or ignore it completely.

I have seen cartoons of the Pope (and the Queen) in papers. Nothing has happened in either case.

The Jerry Springer Opera took some quite offensive digs at Christianity from what I understand. It was broadcasted on the BBC. The results: "Hundreds of Christian protesters rallied outside BBC buildings before and during the broadcast on BBC Two." Quite far off demanding someones head.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslims who grew up in other surrounding cultures are MUCH more moderate as a whole. My personal experience is that Muslims who grew up in western culture are much LESS likely to attempt to impose their religious beliefs on others than fundamentalist Christians are.

Denmark?

Re:wow

[squidfood]

Hey, that's LISP. Oh, wait. I mean that's Zen!

For those who doubt that LISP is Zen, I ask the following: What is the sound of one ) closing?

Re:wow

[vistic]

The same argument could be made about most Americans who consider themselves to be Christians, by the more orthodox Christians of the world.

The Bible has enough rules and guidelines in it to define an entire culture and way of life... but all Christians pick and choose... even the most strict Christian is unable to follow all those rules.

So I'd say the Muslims you are considering "not actually Muslim" are as much Muslim as most Christians are Christian.

Re:wow

[keptwench]

It's a nice re-write of a very old BBS meme (think dial up days) that would show up at odd intervals.

Re:wow

[SirGarlon]

Except for the part about only accusing Islam of murderous tendencies?

Perhaps you missed the part about (from TFA):

Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity ... Not only are they certain that it's the best language in the world, but they're willing to burn those who disagree at the stake.

Offensive, perhaps; singling out Islam, not so much.

Re:wow

[xolo]

- the 500 years of the dark ages when Christianity ruled over science and anyone questioning the authority of the church was killed (murder/massacre)

Actually Francis Bacon didn't develop the scientific method until the 1500s

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Take away religion and what separates them? Both sides are made up of white, red-headed guys with funny accents. It's only religion which makes them "nationalistic".

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this on for size: if there was no purpose for violence, there would be no need for religion.

That sentence can be valid even if you believe that religion is the response to humanity's inherient violence, not it's major cause.

Re:wow

[StalinsNotDead]

Zoroastrian?

Re:wow

[electrictroy]

Anonymous Cowards have a score of (0) and the Slashdot comment viewer is set at (1), so their comments are rarely heard by anyone.

Re:wow

[corbettw]

If you think that Fundamentalist Christians and Catholic priests have anything in common with each other beyond a reverence for Jesus, you really shouldn't be taking part in this discussion.

Re:wow

[Digital End]

A fundimentalist muslim will scream, shout, and threaten violence. The more extreamists will kill people.

Oh, btw, a fundimentalist christian will scream, shout, and threaten violence... or bomb abortion clinics.

Protip: Religion is a drug, overdosing can cause a person to behave erraticly

Re:wow

[cshark]

No. Judaism and Christianity both have something Islam does not. Maturity. Islam, as you'll recall is the youngest of the abrahamic religions.

Re:wow

[xolo]

You've got to be kidding.

Look at your two examples.

Your average secular Joe might think about it and concede that they were wrong, and something might actually change for the better. Or they might just say "that sounds very nice, but I like my old opinion better".

A theist can stick their fingers in their ears and chant litanies, and is indeed, far more likely to, because their doctrine includes inbuilt mechanisms that tell them to resist all questions and doubts. They might even obey the instructions in their doctrine that tell them to destroy those with world views that conflict with theirs.

Your average secular Joe is doing the same thing as the ignorant theist, only your language is clearly favoring the secular Joe ... and why? Because he's secular Joe! That is exactly the problem. It has nothing to do with theism or atheism and everything to do with MY group vs. YOUR group.

A scientist would examine and attempt to verify the other fellows position - and if he was right, may actually thank him for the enlightenment.

This is just not true. No one is that objective. And when the conclusion to the question might require a radical change in behavior, it's even more certain that no one will be that objective.

Re:wow

[Rycross]

Some scientists would. Others might come up with separate studies to try to confirm their bias. Some would dismiss the study as not being rigorous enough. There's a reason we do science the way we do. Double blinds, repeatability, testability, the scientific method... its designed to limit the amount that bias can affect the results. The reality is that even so-called rational scientists are irrational a lot of the time. They've just learned, as a discipline, to deliberately limit the influence that irrationality has on their results.

Do you think that we don't have violence over political philosophies? Territory disputes between nations? Hell, sports teams? Blaming religion is like saying that you're sick with a runny nose when you have a cold: its a symptom, not the cause. The problem is that humans inherently tend to form groups, and submit to group-think and herd mentality in order for those groups function. If you are able to make their group feel that they are at threat from another group, then the first group will try to suppress or harm the other group. It doesn't need to be religion.

Re:wow

[DragonWriter]

Yes, that factual part of history offends me greatly, too.

Strictly speaking, its not a factual part of history. Fundamentalism is a movement that arose much more recently than anyone being burnt at the stake.

Re:wow

[ceoyoyo]

Nonsense. He had very nice things to say about Python.

Oh, you mean those OTHER programmers....

Re:wow

[not-my-real-name]

Anyone remember Dante's Divine Comedy? It was written in the early 1300s. In it, he had some past popes condemned to hell. They were also expecting the current pope to arrive soon.

If that isn't insulting the pope, I don't know what is. And this was back in the day when the pope had much more authority than now.

His (Dante's) exile from Florence was due to belonging to the wrong political party and not due to his religious beliefs.

Re:wow

[rthille]

If you didn't support legal action against the perpetrators, spoke out against attempts to bring them to justice, etc. then you _would_ be responsible to some extent. I'm not saying that the moderates can prevent all extremists from committing their crimes, but their condemnation of them should be loud and long. The extremists shouldn't be granted "cover under the banner of heaven".

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Really good post, and I largely agree - devote your efforts to organizations you agree with, actively work to change the organizations you're in, or both.

The only thing I would add, based on many years spent living in Utah, is that the Mormon church has no problem injecting itself and its membership into political matters. They are relentlessly political, they're extremely well-funded (think about it... 10% minimum of gross income from nearly all active members), and obedience to divine leadership is highly valued in Mormon culture. Obedience includes getting out the vote in whatever manner the church leaders encourage. Leaving the church is difficult, you can really get socially shunned. Much more so than other American denominations, Mormons tend to vote as a block, which certainly increases their influence.

Off-topic, I guess. My point is, they may lose a few members from being overtly political, but overall they're growing quickly, so it's a price they're more than willing to pay to get their way in the political arena decade after decade.

Re:wow

[Moraelin]

Your average secular Joe might think about it and concede that they were wrong, and something might actually change for the better. Or they might just say "that sounds very nice, but I like my old opinion better".

There were plenty of Joe Secular who stuck to inflexible ideas of nation, race, etc. Believe it or not, most white supremacist arguments don't have anything to do with anything from the Bible, for example. There are plenty of secular guys who'll view you as brainwashed and just put up their mental defenses, if you even try to bring up scientific arguments that, say, blacks aren't some inferior race bent on enslaving us all. Or you'll find that no amout of logic will dislodge some people from their mysoginist view of women being inferior, or conversely you'll have a hard time dislodging a few women from their view than men are Satan clones. Etc.

As long as you can paint the world in an "us vs them" theme, with a clearly drawn line between "us" and "them", there'll always be people who are all too eager to fight for the "us" group. And people more than eager to get them frenzied by painting the "us" group as being under attack by the "them" group.

But the real problem is: you're confusing "secular" with "rational", making the whole argument circular, or one roundabout case of "begging the question."

The truth is, the average person is very capable of logic, but not very inclined to use it spontaneously. It doesn't matter if it's a secular or religious guy or gal. Most people start from "what I wish were true" or "what I want for christmas" and then work backwards to a suitable justification for that. That's where they appear illogical, incidentally. But the real thing I'm getting at: if you confront their argument with irefutable logic, most will just back up into painting _you_ as the stupid or ilogical one for disagreeing with their bogus excuse. Their logic must be good, because it leads to where they want to get, and if you don't get to the same conclusion, then there's something wrong with _your_ brain.

Religion is one easy application of it, since we all want to live for ever and/or to feel special. So people start from "I want to go to heaven and live for ever" and work their way backwards to building some axioms (e.g., "christianity is absolute truth") to reach that pre-determined condition.

But it's not limited to religion by any means. The same can apply to people justifying stuff like "why I should get a sports car" or "why everyone should program in my favourite pet language so I don't have to learn a new one" or "why someone else should make less money so I can make more" or whatever. In fact, the same _does_ apply every bloody day, to almost everyone around you.

"Women are ilogical" vs "men are idiots" rants are probably the easiest example of exactly this thing in action. Guy wants X, woman wants Y, they both built their bogus rationales as to why they deserve their prize, and why the other should get less to make that possible. If the woman points the flaw in the guy's justification for blowing their savings on X, what do you get? "Women are ilogical." Guy points out the flaw in the woman's rationale? "Guys are such idiots." Neither listens carefully to the other's logic and corrects the flaw in theirs.

But you can find the same in action in nerds-vs-beancounters holy wars, holy wars about programming languages, etc. It's the default modus operandi for most of us, most of the time. "Logic" is just a fancy word for a string of fallacies leading to whatever we wish it to lead to. And if anyone points out flaws in it, they're ilogical and must be ignored or shut up.

There you go. An all-secular example that happens jolly well between secular people.

Again, religion _is_ an easy case, because when that wishful thinking is something you _really_ want (e.g., eternal life), then that conclusion just becomes all the more imovable and they're all the more likely to try to stop you from poking holes in the bogus rationale leading to it. But again, it can and does happen, with just about everything else.

Re:wow

[rthille]

No, Blacks and Muslims aren't the same, because Black is not a choice, but Muslim is.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

- Christians who think the crusade massacres were a good idea (massacre)

1000 years ago

- fundamentalists who go around shooting abortion doctors (murder)

more than 10 years ago, and only 7 people killed.

- the protestant catholic fighting in Ireland (terrorism)

10 years ago

- the Salem and other witch trials (murder)

300 years ago

- the 500 years of the dark ages when Christianity ruled over science and anyone questioning the authority of the church was killed (murder/massacre)

500 years ago

Meanwhile, there's one particular religion that you can just turn on the TV and see them killing people TODAY. Why is it that liberals always counter murder happening RIGHT NOW by talking about things that happened decades ago? Why bring up the abortion thing, when "only" 7 people were killed. Do you really suck so badly at debate that you don't see how easily I can counter the (admittedly needless) murder of 7 people over the course of a decade, that ended a decade ago, by calling attention to the many instances of entire busloads of school children being blow up?? Really? You don't see that coming??

Why is it so hard to accept that the absolute worst thing a xian does to you TODAY is try to have a sticker placed on your science book. Oh the horror!

Re:wow

[tnk1]

Yeah, I guess that they did forget to mention Ancestor Worship as one of them.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

> Leave the group

Punishable by death.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The moderates usually have no authority over the extremists, so how should they police them?

Leave the group.

If the organization or group you are in is being lead in a direction you are opposed to and you have no say in that course, then you should leave. To stay is to explicitly condone the actions of the leadership.

I think you meant 'implicitly', not explicitly.

Re:wow

[doodlebumm]

Most people leaving a religion do so at a time and for a reason that helps them make their "statement" against the religion. They usually have plenty of other reasons (founded or unfounded), and pick one that they feel will best play out for themselves.

Interestingly enough, most of the people that leave the Mormon Church don't have their names taken from the records of the church so that at some later time if they need some help (welfare assistance), it is easier to get. That's pure hypocrisy. Who needs hypocrites?

I'm fine with people leaving a religion. The Mormon Church doesn't make them remain members. Not only will it not make them remain members, but if they ask to be removed from the records, they comply with the request. And even those who are most vocal against it can be welcomed back "into the fold." (Of course, you can't still be against the church and be welcomed back in at the same time. Every group has it limits on participation criteria, including your local Credit Union. You can't rob a bank and then deposit that money in an account there if they know you are the thief.)

If someone leaves the Mormon Church over Prop 8, they obviously don't have much in common with the tenants of the religion. Kind of like a Jew leaving their synagogue because they weren't going to serve a Christmas ham at a Hanukkah celebration.

Birds of a feather flock together. I don't usually see to many ostriches mingling with seagulls. Do you?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you people get that the state religion of Rome and later Europe (i.e., Roman Catholicism) == fundamentalism?

Re:wow

[Shikaku]

Well considering that the sects of Islam is divided into many SEGMENTATION FAULT

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy: Have all immams issue a fatwa that prohibits violence. Make pariahs of those that would kill innocents.

Re:wow

[rthille]

The survey of young British Muslims seems to belie that statement.
Search for young british muslims support terrorism

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzzzzt WRONG Its only "nationalism" because they are separated by religion. Nice try to deflect criticism of the polarising effects of religion. Religion is division.

Re:wow

[Kurofuneparry]

I think where you said 'explicit' you meant to say 'implicit' since you're saying that those who stay in a religion are IMPLYING, not directly stating, that they are in support of the religions stances. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and I assure you that the church's stance on Homosexuality has always been clearly and openly defined. Fair-weather members who don't understand the churches positions have left, and while that is sad it's good that we live in a country and that my church is a church that allows such free religious expression. I find it shocking that you would attack that religious freedom of expression so openly by saying that our country should abandon the religious for which rights the founders of the colonies and then this nation (speaking of the USA) were willing to risk life, limb and prosperity for. All religions can and SHOULD express their views on issues (while avoiding supporting any candidate or party) or religious expression, including leaving a church because of disagreements, will die.

Re:wow

[againjj]

The Jews have a tendency to be clannish, and you have Jews talking about converts as "not real Jews" since they were not born Jewish. They have a bizarre system where you are Jewish if and only if (a) your mother is a Jew or (b) you convert. This has some rather strange consequences: Mom converts in here labor room, and so you are born Jewish and there is nothing you can do about it (once a Jew, always a Jew). The mother bit can from the far past where the Jews were raped and pillaged in Europe, and needed a way to define their own (you can't tell the father, but you can always tell the mother). Anyway, the confusion of the religion with ethnicity (or race you know what I mean, don't get hung up on definitions here) has many Jews talking about Jew converts and Jews.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't quite get your point, there are plenty of examples of largely christian Nations doing pretty appalling things to non christian people. or non catholics ok the spanish inquisition is pretty old but Northern Ireland is still divided on religious lines.

I guess if its communists then its different or blacks in the case of the KKK.
perhaps ethnic cleansing is acceptable too.

I'm fortunate enough to live in a country where I can get fat and lazy, and my life is greatly enhanced by the exploitation of foreign labour, some of what I use may even be produced by child labour. People are living in appalling conditions and producing stuff I want for my life.

If you were one of these people wouldn't you despise me heck your kids are dieing and suffering from malnutrition. while i'm sat here farting due to an excess of food.

It's not great is it, and I'm not even rich or well off by my countries standards.

I'm not surprised some people would want to kill and maim me because to be honest if i was in their place i'd probably want to do the samething too.

Re:wow

[johanatan]

And, a philosopher (along with the theist) would recognize that science [as defined by materialists] is utterly powerless as a tool for 'proving metaphysical viewpoints' wrong.

Re:wow

[tnk1]

Its not silly at all, you're just getting confused by the labels. The Unionists are descendants of settlers invited to Ireland to help Britain control Ireland better. The "Catholics" are the descendants of the original natives.

Bear in mind that the English were invading Ireland long before the English abandoned the Catholic Church. The fact that the war is now about "religion" is that the religion became a convenient litmus test to prove those loyal to England and those not loyal.

If you really think that the war in Ireland is about religion see if you hear them talking about Papal supremacy or transubstantiation or some doctrine. You will find they aren't. Its an ethnic/nationalist war and always has been.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

When feminists accuse all men of being rapists, whilst I deplore rape I'm bound to say "actually, no I'm not".

You could always try laughing and ask, "Then why aren't you running?"

Re:wow

[johanatan]

Exactly, it's more of an ethnic or class conflict than anything.

Re:wow

[paganizer]

Has a ring of truth to it. after all, GWBASIC was a lot like playing D&D.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

There are actually two constants: change and unchange. Our environments change constantly, but basic human instinct doesn't change. Religion should help you to understand that basic human instinct, but it has become dogma, because how you apply that understanding changes. Religion merely holds the wrong things as stable.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this modded funny.. COBOL is running on top banking systems as well as other financial systems (controlled by "you know who", at large.. at least that's the common knowledge (so hate me...)).
It should more likely be modded for exaggeration..

Ah, Slashdot.. declining in news as well as commenting..

Besides everyone knows that the upcoming language of U, decending from C is really the -true- Judaism programming language..

Re:wow

[sdnick]

Er, how? The moderates usually have no authority over the extremists, so how should they police them? In what sense are the extremists the moderates' "own"?

The extremists aren't a separate species or something. They attend the same mosques as the moderates, hear the same speeches from the same imams, and in many cases walk with the moderates afterward back to the family home.

The moderates have the authority of group pressure. They also have the religious authority to pick and choose the imams who preach religion to their children. So why don't they? Instead, you have the British Pakistani community producing radicalized young men at a regular pace now, carrying out terrorist attacks around the globe after listening to speeches at British mosques filled with hate and incitements to violence while the community at large - their parents, grandparents and siblings - either does nothing or actively condones their actions.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The only interesting in this post is the amount of ignorance.

Re:wow

[mattwarden]

The word may be new but it isn't.

Re:wow

[maidix]

Muslims are more likely to kill? Are you suggesting it is somehow genetic, i.e. Muslims are the Klingons of planet earth? Islam is hardly the only religion that advocates the destruction of non-believers. Just look at the atrocities, genocides, and immoralities advocated by the god of those "other" monotheistic religions. You say Muslims are more likely to kill. I am curious. In this cultural war between the "Cafeteria Christianity" that dominates America vs. the "Militant Islam" that dominates the mid-east, which side would you estimate has more blood on its hands? Which side most callously, and with the most frequency, shrugs off the mass slaughter of civilians who got caught in the crossfire of WMDs? I would say the difference would be several orders of magnitude. When I wake up in the morning, I'm not afraid of Muslims. I'm afraid of my government making some self-righteous judgments and starting a nuclear war, to prove our moral superiority. I'm afraid of getting beaten by a cop for breathing wrong. But I'm not afraid of Muslims ganging up on me.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Best comment of the week.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

People have used science to commit atrocities too. People have used religion to examine arguments, they are called theologians. Enlightenment is in examining and questioning the universe, both science and religion are useful for this. Don't discount something without experiencing it firsthand, that's hardly a curious scientific mindset.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

religion is inherently inflexible in a world where the one constant is change, produces a sense of entitlement to use any means - because the end is "Gods Will", and religious texts often contain actual explicit instructions to do violence to individuals and cultures that do not comply

Which gods, and what will they do?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

this is the funniest thing I have EVER read on Slashdot!

Re:wow

[sjames]

Denmark?

The majority of Muslims in Denmark are first generation, meaning they didn't grow up in the West.

Re:wow

[systemeng]

In this respect, I'd have to call the show throwing incident this week a definite improvement in the situation in Iraq and one that Bush should have praised if he had any sense. If we can encourage show throwing over grenade throwing, we will have caused that part of the world to have adopted a much more realistic view than that of the extremist nitwits.

Re:wow

[whois_drek]

>contemporary political issue

You have every right to your opinion, but Latter-day Saints believe marriage is an eternal and sacred commitment, not a "contemporary political issue." Hence their interest.

>By staying in their church, Mormons explicitly endorse their churches actions and stances

I completely agree.

>...the LDS church can and will inject itself and its considerable demographic and monetary clout directly and voluminously into any political debate that takes its fancy

I wouldn't doubt it. I can even tell you what political debates will take it's fancy: those involving religious issues.

I'll even toss out another idea: it has every right to do so. When you say "the LDS church" what you're really saying is "every member that belongs to the LDS church." Those members have every right to participate in the democratic process, and the "leaders" of the LDS church have as much right to preach their viewpoint to their members as the man in the commercial on TV.

>You can stay and support the actions of your church leaders, or you can leave.

Again, we're totally in agreement here. Even more-so in the Mormon church than any other, since twice a year we have a world-wide meeting where every member has a chance to *literally* raise their hand in support or disagreement with church leaders--watch it online, you'll see the actual hand-raise.

For what it's worth, I think the reason this topic is so difficult to discuss is because there's so little data to go on. I think the LDS church is concerned about the long-term effects on society, but obviously there's been no studies done.

There's no good analogy, but consider it like proposing legalizing off-shore drilling before doing environmental studies, while what little data you have shows what you consider a lot of negative effects.

Re:wow

[digitig]

I'm not saying that the moderates can prevent all extremists from committing their crimes, but their condemnation of them should be loud and long. The extremists shouldn't be granted "cover under the banner of heaven".

And as far as I can see, their condemnation is loud and long. But unfortunately, the words and actions of the extremists sell newspapers and gets TV viewers, those of the moderates don't (expecially if it's likely to disturb the readers'/viewers' prejudices) and so you won't get to see it unless you go looking. That's not the fault of the moderates, that's the fault of the "gatekeepers" of the information. Do you expect Fox News or The Daily Mail to report prominent Muslims doing the right thing?

Re:wow

[bugs2squash]

Was Northern Ireland about Catholics vs Protestants or about a legacy of inequality of opportunity or finances ?

Is the black vs white struggle in the south today mostly about racism or about wealth distribution ?

Is the fight against radical Islam about dogma or global inequity ?

For my part, I believe that the religious aspect is just crap piled on top of a situation that was bad for other reasons. As we move from a conflict confined within a few hundred square miles of Co. Derry to a conflict that encompasses everything south of the Mason Dixon Line to a conflict that spans the globe we need to develop a better understanding of what motivates terrorists than some glib line like "they hate our freedoms".

I want to know more and I expect world leaders to do better in helping spread understanding.

Re:wow

[digitig]

Are all Immams "moderates", then? That must be an obscure meaning of "moderate" of which I was previously unaware.

Remember, my question is what can moderates do, not what should everyone do.

Re:wow

[digitig]

The extremists aren't a separate species or something. They attend the same mosques as the moderates, hear the same speeches from the same imams, and in many cases walk with the moderates afterward back to the family home.

I was responding to a post which accused all "religionists", not just Muslims.

The moderates have the authority of group pressure. They also have the religious authority to pick and choose the imams who preach religion to their children. So why don't they?

And do you know they're not? If they're a minority in a particular area they might not be able to do much, you know.

Instead, you have the British Pakistani community producing radicalized young men at a regular pace now, carrying out terrorist attacks around the globe after listening to speeches at British mosques filled with hate and incitements to violence while the community at large - their parents, grandparents and siblings - either does nothing or actively condones their actions.

If they condone the actions, might I respectfully suggest that they're not actually moderates?

Re:wow

[mpe]

A good start would be for them to publicly condemn acts of terrorism by muslims. Have you noticed that whenever a christian commits an atrocious act in the name of their religion, the pope or someone immediately condemn the act?

The Catholic Church is somewhat unusual in that it has a hierarchical structure.
Though I don't recall any Pope routinely condeming the IRA.

As far as I know, nothing like that has ever happened with muslims.

There is no Islamic equivalent of a "pope" or even an "archbishop".

Re:wow

[sdnick]

Ah yes, so as Christians we were supposed to have policed the following:

- fundamentalists who go around shooting abortion doctors (murder)

- the protestant catholic fighting in Ireland (terrorism)

If your local minister or priest is preaching the shooting of abortion doctors to young men in your congregation or seeking donations to fund violence in Ireland, the answer is a resounding YES - you are supposed to police it or notify authorities if you can't.

And that's what too many Muslims aren't doing. Mosques in the UK and elsewhere are filled with radical imams preaching hate and violent jihad - documented by TV exposes, by transcripts of the speeches, by books sold at the mosques, and by the imams themselves, who are not shy about their beliefs. Why aren't mainstream Muslims doing something about this besides listening and nodding? Why aren't extremist imams being replaced?

Re:wow

[Chris Burke]

For those who doubt that LISP is Zen, I ask the following: What is the sound of one ) closing?

The great Zen monk M-X eval-expression responds:

Invalid read syntax: ")"

So there you have it.

Re:wow

[bzipitidoo]

I'll take a stab at it.

FORTRAN is atheism. FORTRAN has tried to get OOP and dynamic memory religion in recent incarnations, but people still prefer FORTRAN 77. And get burned at the stake for it.

PL/1 is Norse mythology. Heavy, thunderous, gigantic, and dead. Put on Wagner's Twilight of the Gods the next time you feel like programming in PL/1.

Pascal is Confucianism. It was all about education until used for real.

Assembler is Druidism. Assembler programmers worship the bare metal, druids worship Nature, and everyone worships differently.

The only one I found really amusing was Perl = Voodoo. Now, what language fits Cargo Cult?

Re:wow

[terrabitter]

America IS populated mostly by violent fundamentalist nutcases. You've just organized your violence better. // Neutral European

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod up, informative.

Re:wow

[bytesex]

That logic only applies when the group is self-defined and reigned-in, as it were. The British police 'their own' (and punish the perpetrators in the baby P case) because they are the British people; they have a land, a law, and a police force. They recognize themselves as British and they are recognized by their neighbouring countries as British.

All of this doesn't apply to 'muslims', who are a diverse group spread out over the world, who sometimes don't even recognize each other as being muslim, and certainly feel no obligation in 'policing' 'their own'. 'Policing' is for the police, they reason, and the people they are supposed to be policing. according to you, they sometimes don't even recognize as 'their own'. They would find your obligating them to police 'their own' probably rather condescending and unduly burdensome.

In order to police 'their own', they would have to be officially recognizable as their own, and be available for undergoing the policing (i.e. they would have to all live in the same neighbourhood). Your logic leads to obligatory religious self-identification, and ghetto's. That system exists. It's called Beirut. I don't want to live there.

Re:wow

[Nefarious Wheel]

FORTRAN is spoken only by angels. GCOS is spoken only be He Who Shall Remain Nameless. And PL/I is for those angels who have fallen yet refuse to embrace COBOL.

Re:wow

[mcgrew]

There are at least a half-dozen quotes in the bible saying that unbelievers should be killed, and a bunch more saying that people who perform certain actions (which aren't unethical from a secular perspective) should be killed.

Muslims, Jews, and Christians all share the Torah, or as Christians call it, the Old Testament.

Christians follow the teachings of Christ, who brought a new covenant that replaced Abraham's Covenent. Its basis is that of forgiveness; the entire religion centers around forgiveness. To Christians, the Old Testament tells us how to behave, and note that "thou shalt not kill" is an absolute.

Its central figure finds an adulteress (note that adultery is one of Moses' ten nonos), and says "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

The "kill the fags!" right wing nonsense is decidedly antiChristian, as are the abortion clinic bombers.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Which brings to mind a story I once heard. A Jewish man was confronted by a group in Northern Ireland, wanting to know where his loyalties were.

They asked him, "Are you Protestant or Catholic?"

He replied that he was a Jew, which stumped them for a moment.

But then they came back with the question, "But are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?"

Re:wow

[The Wooden Badger]

And it's funny because it's true.

Re:wow

[ebuck]

What about the crusade? You know, the one that a certain soon-to-be-ex-President declared as such?

What about the nutcase minister that a particular Vice-Presidental candidate associates with, didn't he boast of driving a witch (citizen) out of her own community?

What about a particular group in Waco, who's religious leading put them at odds with the ATF much to their demise.

What about the systemic different set of rights allotted to married couples? What about the control of the definition of marriage to follow religious beliefs?

What about the initial reluctance to do much about HIV because it was a sinner's disease?

Look around a little, it's harder to notice needle in a stack of needles than in a haystack. Since the backdrop here is Christian, it's very easy to point out non-Christian flaws.

Re:wow

[ebuck]

What, you don't do garbage collection?

Re:wow

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I think where you said 'explicit' you meant to say 'implicit' since you're saying that those who stay in a religion are IMPLYING, not directly stating, that they are in support of the religions stances.

No, I meant explicit. Indeed I meant it as the very opposite of implicit approval. They ARE stating directly that they support the religious stances of their church leaders, and also support the actions and directions of the church.

I find it shocking that you would attack that religious freedom of expression so openly by saying that our country should abandon the religious for which rights.....

I never said any such things. I said that if an organization is being lead in a direction that its followers disapprove of, then they should either try to change that direction or leave. I never said anything about curtailing religious freedom of expression, and it's also clear that you ignored the second link in my post.

Having said that, I do object to religious organizations behaving politically, as the LDS church has done. There is a line between a church declaring its stance, and a church behaving like a political party. Donating $20 million dollars to a referendum campaign crosses that line. Such behavior is prohibited in many european countries, notably France, and with good reason. Church leaders should not wield political power. This is a lesson which I fear the US will have to learn the hard way.

Re:wow

[loftyhauser]

Egads. "'Mormon' Church of Latter-Day Saints"? It's the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It is interesting, but not so surprising, to find that "about 200" members of the church are leaving over the Proposition 8 issue. That's hardly a large number, though, compared to the more than 12 million worldwide membership of the church. There are always some who will find some reason to leave the church. That is their decision.

I do, however, take issue with your opinion that the leadership of the church injected itself inappropriately into a contemporary political issue. How was it inappropriate? Do church leaders not have the same freedom of speech as do any other person in the United States? Of course they do. They don't always exercise that right. Be aware that the church has consistently kept itself out of politics, the exception being when the political issues concern morals. It is then the right, and duty, of the church to speak out.

Re:wow

[Just Some Guy]

What about the crusade? You know, the one that a certain soon-to-be-ex-President declared as such? What about the nutcase minister that a particular Vice-Presidental candidate associates with, didn't he boast of driving a witch (citizen) out of her own community?

You mean the members of the party that just lost the election? What about them?

What about a particular group in Waco, who's religious leading put them at odds with the ATF much to their demise.

The group roundly written off as nutcases, correct.

What about the systemic different set of rights allotted to married couples? What about the control of the definition of marriage to follow religious beliefs?

How are you binding that solely to Christian groups? In Californa, Prop. 8 narrowly won; a huge percentage of Christians had to have voted against it for the numbers to be so close.

What about the initial reluctance to do much about HIV because it was a sinner's disease?

That has what to do with Christianity?

Look around a little, it's harder to notice needle in a stack of needles than in a haystack. Since the backdrop here is Christian, it's very easy to point out non-Christian flaws.

It's apparently not very easy (for you) to point out Christian flaws.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, nothing you mentioned goes against whats written in the bible.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

When you insult the pope, large mobs don't raise the placards demanding "behead those who insult Catholicism." They don't execute people on the streets or burn down embassies.

Re:wow

[computechnica]

I wonder if Cat has been cherry picking the Quran just like other religious appologists cherry-pick the Bible for nice verses and ignore the disgusting violence that is in both books based on Abrahams copying of Sumerian mythology.
Biblical Violence
Quranic Violence

Re:wow

[isBandGeek()]

Statistically, African Americans are more likely to kill than those of other races. So the ones that don't go around killing people need to police the ones that do? Sounds like suicide.

Re:wow

[bwcbwc]

"Muslims are more likely to kill..."
Fail.

The Muslim violence we see today is comparable to the troubles in Northern Ireland, scaled up proportionally to a larger population and land area. The difference is that the violence in N.I. was directed locally and at the UK, while the U.S. was a funding source for various factions. For the Muslim violence, the U.S. is the target, as well as the funding source (if you track the oil revenues back to the consumer).

If you want to see the epitome of religious violence look at the period starting with the rise of Islam, through the Crusades, the Catholic/Protestant reformation and counter-reformation that only wound down after the Holocaust. After the 18th century's "Age of Reason" and the American proclamation of religious liberty, the violence continued, but with rare exceptions (pogroms and genocides) it wasn't covered with a religious fig-leaf.

Humans have a natural tendency for war and violence. It has nothing to do with which god we worship (or don't worship). Religion is just a tool that war hawks use to justify their methods.

Re:wow

[digitig]

Uh huh. So if moderates don't condemn violence they are supporting it, and if they do then they're cherry-picking. In other words, they can't win whatever they do, and so there's no reason for them to take any notice of your opinion. Yes, that should help undermine extremism, shouldn't it?

Re:wow

[Xabraxas]

Except Islam isn't a derivative of Christianity. In fact it was much closer to Judaism. It was an adaptation of Jewish lore to the Arabic people. Much like the Jewish people, Muslims weren't looking for converts, they believed they were the chosen people. Christianity is radically different from both Islam and Judaism in that very early on the goal was to spread the religion far and wide. That's why there are so many pagan elements in Christianity. It was necessary to carry over many pagan traditions from all over the known world to convert people. Judaism and Islam were much more localized and drew from local pagan traditions only.

Re:wow

[fishbowl]

This is known in rhetoric and logical reasoning as "The No True Scotsman" fallacy.

Re:wow

[mangu]

what in the world is an American Muslim family supposed to do about the Taliban?

The least they could do is to protest with the same emphasis muslims protested against those cartoons they said offended their religion.

If terrorism performed in the name of your religion doesn't offend you enough to do a public protest, then your religion *does* support terrorism.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

- the 500 years of the dark ages when Christianity ruled over science and anyone questioning the authority of the church was killed (murder/massacre)

Actually Francis Bacon didn't develop the scientific method until the 1500s

ROGER Bacon lived in the 1200s.

Re:wow

[Pentavirate]

As a Mormon, I agree with you 100%. If people don't agree with what the leadership of the church teaches or does, then they should leave the church. The way it works in the Mormon church is that it's either right or wrong. There really isn't any middle ground.

Re:wow

[moderators_are_w*nke]

Like it or not, Muslims are more likely to kill in response to perceived offenses against their religion

I hope you have some numbers to back that one up.

 

If you're a moderate muslim and you find that offensive, then you need to do two things

Unless you have some figures to back it up, Im a moderate atheist and I find it offensive, as I do all forms of racism.

get over it, since free speech is a right in the U.S.A.

Indeed it is, but as far as I'm aware the US has laws against publishing defamatory statements, and presumable laws against inciting racial hatred. Like I said, it would be good to see your numbers.

and therefore you're likely to find offensive speech living here, or on the internet

And when I do I challenge it.

secondly, you should be decrying the violence promulgated by extremist muslims in the name of Islam. Part of the problem with moderate religionists is that they give cover for the extremists under the umbrella of "respect for religion". If they want their religion to continue getting respect, they need to police their own.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's the Queen of England, you'd be surprised. As a brit, I can quite openly say "The queen is a complete waste of money, and has a face like someone drop kicked her as a baby". The most likely response would either be agreement, or some mild righteous indignation. No-one would be braying for my head.

Re:wow

[mikecarrmikecarr]

Or, to continue with the "if you're a moderate muslim and you find that offensive" train of thought, you could always kill the poster. C'mon, can't moderates be killers too? I'm so tired of people and their moderates = "peace loving beatniks" philosophy. Some moderates are whackjobs too. :)

Re:wow

[Pentavirate]

Having said that, I do object to religious organizations behaving politically, as the LDS church has done. There is a line between a church declaring its stance, and a church behaving like a political party. Donating $20 million dollars to a referendum campaign crosses that line. Such behavior is prohibited in many european countries, notably France, and with good reason. Church leaders should not wield political power. This is a lesson which I fear the US will have to learn the hard way.

See, there it get's tricky. Donating money for political causes is considered free speech. The money is used to sponsor TV spots and other advertisements to express their side of the argument. Shouldn't the voters have both sides of any argument? There were plenty of anti-prop 8 commercials out as well. Voters looked at the arguments presented and made a decision. To prohibit churches from being able to get their side of the argument out inherently gives a huge advantage to the opposition of any moral question being voted on.

The biggest reason this proposition got so much funding had more to do with protecting churches' (there were more than the Mormon church donating money to oppose it) rights to preach and practice their religion as they see fit. They saw the results of similar actions in Massachussets and the effects it had on how church members practice their religions and they felt they had to protect their rights and what better way than through the political process.

Re:wow

[Haeleth]

For those who doubt that LISP is Zen, I ask the following: What is the sound of one ) closing?

Ooh, ooh, I know this one!

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (scan-error "Unbalanced parentheses" 1 1)
  scan-sexps(2 -1)
  forward-sexp(-1)
  preceding-sexp()
  eval-last-sexp-1(nil)
  eval-last-sexp(nil)
  call-interactively(eval-last-sexp nil nil)

Re:wow

[sjames]

When is the last time you took to the streets protesting against Al-Queda? Ever protested against robbing the licquor store? Have you protested against the great firewall of China?

Does your lack of public protest indicate tacit approval? Are you, in fact, a repressive communist fanatical Islamic terrorist and a thief?

Do you believe that any Christian who fails to publicly protest the KKK (and their use of the cross) is, in-fact, a white supremest or at least a supporter of white power? (is that still true if they happen to be black?)

The sad fact is that bad people do bad things in the name of religion (or with the excuse of religion) all the time, and have for millennia.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

so do moderate Muslims leave radical mosques and imams. However, in west, Muslims don't have many mosques to choose from. So they continue to go to closet mosque but don't really care about people there. I know, I am Muslim, I just go to pray at mosque and then head to clubs

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that factual part of history offends me greatly, too.

You are mixing your tenses to try to justify a libel. TFA says that "[Fundamentalist Christians] are perfectly happy to burn people at the stake", not "hundreds of years in the past some fundamentalists burned people at the stake (but it was actually far far fewer than urban myth dictates)".

So, by your logic I could say that you personally are perfectly happy to slaughter and eat your children, justifying it with the "factual piece of history" that somewhere back in history a very small number of ancestors of people who fit in the same broad stereotype as you might have done this].

Re:wow

[Haeleth]

Indeed, only last week I listened to a radio programme on the official state broadcaster whose host was openly mocking the Queen's accent. If mobs have marched through London demanding blood, then they have somehow managed to escape the notice of the world's media.

Or you could look back at all the fuss there was about that documentary a while back where the trailer was edited in such a way as to suggest that the Queen walked out of an interview in a huff. There was a little anger, and a lot of mildly critical media coverage. The boss at whose desk the buck stopped resigned. So far he hasn't been murdered.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point is well taken, but to say that the LDS church injected itself at all, let alone inappropriately, into the political scene is buying into the line those against the church are feeding everyone.

As a strong believer in my religion, I can honestly say that not once did I ever feel pressure to contribute to or even support prop 8. The church itself never contributed to the campaign, as that would clearly be wrong. Those members who did contribute did so because they believed prop 8 to be a wise decision, not (hopefully) because they were 'told' to.

The statement read in our congregation, as was read in all LDS congregations, was a reiteration of the Church's view of the importance of the family, and protecting what that means to us. The encouragement to get involved was as much intended to those who opposed prop 8 as those who supported it.

All of that said, your point about leaving is well placed, and to a point I agree with you.

Sorry for posting as a coward... one of these days I'll actually create an account here.

Re:wow

[Kurofuneparry]

Leaving the definition of English words aside, I would like to comment on your response while adding that I ignored no part of your post.

I find it shocking that you would attack that religious freedom of expression so openly by saying that our country should abandon the religious for which rights.....

I never said any such things.... I never said anything about curtailing religious freedom of expression....., and it's also clear that you ignored the second link in my post.

Having said that, I do object to religious organizations behaving politically.....

I realize that you see the support by the Mormon church and its followers as a bad thing, but you're letting that cloud your judgment: you follow a statement about not curtailing religious freedom with a statement that you would like to do so. Political behavior, such as announcing ones' own beliefs is legal and should be ENCOURAGED on both sides. Claiming that a groups opinion is invalid BECAUSE they are enthusiastic is wrong.

You seem to have argued that the leadership of the church was unilateral in their attack. I assure you from personal experience that the body of the church was active to the point that the church leadership was seeking to keep up with their desire to defend the traditional definition for marriage. $10 or $20 million dollars in donations, the people of California have decided twice what they want, following the path of many states before them.

Finally in defense of religious freedom (my accusation that you attack it is not withdrawn) we should remember that it was the religious persecution of many countries in Europe that led exodus to America and that our founding fathers sought to maintain that liberty here. Asking now that we imitate Europe isn't wrong simply for that history, but it is certainly disconcerting.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto the Crusades. More to do with political control (nothing unites a country like foreign wars in the Middle East, eh, Mr Bush?) and material wealth (back then it was control over trade routes, of course, not oil). Religion was just used to justify it to the credulous masses.

Re:wow

[Golddess]

Indeed. If that were the case, we'd have lost South Park years ago.

Re:wow

[williamhb]

Note in advance: I think ALL people that truly believe in a religion have a mental illness.

As you appear to place quite strong belief in that without evidence, one might say "Doctor heal thyself".

(Or at least "put the Dawkins book down and actually think, rather than just parroting his text".)

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, after all, you are also a Hell resident...

Re:wow

[DarkLordOfHell]

Speaking as the dark lord of hell, I'm offended by the insinuation that I want to possess the souls of VB "programmers"!

Beelzebub, I thought I told you to stop impersonating me, fucking asshole. Just wait till you get back to the office, oh boy. And for the parent, what the hell are we supposed to do with the souls of VB programmers? I don't have time for electrotherapy patients.

Re:wow

[ioshhdflwuegfh]

Hey, that's LISP. Oh, wait. I mean that's Zen!

For those who doubt that LISP is Zen, I ask the following: What is the sound of one ) closing?

It is the sound of one ( openning being closed.

Re:wow

[pbhj]

I don't think that it is fallacious to examine someone's actions over and above their declarations to determine their true nature.

In terms of the Scotsman, when one reads of a Scotsman having done unspeakable acts of depravity (even worse than deep-frying pizza!) one can ask whether he is Scottish by birthright or by self-proclamation. If it is only the later then the observer is right to declare "no true Scotsman would ..." and can even tightly define what he means by a true Scotsman.

To abstract: "no prime can be factored", tautology by definition.

Ultimately determining if a [small] number is prime or someone is Scottish (at least within high bounds of certainty) is easier than determining someone's beliefs.

Re:wow

[smegged]

Just to clarify, "be not yoked with unbelievers" is in reference to marriage and marrying someone who is not a believer. Which is probably good advice for anyone of any religion (or lack thereof). Marrying someone who holds different fundamental beliefs to you is going to cause difficulties.

Since this is slashdot, I feel obliged to include a definition of marriage as for most readers it will be a foreign term, and for those to whom it isn't - hi mum.

Re:wow

[pnewhook]

So you agree with my point that it is never truly about religion - religion is just used as an excuse for one group to try and force beliefs on another.

Re:wow

[zobier]

Visual Basic would be Satanism - Except that you don't REALLY need to sell your soul to be a Satanist...

Speaking as the dark lord of hell, I'm offended by the insinuation that I want to possess the souls of VB "programmers"!

I think they were referring to the Other Dark Lord.

Re:wow

[smegged]

Marital rights are now likened to atrocities? A widely condemned cult is now linked to the mainstream that condemned it? A war sold to the public on secular grounds is now a religious war?

If these are the largest criticisms you have of Christianity, or at least the best examples you can give of "why Christianity is evil" then you are doing a very poor job of selling your argument. The fact is that the worst atrocities associated to Christianity actually occurred before the printing press - and the subsequent public education of what Christianity actually said.

Re:wow

[duffel]

I am responsible for policing my own. Just how might I have done that?

Actually, you're doing it now. The public outrage and media frenzy have done a great job policing the system, leading to resignations and dismissals of the responsible, and ensuring that in future, employees of the child protection services will be that much more careful about the lives they are in part responsible for. Don't underestimate the power of talking about things with people - even if you're not politically active.

Re:wow

[pnewhook]

Why do I need a modern set of examples - had Christianity radically changed in 2000 years?

Re:wow

[pnewhook]

You completely missed the point. None of those atrocities were about religion in the sense that the religious teachings demanded that they happen. The events occurred because people were using the religion as an excuse to commit evil acts.

If religion were truly followed then killing would never happen.

Re:wow

[pnewhook]

So basically you are saying "Sure, Christianity was responsible for murdering millions of people but that was long ago so it doesn't really matter and Christians are now all good and right. Muslims are wrong and evil because they are killing people now."

Did I understand your argument correctly?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine if all they ever saw of america on their TV shows was Westboro Baptist Church protests,KKK protests and rednecks talking about how they'd love to shoot all dem damn muslums and George Bush. They might decide that Americans were all violent fundamentalist nutcases. And they'd be exactly as right as you are.

Have you ever seen american TV? Ever?

Re:wow

[atraintocry]

And atheists fear death above all else.

People who believe in hell fear death. Those that don't get to focus on improving their lives rather than obsessing over what's going to happen after it ends.

They will never react against a successful death cult. That does not make sense to them.

No religions make sense to atheists. They sure as hell aren't going to threaten someone in to giving up their religion. That's what religious people do.

It'd be like going to a psych ward and telling someone you're going to beat them unless they get their personality disorder under control.

All you can do is be supportive of people, acknowledge their humanity, and hope that they do the same. I'm shocked that you'd try to spin atheists not getting involved in a religious war as a bad thing.

Re:wow

[nametaken]

You just got modded +5 funny for telling a jewish joke on /., with the nick "jkiller".

You sir, have a horseshoe up your ass. :)

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was such a hateful comment modded funny?

Re:wow

[Gumbercules!!]

So you missed the whole bit about the Christian / Java group burning people at the stake? That would constitute a form of murder, surely?

Re:wow

[Teancum]

Having said that, I do object to religious organizations behaving politically, as the LDS church has done. There is a line between a church declaring its stance, and a church behaving like a political party. Donating $20 million dollars to a referendum campaign crosses that line. Such behavior is prohibited in many european countries, notably France, and with good reason. Church leaders should not wield political power. This is a lesson which I fear the US will have to learn the hard way.

I don't know where you or anybody else gets this $20 million dollars figure. Yeah, I might agree that $20 million dollars were generated from LDS members in support of Proposition 8, but that is a far and away different issue from the church, institutionally, donating the money directly from tax-exempt church funds intended to be used for the primary missions (aka purposes) of the church.

Yeah, if that came from the tax-exempt funds, I'd have to agree. It should be pointed out that the LDS church does "own" some for-profit businesses that generate income which is not tax-exempt (most definitely taxed at corporate rates). Some of this money may have ended up going to the prop 8 funding, but it certainly wasn't anywhere close to the $20 million out of the $36 million altogether spent in support of prop 8 in California.

According to the Deseret News, the LDS Church contributed in kind or through reportable donations something like a couple thousand dollars in support. As I pointed out, there are taxable funds in the form of political action committees and other funding sources that can easily pay for this that don't come from the tax-free donations most members pay in the form of tithing.

BTW, this is no different than black Baptist churches organizing their congregations in support of Democratic candidates, or the Fundimentalist Christian groups that formally endorsed and supported George W. Bush. Religious support for political purposes dates back to the very founding of the American Republic, and has an even deeper history with both sides of the American Civil War in regards to abolitionists and supporters of "states rights".

Heck, the worry when JFK was running for president was that he was going to be overly influenced by the Pope due to consistent political involvement of the Catholic Church prior to his becoming President.

I fail to see what lesson needs to be learned or what is uniquely different here... other than there are a bunch of highly ignorant folks who know nothing of the involvement of religious groups in the past, nor are you even acknowledging the involvement of other religious groups besides the LDS Church in this particular political battle. The LDS Church was hardly alone here either.

Re:wow

[bill_mcgonigle]

When you insult the pope, large mobs don't raise the placards demanding "behead those who insult Catholicism." They don't execute people on the streets or burn down embassies.

Naw, that's old-school Christianity. Well, middle-school, I guess, Christ would have been appalled by what they did in the Middle Ages. Now, slightly less so.

Re:wow

[smeg40]

Here was a church leadership which injected its organization voluminously and inappropriately into a contemporary political issue. They turned an institution of private religious belief into public political party.

That last statement is simply untrue. What was inappropriate about the Mormon church (or any of the other churches involved for that matter) involving itself in this issue? It was not a purely political issue. The church did not present itself either officially or unofficially as a political party in this matter. The Mormon church does not involve itself as an institution in American (or any other country's) party politics, or specifically endorse any political candidates.

Prop 8 was seen by many as a moral issue that goes beyond simple politics, and moral issues are well within the domain of churches. Religious organisations such as the Catholic church and the LDS church have strong and definite beliefs on marriage, and I believe under American law and constitutional guarantees, have every right to be involved in these type of moral issues on a public basis.

It should also be noted that whilst the Mormon church and other religious groups were vocal in this matter, it is my understanding that members of the black and hispanic communities in California represented a significant percentage of the majority voted against legalising gay marriage. Are these demographics bigoted towards gays?

Personally, I would be more worried by the fact that the Governor of California is determined to overturn the voice of the people. Twice in the last eight years this issue has been voted upon in California, and twice the people have decided by the established democratic process to not support the legalisation of gay marriage. Despite this, the Governor is determined to overturn the will of the people. That should be of greater concern, as that is more likely to damage the political freedoms of Californians that are so cherished by Americans in general.

For the record, I am a member of the Mormon church. I know for a fact that the church is not bigoted towards homosexuals. Like the rest of Christianity, we see the practice of homosexuality as sin, as taught in the Bible. We also see extra-marital sex (adultery) and pre-marital sex (fornication) as sin, and that too is according to biblical teachings. Just because a person or organisation views these practices as sinful, it does not mean that they are automatically bigoted towards the individuals involved. Quite the opposite in fact. Are parents bigoted towards their children because the child behaves in a manner that is unacceptable to the parents? No, they still love the child notwithstanding they might deplore the behaviour.

Bigotry is defined as "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own." The Mormon church's position towards homosexuality is not bigotry. I would point you to the transcript of an interview on the LDS Church's position on homosexuality. This lengthy interview was given by two very senior leaders of the Church, and is found here. Make of it what you will, but this is not a bigoted position.

Those that choose homosexuality (and it is purely by choice) are still free to live that lifestyle according to the laws of the land. The fact that this minority wanted to make a change to the law, and the majority opposed it doesn't change the fact that they are still free to live the way they choose.

I do agree with you however that if a person strongly disagree's with the teachings of the church or religious group to which they have associated themselves, then by all means they should probably discontinue that association. Staying to merely avoid social difficulty, and not living according the principles upon which membership of that church is based in nothing

Re:wow

[mangu]

When is the last time you took to the streets protesting against Al-Queda?

I'm not a Muslim

Ever protested against robbing the liquor store?

I don't know of any liquor store robbers who claim to do that in the name of any religion.

Have you protested against the great firewall of China?

Yes, I have. I have always been very strongly opposed to the Marxist Socialism ideology that built the great firewall.

Do you believe that any Christian who fails to publicly protest the KKK (and their use of the cross) is, in-fact, a white supremest or at least a supporter of white power?

Yes, I do. If I lived in a state where the KKK is active, I would never, under any circumstances, go to a church that uses the cross as a symbol, unless that church took a very active stance against the KKK.

The only reason why I don't publicly resign my status as a Christian is because I was baptized under a Scandinavian Lutheran church. Look at the situation of the countries where the Lutheran church is prevalent and tell me if you wouldn't be proud of being a participant in that religion.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

He wrote "respect" - you changed it to "responsible". They are clearly two different things.

Yes, as a British subject you are required to police your own. That is why you have a government, which formed a police force to police you. So you are part of a system that polices its own people.

Re:wow

[fishbowl]

*Yawn*

Going back to the parent, someone makes a statement to the effect that not all Muslims meet a certain bigoted stereotype. Bigot replies that "They aren't Muslims."

Re:wow

[sjames]

Yes, I do. If I lived in a state where the KKK is active, I would never, under any circumstances, go to a church that uses the cross as a symbol, unless that church took a very active stance against the KKK.

So as long as it's happening in a different state, it's OK? How large is your radius of care? How close does a Klansman have to move to your church before you denounce it (the church that is) as a bunch of white supremests if they fail to take to the streets? How sure do they (and you) have to be that there aren't any Klansmen within your radius before it's safe to not protest publicly?

The point is, there are many Muslims you have painted with a rather broad brush who live further than the next state away from the nearest jihadist that they know of.

And yes, you have every reason to be proud of belonging to the Lutheran church.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if those Catholics had been repeatedly humiliated and colonized by said Muslims, then yes they just might take every slight as an existential threat and burn down your embassy.

Or rather, if I took all your money in a poker game then you insulted the beer I brought to the game, I just might feel like punching you in the face.

context

Re:wow

[novakyu]

I do not concur that religion and violence are unassociated.

And you say this based on the fact that scientists do not commit acts of violence where as religious people do, right?

I am a physicist, but one of the world's greatest atrocity was committed by American physicists. And at least one of them remained unrepentant after the full consequences of their actions were known.

I may agree with you that religion and violence are associated—but that's only because violence is associated with EVERYTHING, including science and mathematics that you seem to hold in such high regard.

Re:wow

[JoshJ]

Except, of course, that Jesus also says plenty of things that are hardly peaceful- "Sell your robes and buy a sword", that he "brings not peace but a sword"; and of course, that nasty little bit about how he plans to separate families...

Re:wow

[YttriumOxide]

Actually, I've never read Dawkins, although I'm familiar with what is generally said about his views, and aware that they are probably fairly similar to my own.

I do lack absolute proof in a lack of a god/gods, however there's nothing wrong with that, because I lack absolute proof of everything (you can't ever really KNOW, just weigh the evidence at hand and come to conclusions). However, when it comes to god(s), not only do I lack absolute proof of them, but I also lack ANY compelling evidence for them, OR any evidence that anyone else might have evidence for them. Therefore, I can only come to the conclusion that these people have an equal or lesser amount of information regarding god(s), and yet on this information, somehow have managed to come to a belief. This looks not very different to a mental illness that I suffered as a child where I had difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

It's also worth pointing out that no, I DON'T think most of the world is mentally ill, because in my opinion, most people who claim to believe in a god/gods do not actually. They "hope" and "would like to believe", and in many cases will go through the motions "just in case", but they don't really believe. I think this basically when anyone talks about faith as an argument to a lack of evidence. I do not think "faith" itself is truly strong enough to ever really cause a belief, but it IS strong enough to cause one to act on it with similar results to belief.

To give an example of this: I BELIEVE I am sitting in my apartment right now. I BELIEVE there is a country called Canada. I BELIEVE that my wallet contains 475 euro in notes (I just counted it). These are all beliefs, and to discover I was wrong about any of these would be quite a shock - I would have to re-think a lot of things I assume about the world/universe.
I HAVE FAITH that I will not be fired from my job today. I will go to work, do my job, and fully expect to go back again tomorrow. It would also be quite a shock to be fired, as, as far as I know, I am considered to be an excellent employee, there is no reason for me to be fired and under the laws of the country I live in they can't fire me without a good reason. But, I am aware it is possible, and it would not require that I re-think anything I assume about the world/universe around me.

Re:wow

[bh_doc]

Hmm. Is being brainwashed as a child a choice?

Re:wow

[mattwarden]

Actually, you missed the point. I didn't say the teachings caused these atrocities.

Re:wow

[flex941]

Apparently you did.

Re:wow

[vldmr_krn]

To stay is to explicitly condone the actions of the leadership.

By "to explicitly condone" you seem to mean to implicitly condone.

inject itself and its considerable demographic and monetary clout directly and voluminously into any political debate that takes its fancy. Many european states, learning from experience, outrightly ban such behavior

That's a strong accusation. What specifically is banned by whom?

Your main point is wrong, BTW. If the label is important to people, they should be reluctant to drop it. They can't do anything about the people who are giving it a bad name at the moment, and it's unreasonable to expect otherwise.

"The battle for the world is the battle for definitions" - Thomas Szasz

Re:wow

[Ardeaem]

...they [religious people] need to police their own.

Civilized people have long since thrown out the idea of "collective" responsibility for crimes. If an extremist commits a crime, the extremist is fault. It is then the responsibility of the state do something about it, not fellow adherents of the religion. In fact, in many cases moderates are VICTIMS of the extremism, either directly or indirectly.

You should not judge a person on the basis of OTHER peoples' actions. At best it is lazy thinking; at worst it is racist stereotyping.

Re:wow

[netcrusher88]

Try reading that again. GP isn't saying that if a handful of members of a church you are in go against your principles you should leave, sie is saying that if the leadership violates your principles, it's time to find new leadership. Whether it refers to leadership at the level of a class, a congregation (ref. "radical imam" or Westboro Baptist Church), an area, or a religion (ref. Church of Scientology), it is time to find new leadership at that level.

That could just mean a different class in a given church. It could mean a new church, or it could mean a new religion (or sect thereof).

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The Muslims have. What do you think started the Crusades? Attacks by Muslims into Europe.

Who occupies the center of Orthodox Christianity? Turkey - Muslims.

Re:wow

[Hognoxious]

I think it's more that there was never an Islamic equivalent of the renaissance.

I've heard people say that Christianity had a seven century lead, ergo Islam is expected or allowed to still be how Europe was in 1300. But progress isn't linear or even, so it doesn't really work like that.

Re:wow

[williamhb]

I do lack absolute proof in a lack of a god/gods, however there's nothing wrong with that, because I lack absolute proof of everything (you can't ever really KNOW, just weigh the evidence at hand and come to conclusions). However, when it comes to god(s), not only do I lack absolute proof of them, but I also lack ANY compelling evidence for them, OR any evidence that anyone else might have evidence for them. Therefore, I can only come to the conclusion that these people have an equal or lesser amount of information regarding god(s), and yet on this information, somehow have managed to come to a belief. This looks not very different to a mental illness that I suffered as a child where I had difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

Your argument here rests entirely on two things, both of which are wrong:
1) The weasel-word "compelling". You are no doubt aware there is some evidence (if nothing else at least you must be aware of the texts of the religious documents themselves, and a good few dozen philosophical arguments, though there is more that you might not have looked at) but you don't personally find that evidence compelling. But we know that already because you don't believe -- you haven't been compelled. However you then do the illogical and arrogant thing of claiming that because you personally don't find the evidence compelling it is "a lack of any compelling evidence" for everybody and thus anybody who disagrees with your opinion must be mad.
2) Your "this looks not very different to a mental illness I had..." is again a weasel-phrase. Firstly you will note that because you want to justify a libel, your requirement for evidence has suddenly disappeared -- you don't ask for studies or psychologists' reports, but are happy to take "this looks not very different to" as your only evidence. Furthermore, your argument is a repeat of your earlier fallacy. Because you don't believe in God, therefore you claim he doesn't exist, therefore anybody who believes he does believes in something that doesn't exist, therefore they cannot distinguish fantasy from reality. It is entirely predicated and based on an underlying arrogant claim that anybody who disagrees with you must be mad because your opinion could not possibly be wrong.

Re:wow

[Builder]

*woosh*

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

When you insult the pope, large mobs don't raise the placards demanding "behead those who insult Catholicism." They don't execute people on the streets or burn down embassies

They don't execute people on the streets or burn down embassies anymore

Re:wow

[YttriumOxide]

You are no doubt aware there is some evidence (if nothing else at least you must be aware of the texts of the religious documents themselves

Yes, I am of course very aware of them and have read many of them (and thoroughly enjoyed most of them, although parts of the Christian Bible can be very repetitive)

but you don't personally find that evidence compelling

Also correct. I never stated that others shouldn't/couldn't/wouldn't find the evidence compelling enough to believe it, only that I consider it a mental illness if you do, as it is extra-ordinarily flimsy and relies on an incredible amount of very obvious logical fallacies such as circular reasoning. The evidence MAY be enough for some reasoning people to entertain it as a continued line of investigation, but after this continued investigation, I'd expect them to come to the conclusion that it's all a load of complete bollocks.

Firstly you will note that because you want to justify a libel, your requirement for evidence has suddenly disappeared -- you don't ask for studies or psychologists' reports, but are happy to take "this looks not very different to" as your only evidence

Actually, no I was just being lazy and didn't bother elaborating. By saying, "this looks not very different to", I was actually referring to an analysis of the symptoms of the mental illness that I had and the behaviour exhibited by religious people. It's also worth pointing out that the majority of psychologists wouldn't release a report to the effect that religion is madness, as it would be extremely damaging to them for pretty much no gain (and of course, any psychologists that hold these beliefs wouldn't do so, so that already rules out a large number). There are a few however who have either ignored this concern or considered it not as important as stating what they think, and so there ARE such reports.

based on an underlying arrogant claim that anybody who disagrees with you must be mad because your opinion could not possibly be wrong.

You may be right about me being someone arrogant with my opinions about this, but I feel it justified in doing so, because blind faith in anything is quite clearly not a normal state for a reasoning mind to follow. I find it interesting that blind faith in anything OTHER than major religions is viewed by the general populace as being "wrong" (or at the very least, a "little bit silly"), but they make an exception in the case of religion.

HOWEVER, you are NOT right that my claim is that my opinion can not be wrong or that other people are mad because they disagree with me. People disagree with me a lot, and sometimes they're right. I accept this, and adjust my opinions accordingly. They're mad for believing fairy-tales, not for disagreeing with me.

I realise you could argue back that it's not a fairy-tale and therefore they're not mad for believing it, however I consider that I've already answered that point above when discussing the evidence.

Re:wow

[xouumalperxe]

Please consider that: 1. Catholics are a subset of Christians, and 2. Fundamentalist is a descriptor, not a subcategory

Re:wow

[voxner]

In many Islamic countries proselytising is banned so for many muslims in these countries being muslim is not a choice.

Re:wow

[Teancum]

I do not condone the practice of homosexuality because it is explicitly labelled as sin in the Bible, and for me to do otherwise would be inconsistent with my beliefs at best, hypocritical at worst. Does this make me a bigoted Mormon?

I think the problem here is that you don't have a strongly liberal attitude that "anything I can think of doing should be allowed".

The very thought that there might be actions and practices, while perfectly legal, have some moral and "ethical" boundaries defined by a group of like-minded folks is an alien concept for some people. BTW, this isn't even restricted to just religious groups, but groups of any kind which do have standards and ethics that can and do arise.

What is happening with the "Gay, Lesbian, and Alternative Lifestyle" community vs. the LDS community is not so much a clash of cultures (which is also happening) but that they are also talking past each other. Certainly there are ethics and morals within the homosexual community, but there are also positions held inviolate within that community such that their typical behavior patterns must be found acceptable with the society as a whole.

Unfortunately, there are groups like the LDS Church which find that sort of behavior to be morally reprehensible and contrary to their own set of moral codes. What is interesting, for myself, is the bigotry and sheer ignorance that seem to be coming from at least some rather vocal members of the Homosexual community... both in the protest marches and the on-line discussions. They don't really know what being a Mormon is like, and most of the information they do find seems to be coming from anti-Mormon sources. This is akin to trying to find out about the Apollo moon landings from the lunar landing hoax crowd. While there have been some problems with the governance and actions of some leaders of the LDS church in the past, these are usually blown way out of proportion by the critics of the LDS church... and they (the critics) don't usually tell the whole story either and usually spin the stories to fit their own narrative rather than try to find anything factual.

I've known some "homosexual Mormons", some that even enjoy full fellowship within the LDS Church. Those that do maintain full fellowship (aka even have a "temple recommend") usually are celibate (required by the top LDS leadership) and don't push their views on other members of the church regarding homosexuality. There are some over zealous local church leaders that sometimes go over the top in dealing with members like this... usually against the wishes of the top leadership of the LDS Church I might add.

I also know of a congregation of "LDS Church members"... or perhaps better noted as "former LDS Church members"... that openly supports homosexual relationships. I don't necessarily agree with these folks, but it is an aspect of "Mormon culture" that is apparently lost on the hard-core San Francisco alternative lifestyle crowd. Being for or against homosexuality doesn't directly correlate to an acceptance of the Book of Mormon as scripture or a belief that Joseph Smith talked to God in upstate New York.

The explicit targeting of Mormons as a source of hate and anger about the passage of proposition 8 is doing far more damage to "gay rights" than anything the LDS Church could possibly do even if it deliberately tried. I see the protest marches as having undone any progress these folks may have made in terms of at least getting others to "tolerate" their lifestyles in a larger political sense, and is setting up a larger anti-homosexual movement to counter these actions. There certainly are other churches and religious groups that are thinking "I might be next" in term of becoming a target of this sort of scathing hatred that has happened against Mormons.

Re:wow

[Teancum]

You are missing the point that prominent and visible Christian leaders do openly condemn the actions of the Ku Klux Klan and openly preach against the bigotry that comes from similar groups. There is also a condemnation of what happened in Northern Ireland and the religious intolerance that happened there throughout much of the 20th Century.

Wahhabism and explicitly anti-western teachings (aka the USA is the "great satan") is unfortunately deeply imbedded in Muslim society to the point that many governments of predominately Muslim countries are openly supporting and even financing this religious movement. In spite of Saudi claims to the contrary, much of this political and financial support for hard-core reactionary Islam still continues.

Yes, I will acknowledge that some "Christian" political leaders are associated with bigoted groups as well, but neither should be found acceptable. I certainly don't see state-financing of the Klan in America.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting belief/faith you have there. You have anything other than faith to go on when you declare that people who truly believe are mentally ill?

Re:wow

[YttriumOxide]

You have anything other than faith to go on when you declare that people who truly believe are mentally ill?

Yep... logic and reasoning.

(hey, you gave a crappy post, I'll give a crappy reply)

Re:wow

[digitig]

Actually, you're doing it now. The public outrage and media frenzy have done a great job policing the system

I'm inclined to think that it's just the media frenzy, and that's what generated the public outrage. I'm not sure the individual can do much if they are in disagreement with the story the media want to tell. Check out Nick Davies' Flat Earth News for an insider description of how the media consensus is formed and how hard it is for anything contrary to the consensus to be heard (the analysis is in the book, rather than on the website). At present, the media consensus is that Islam is a terrorist religion, and so voices that contradict that consensus -- such as Muslim leaders condemning terrorism -- won't be reported, and so won't be heard.

Re:wow

[McDutchie]

If the organization or group you are in is being lead in a direction you are opposed to and you have no say in that course, then you should leave. To stay is to explicitly condone the actions of the leadership.

Um, no, it isn't. Perhaps it's implicitly condoning it, although even that is open for debate. But explicitly, definitely not. Use a dictionary.

Re:wow

[clone53421]

"Sell your robes and buy a sword"

...but when the sword was used, Jesus put a stop to it and healed the man who was injured by it. Maybe he wanted to give the impression that he wasn't helpless, he just willingly chose to hand himself over.

he "brings not peace but a sword"; and of course, that nasty little bit about how he plans to separate families...

Anyone who speaks out against the establishment is going to rock the boat. The establishment usually has men with swords or guns to deal with such troublemakers. If civil disobedience is your duty, harsh or violent actions from the authorities should be expected, and the fault lies in the authorities and their flawed laws, not the protester. Jesus never taught that his followers should retaliate in kind.

Similarly any controversial belief is inevitably going to separate families. Politics separates families, too, but we don't call politicians hypocritical for campaigning on their "family values" – unless of course we discover they're simultaneously having an affair. You should put the blame where it belongs: not on the belief, but on the follower who couldn't tolerate someone else's beliefs.

Finally, to follow up on the "tolerance" issue, since I touched on that: Telling someone they're wrong is not "intolerant". I'm as entitled to my opinion as they are, and my opinion is that they are wrong. They don't have to agree with me, and if their response is, "No, you're wrong," it might just be impossible to ever come to an agreement. In fact, we might have to agree to disagree – is that so terrible? That is what tolerance really means, not this PC garbage where nobody is allowed to offend anyone.

Re:wow

[DragonWriter]

The word may be new but it isn't.

Actually, "it" (Fundamentalism) is new (exactly the same age as the word), and the people doing the witch burning weren't Fundamentalists. The proper noun "Fundamentalists" refers to members of a particular theological movement that originated in American Protestantism.

Now, if the poster who first made the reference had said "fundamentalists", which means nothing more than those who strictly adhere to any belief system, that would be different. (Arguably, still wrong, but that's a matter of debating the actual motivations of the act.)

Re:wow

[sjames]

The question that kicked off this sub-thread was 'what in the world is an American Muslim family supposed to do about the Taliban' and the broader issue of individual Muslims.

I am well aware that some states sponsor terrorism and anti-western sentiment in the name of Islam. That does not make Islam itself terrorist.

There ARE some prominent Christian leaders who do speak out against hate groups and there are many who do not. Now consider an Imam in the U.S. Can you name one? Perhaps they speak out but because they are not prominent enough in the wider society, you don't hear them. Fear is also a factor. If you lived in the midst of a society that seems to equate your religion with terrorism and is torturing terrorists, would you be all that anxious to call attention to yourself?

Yes, I will acknowledge that some "Christian" political leaders [wikipedia.org] are associated with bigoted groups as well, but neither should be found acceptable. I certainly don't see state-financing of the Klan in America.

Fully agreed. The difference is that too many people see terrorists and their talk of jihad and say Islam is terrorist. The same people see a bigoted 'Christian' preaching racism in the name of Christianity and say 'he is a bigot and a poor Christian'. All I'm saying is that the terrorists are nutjobs and poor Muslims. Take their pseudo-religious rants for what they are.

No matter how much the bigots twist scripture trying to fit it to their hate, most people (Christian and otherwise) understand that the Bible in no way supports their hateful philosophy.

An interesting point to consider, according to the Koran, Christians are not infidels.

Re:wow

[mattwarden]

Thanks for the history lesson, but people took literal bible text to support crazy shit way before the big-F Fundamentalism movement came around. Not that I don't enjoy arguing semantics...

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

If an Anonymous Coward speaks to a 7-digit user ID does anyone care?

Re:wow

[rthille]

While the past is important, I'd like to talk about the present. In the present, muslims are more likely to kill in the name of their religion. I don't think their religion is all that is leading to that, obviously culture and poverty weigh in, but if all those muslims were Jains, I doubt we'd see the level of violence.

Re:wow

[rthille]

Are there really any choices, or do we live in a deterministic universe?

If the moderates don't have a choice, do the extremists?

I certainly _feel_ like I have a choice as to whether to write this comment and post it or not.

Re:wow

[rthille]

Why do people always cry 'racist' when people criticize Islam/Muslims. Belief systems are not "races".

Secondly, if a small community knew of the actions of a serial child rapist and did nothing to stop or punish the perpetrator, and in fact attempted to hide the crimes, would you not decry the actions of the _community_?

Certainly individuals who were in the community, but were ignorant of the crimes are blameless, but those who knew of the crimes and did nothing deserve some criticism. In short, I'm judging the other members of the community by their lack of action to repudiate the actions of the extremists, who at least _claim_ to be members of their community.

Re:wow

[clone53421]

Eh? "Muslim" is not a race, it's a religion.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

(Real user name is IBeBibby, waiting for email confirmation)

Oh, really? So I guess you shouldn't have any trouble telling us what those quotes in the Bible saying that unbelievers should be killed are.

And what's so horrible about the "be not yoked with unbelievers" thing? Do you even know what it means?

Re:wow

[Ihmhi]

I recall reading an article on /. where it stated that there's a severe lack of FORTRAN programmers and a lot of legacy systems that need programmers to keep them going.

So I suppose FORTRAN is like Latin... not as important as other codes in the modern day, but you're pretty screwed if you need to hunt someone down who can understand the language.

Re:wow

[Ihmhi]

When you insult the pope, large mobs don't raise the placards demanding "behead those who insult Catholicism." They don't execute people on the streets or burn down embassies.

Not anymore, at least. Give the Muslims a couple hundred more years to work it all out.

Re:wow

[williamhb]

Also correct. I never stated that others shouldn't/couldn't/wouldn't find the evidence compelling enough to believe it, only that I consider it a mental illness if you do, as it is extra-ordinarily flimsy and relies on an incredible amount of very obvious logical fallacies such as circular reasoning. The evidence MAY be enough for some reasoning people to entertain it as a continued line of investigation, but after this continued investigation, I'd expect them to come to the conclusion that it's all a load of complete bollocks.

"I'm not saying others shouldn't, only that they are mad if they do so". Hmm, someone didn't proofread his post for self-contradictions! In the middle part you do a little handwaving, plucking a few derogatives from the air as your "reasons", forgetting you are claiming that all people of any faith are mad, and you clearly have not read all the evidence in any depth. And then at the end, you fail to sanity-check your expectation. A reasonable person, when faced with such a deluge of people disagreeing with their expectation -- more than half those who have ever lived -- would think "hmm, maybe my expectation of how people should rate this evidence was wrong, or I missed an argument or misinterpreted some evidence that clearly a lot of people find to be reasonable, whether or not I might disagree with it". You on the other hand just claim "Nah, they're all mad."

Actually, no I was just being lazy and didn't bother elaborating. By saying, "this looks not very different to", I was actually referring to an analysis of the symptoms of the mental illness that I had and the behaviour exhibited by religious people.

And if you were an accredited practitioner with the British Psychological Society, or its equivalent where you live, maybe we'd take your analysis seriously. As it is, it just sounds like bullshit.

Re:wow

[Ardeaem]

Why do people always cry 'racist' when people criticize Islam/Muslims. Belief systems are not "races".

Read what I wrote again. I was making a general statement (not JUST about the Muslims) and I said "at worst" it is racism. I didn't call this particular instance racist. The same lazy thinking underlies both, though.

Secondly, if a small community knew of the actions of a serial child rapist and did nothing to stop or punish the perpetrator, and in fact attempted to hide the crimes, would you not decry the actions of the _community_?

Certainly individuals who were in the community, but were ignorant of the crimes are blameless, but those who knew of the crimes and did nothing deserve some criticism. In short, I'm judging the other members of the community by their lack of action to repudiate the actions of the extremists, who at least _claim_ to be members of their community.

So you seriously want to make a comparison between a religion with almost a billion adherents and a huge range of ideas and cultures, and a "community" (whatever you mean by that) in which a serial rape happens? Really? The world is much more complex than you think it is.

The moderate Muslim that, say, works in the next office from me shares no more responsibility for extremists actions than you or I do. He happens to share a particular theological belief with some people who are murderers. So? How is asking for respect for his religion giving "cover" for extremists?

By the way, just so this is clear, Osama bin Ladin believes in collective responsibility, too, for what he perceives as US crimes against Islam. That's one of the reasons why kills Americans in the first place.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Catholicism != Fundamentalist Christianity

Just FYI...

Re:wow

[pbhj]

I've always believed a true muslim to be a follower of Mohammed and one who strives to adhere to his creed. Just as a true christian follows Jesus and his creed.

Being born in a particular country or to a particular family doesn't define your personal beliefs though it undoubtedly will shape them.

The Koran and haddith are considered authoritative for a muslim and so failing to follow them without any attempt at rationalising your position to me demarks a person as non-muslim.

OT I always find it amusing when people resort to the ad hominem attack of calling someone a bigot. That person is showing themselves to be intolerant of another's beliefs and are thus themselves a bigot.

Re:wow

[bh_doc]

Of course, that's going into subtleties regarding free-will vs. determinism beyond the point I was trying to make in my comment.

I personally don't always (only sometimes) feel angry at people for "choosing" to believe in ancient fairy tales, but I often feel pity for them for being so thoroughly indoctrinated as to make it difficult if not impossible for them to realise what has happened. This indoctrination is typically forced upon them as innocent children, which they cannot reasonably be expected to bear full blame for. Religion is a memetic disease that cripples those who are unwilling (the choice argument) or too young (the indoctrination argument) to have sufficiently developed mental immunity.

Re:wow

[Muchsake]

No it must be Catholicism. If you do it properly you live in a state of Grace (Hopper)

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I am curious about this "more likely" - do you have any statistics?

I have been trying to model religious violence for a while (before Sept 11th) but, well, it's hard to find good numbers.

Just thought i'd ask, since you seem pretty sure of yourself.

Re:wow

[YttriumOxide]

Hmm, someone didn't proofread his post for self-contradictions!

I see no inherent contradiction in the sentence: "I'm not saying others shouldn't, only that they are mad if they do so", especially as I made no statement about whet someone should/shouldn't do. "Should/Shouldn't" a moral concern (and one I deliberately avoided completely in my post), whereas I was using "mad" in response to your wording, as I initially used the words "mental illness", which is a medical issue, not a moral one.

And if you were an accredited practitioner with the British Psychological Society, or its equivalent where you live, maybe we'd take your analysis seriously.

You've just readily admitted to accepting arguments from authority. It shouldn't matter who I am, or what my accreditations are (besides, how do you know what accreditations I do or don't have?) if my reasoning is sound. Clearly, I believe my reasoning is sound, and you believe it isn't.

You're more than welcome to reply again, but honestly, I'm done with this discussion since I don't think either of us will be able to say anything the other side would be willing to consider (unfortunately). I'm willing to consider rational arguments, but haven't received any yet in my opinion. I assume you're the same, but consider that you haven't received any yet, so continuing in this manner would probably be a little pointless. You may of course reply if you choose, but I won't reply again in this thread.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

your "non religious belief" is just as much an illness

Re:wow

[rthille]

Agreed, but there certainly is a continuum of believers and level of indoctrination. The people at the "not so much" end of the spectrum should do more to hold the extremists' feet to the fire. Atheists like me can scream all they want, but since religions have in-built defenses against the "out group", people in the group tend to not "hear" it at all.

Re:wow

[rthille]

Sadly no, no numbers. I'll admit I'm "talking out of my ass" as far as good science is concerned. :-)

On the other hand, non scientifically, unless all the media I'm exposed to is shown to be _very_ biased, I'll continue to believe that there is more violence perpetrated in the name of Islam going on now and in the last 5 or even 10 years, than in the name of any other "single" (I'd count 'christianity' as a single for this) religion. But if evidence comes up and looks reliable, I'll change. I don't have anything in particular against Islam (other than it seems to be more violent), I think all religions are stupid and evil.

Re:wow

[rthille]

Well, since I was alluding to the Catholic church, with 1.31 billion members in 2007 (wikipedia) about the child molesting the community isn't that small :-) I gave our Catholic friends shit about the child molestation and asked why they still lent their good name and support to such an organization.

Islam is much less of an organization, but there are still leaders of the 'movement' and if your co-worker were to attend a mosque where such violence is not refuted or is even condoned or incited and he did not speak out against it or leave the mosque, then I would say he is culpable.

As for the US, Americans are responsible (partially) for the actions of our government, more than 50% voted to reelect Bush who engaged in a horrible war of choice. I think Bin Ladin's choice of violence in response to our policies was wrong, but I don't think he's wrong to hold Americans in general responsible for the policies of our government.

Re:wow

[williamhb]

You've just readily admitted to accepting arguments from authority. It shouldn't matter who I am, or what my accreditations are

No, I've just told you I don't accept medical diagnoses from amateur cranks who have neither medical accreditation, evidence, nor reason. Especially when they are making patently silly claims such as that most of the rest of the world have a mental illness because they disagree with your position on religion.

You're more than welcome to reply again, but honestly, I'm done with this discussion since I don't think either of us will be able to say anything the other side would be willing to consider (unfortunately). I'm willing to consider rational arguments, but haven't received any yet in my opinion.

Ah, but you are the one trying to make the outlandish assertion (diagnosing most of the world with mental illnesses) and thus need to provide solid evidence and arguments, which you have not. I'm just merrily driving busses through the holes in your logic.

I am a little disappointed that you haven't had the wit to recognise the irony of your position: that you are making an outlandish claim without evidence (diagnosing most of the world with a mental illness), while your complaint is that you think they make outlandish claims without evidence. And so we come back to my original response to you: physician heal thyself.

Re:wow

[vitalyb]

Umm, isn't the part about Islam is also factual part of history?

Re:wow

[buckyuk]

Well said Tack, How cme the rest of the world can behave in a normal manner but there are a minority who thin kthis is what religion is all about. Alan

Re:wow

[sentientbeing]

If youre Christian, then when Muslims do it. Its murder. When Christians do it, its cleansing.
 
If youre Muslim, then roles are reversed.

Re:wow

[teleny]

Actually, both Protestants and Catholics were pretty good at burning, hanging, and otherwise spoiling each others' day during the Reformation (which is when most witch hunts occurred), since the greatest number of hunts were in Continental Europe, along fault lines that reached through France and Germany. Modern-day Wiccans are not a good historical source, since, like Fundamentalist Christians, they're notorious for rewriting history to suit their own witch-fulfilling fantasies....

Re:wow

[vistic]

On your OT remark:

Hatred of: good or neutral thing = bigot and bad thing

Hatred of: bigots and bad things = also bigots and bad things?

Nay... hatred of bigots and bad things = sane.

Not intolerant to not tolerate intolerance.

Duh.

If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[eldavojohn]

What do you mean "If"?! As a young man, I was saved by the one true C.

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[rhfixer]

Are you sure you can assert that?

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[eldavojohn]

What do you mean "If"?! As a young man, I was saved by the one true C.

Are you sure you can assert that?

No, the 90s where a turbulent time filled with drugs, rock music and Java. I've largely lost my way for the cheap harlot of a language that runs on any platform. In a way, I miss the sharp sting of the preachers segfault against my knuckles, the way I would allocate and deallocate memory night after night over and over. Sometimes I look back and long for the purity that once was ... and curse the Sun Microsystem that lead me astray from the good letter.

Often at home I resolve to code only in an efficient language. But in the morning when I wake up, I take the paycheck and do what greed drives me to do: Java.

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[MSBob]

The Holy C

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[Anonymous Coward]

C for compiler?
Kind of an ambiguous argument then, eh?

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[Junior J. Junior III]

What do you mean "If"?! As a young man, I was saved by the one true C.

Indeed. I was raised with dogma-indoctrinating songs about that language. I can still remember one of them, "C is for Cookie. That's good enough for me."

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[Darfeld]

No, the 90s where a turbulent time filled with drugs, rock music and Java.

When you put it like it, Java actually sound like a lot of fun.

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[http]

Excuse me? That's the one blue C.

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[VicarofCletus]

My roommate is in religious studies, so I always referred to my C class as "Old Testament"

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[againjj]

You forget the wikipedia link to The Holy C.

Re:If Programming Languages Were Religions?

[bursch-X]

Moses, being one of the first alpha geeks, actually parted the red C.

If C++ is Islam

[earthforce_1]

Then Linus must have joined Salman Rushdie in hiding after this rant:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/57643/focus=57918

Re:If C++ is Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus is just a person with every flaw anyone else has. His opinion is nothing but one, no more important than mine or anyone else's.

His rant is that of one who knows only how to use a hammer, so everything looks like nails. You can write horrible and unmaintainable code in any language.

If you want a language that treats you like the idiot you are and only allows things one way, use VB. Otherwise you have to learn how to go around your own limitations and avoid shooting yourself on the foot.

In the end, of you do [shoot yourself on the foot] it is your own fault, it's not the language that is bad and stupid, it's YOU.

Re:If C++ is Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

His rant is that of one who knows only how to use a hammer, so everything looks like nails.

No! Some things look like thumbs!

Re:If C++ is Islam

[maxwell demon]

But those only become a problem after hitting them with a hammer.

Re:If C++ is Islam

[ThePhilips]

C++ would be Islam

The only problem I have to validate the statement, is that I have never seen single C++ follower. C++ is like Windows: everybody ended up using it, before they were even being give a choice.

Linus rants are mostly valid - from pov of system programmer.

But frankly, I yet to see any well written large scale C++ project. It's way too easy to workaround some programmers bogosities. Strict typing on one side was thought to help programmers to write better code, yet on another side, operator overloading mixed in, it allowed to pack loads of crap into pretty innocent statements like "a = b;"

C++ ends up pretty quickly unreadable. Unreadable means that it is also untestable and unmaintainable. Essentially, in many C++ project, people end up rewriting large chunks of code pretty often. And I witnessed that quite often. Yet, pretty quickly even new and shiny pieces of code gets bloated with the "real world" stuff - no less to make it working - turning it again into unmaintainable mess.

Yet, except for C, there is no other language so widely adopted. With good development discipline, one can make even in C++ good programs. It is just that corporations generally try to oust good programmers who also often happen to be disciplined programmers.

Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity
C# would be Mormonism

*NOD*

Perl would be Voodoo

... and I'm loving it!!

Re:If C++ is Islam

[Anonymous Coward]

From that thread:

And if you want a fancier language, C++ is absolutely the worst one to choose. If you want real high-level, pick one that has true high-level features like garbage collection or a good system integration, rather than something that lacks both the sparseness and straightforwardness of C, *and* doesn't even have the high-level bindings to important concepts.

IOW, C++ is in that inconvenient spot where it doesn't help make things simple enough to be truly usable for prototyping or simple GUI programming, and yet isn't the lean system programming language that C is that actively encourags you to use simple and direct constructs.

It sounds like a valid complaint to me, and not from someone who doesn't know his tools.

Re:If C++ is Islam

[orclevegam]

Yes, you can write horrible unmaintainable code in any language, but that doesn't mean the language should encourage writing bad code. In C++ you really need to work to have good clean code, and it's trivially easy to write utter garbage, this is the exact opposite of the design you want for a good language. C++ was a nice first attempt at an object oriented language using C style syntax, but the goal of making the language syntactically backwards compatible instead of merely allowing it to link with C code turned it into an utter mess.

Yes it's your responsibility to not shoot yourself in the foot, but at the same time the language should not be handing you a gun covered in grease, with a hair trigger, and a barrel that randomly points in some direction.

Re:If C++ is Islam

[Tony]

But those only become a problem after hitting them with a hammer.

Only if they are yours.

Re:If C++ is Islam

[YttriumOxide]

You whack me in the thumb with a hammer, and believe me that you've got a problem!

Re:If C++ is Islam

[maxwell demon]

I'm pretty sure that if you e.g. hit the thumbs of a Mafia boss with a hammer, you have even more problems than if you hit your own thumbs :-)

Re:If C++ is Islam

[theCoder]

But frankly, I yet to see any well written large scale C++ project.

I supposed this depends on your definition of "well written". KDE/Qt is almost entirely C++. I believe that most higher level MS products like Office and Visual Studio are C++. You and I may not like MS, but some of their products do run well, though that doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of the code.

I believe Mozilla/Firefox has large amounts of C++ code, ss does OpenOffice.

I can say for sure that I run a lot more C++ programs on a daily basis than Java ones.

Re:If C++ is Islam

[DragonWriter]

Linus is just a person with every flaw anyone else has.

Every flaw that anyone else has? That's impressive.

Re:If C++ is Islam

[ThePhilips]

... KDE/Qt ... MS Office ... Visual Studio ...

I was tempted to write the exceptions - confirming the rule.

... OpenOffice ...

And that would good example of the mess Linus describes in linked by ggp post.

I can say for sure that I run a lot more C++ programs on a daily basis than Java ones.

Business software of company I work for is also written in C++. And it works. Sometimes. Somehow.

Frankly, it is impossible to compare OSS C++ projects like KDE to commercial C++ software. KDE is open, gets tested by thousands peoples and hundreds look into its source code. It is very very clean.

But on commercial front, few companies outside of MS really invest into making good product and as long as it runs and can be sold - they will sell it. It is cheaper to order out-sourced development of new version as compared to making actual product good.

As C++ developer I'm of course would be critical about many issues. And really customers do not care how much overtime developers spent on fixing trivial issues which thanks to abuse of basic C++ features were made the trivial issues into elephant in the room.

Java programs I find generally to be of higher quality. But it is changing now too. Before, Java programmers were in might tighter space: Java resource consumption gets out of hands easily, stupid code degrades performance terribly. But nowadays Java programs start to look more and more like C++ programs since modern computers have much more resources and you do not need bright heads to write decent Java application anymore: you can get cheap right-out-of-university out-sourced folks who would write something you can sell.

The difference between C++ and Java was that most of stupid things in C++ worked good enough. In Java they worked terribly so people were fixing them. But now, due to advances of hardware, Java lost its advantage of being strict on developers and amount of crap I see in Java programs started increasing steadily.

It doesn't really depends on programming language: it depends on developers. Most C++ developers are spoiled with tons of silly libraries and uncountable number of hacks C++ allows. As Java heads in the same direction (just compare JDK 1.0 to 1.6) now allowing programmers even more hacks than C++, you can expect developers to start using the hacks. As results, quality of Java programs would soon reach the same level as of C++ programs now.

Some OSS projects enforce discipline with review process. Some OSS projects can't afford review and choose to stick with more explicit languages. Commercial software generally never gets reviewed (MS and Adobe being notable exceptions).

Re:If C++ is Islam

[SomeKDEUser]

No large C++ project well written? Bullshit!
KDE? Qt?
Hell, Quake for that matter...

I have my own 150 000 loc C++ project which I think is not badly written.

C++ if you understand it _is_ the most versatile language there is. But understanding the compiler's error messages when using templates is a bit of a zen exercise ;)

Slashdotted?

[gzipped_tar]

I can't read it. Slashdotted already?

Re:Slashdotted?

[FudRucker]

"If programming languages were religions" (Inspired by "If programming languages were cars")

C would be Judaism - it's old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can't convert into it - you're either into it from the start, or you will think that it's insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.

Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity - it's theoretically based on C, but it voids so many of the old laws that it doesn't feel like the original at all. Instead, it adds its own set of rigid rules, which its followers believe to be far superior to the original. Not only are they certain that it's the best language in the world, but they're willing to burn those who disagree at the stake.

PHP would be Cafeteria Christianity - Fights with Java for the web market. It draws a few concepts from C and Java, but only those that it really likes. Maybe it's not as coherent as other languages, but at least it leaves you with much more freedom and ostensibly keeps the core idea of the whole thing. Also, the whole concept of "goto hell" was abandoned.

C++ would be Islam - It takes C and not only keeps all its laws, but adds a very complex new set of laws on top of it. It's so versatile that it can be used to be the foundation of anything, from great atrocities to beautiful works of art. Its followers are convinced that it is the ultimate universal language, and may be angered by those who disagree. Also, if you insult it or its founder, you'll probably be threatened with death by more radical followers.

C# would be Mormonism - At first glance, it's the same as Java, but at a closer look you realize that it's controlled by a single corporation (which many Java followers believe to be evil), and that many theological concepts are quite different. You suspect that it'd probably be nice, if only all the followers of Java wouldn't discriminate so much against you for following it.

Lisp would be Zen Buddhism - There is no syntax, there is no centralization of dogma, there are no deities to worship. The entire universe is there at your reach - if only you are enlightened enough to grasp it. Some say that it's not a language at all; others say that it's the only language that makes sense.

Haskell would be Taoism - It is so different from other languages that many people don't understand how can anyone use it to produce anything useful. Its followers believe that it's the true path to wisdom, but that wisdom is beyond the grasp of most mortals.

Erlang would be Hinduism - It's another strange language that doesn't look like it could be used for anything, but unlike most other modern languages, it's built around the concept of multiple simultaneous deities.

Perl would be Voodoo - An incomprehensible series of arcane incantations that involve the blood of goats and permanently corrupt your soul. Often used when your boss requires you to do an urgent task at 21:00 on friday night.

Lua would be Wicca - A pantheistic language that can easily be adapted for different cultures and locations. Its code is very liberal, and allows for the use of techniques that might be described as magical by those used to more traditional languages. It has a strong connection to the moon.

Ruby would be Neo-Paganism - A mixture of different languages and ideas that was beaten together into something that might be identified as a language. Its adherents are growing fast, and although most people look at them suspiciously, they are mostly well-meaning people with no intention of harming anyone.

Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code.

COBOL would be Ancient Pagani

Re:Slashdotted?

[theaveng]

MORE (out of my own creativity - but being an engineer that's not saying much)

BASIC is similar to the caveman religions - early prototypical religions about Sun gods, Thunder gods, and so forth. It's where most programmers start before moving on to more advanced religions.

FORTRAN - like physics problems about "how high does the baseball go when thrown at 1 meter per second", Fortran is a language you learn in college but never use in the real world.

ASSEMBLY is not for the common man, but for the theologians who like to study the esoteric minutiae (was Jesus a god, a human, or both?). Assembly is for programmers who like to control the lowest level of the machine & worship the flow of the bits. Often used as part of the demoscene.

Re:Slashdotted?

[gzipped_tar]

Well, thanks a lot.

I really laughed my a$$ off when I saw the "APL is Scientology" line :D

Re:Slashdotted?

[Canazza]

I'd say Assembler is more akin to the Amish way of life
"We don't need fancy tools" they'd say
"C is a needless abstraction" they'd shout
"I'll programme my Plough by hand"

Re:Slashdotted?

[RockClimbingFool]

FORTRAN - like physics problems about "how high does the baseball go when thrown at 1 meter per second", Fortran is a language you learn in college but never use in the real world.

You aren't serious, are you? Most number cruching codes in the world today are written in FORTRAN. Fluid dynamics, nuclear decay, particle interactions, structural mechanics, etc., the nuts and bolts of solving these problems is all done in FORTRAN.

Re:Slashdotted?

[ADRA]

I think assembly should just be philosophy in general; Understanding the taxonomy or the deepest roots of human understanding to the point of being so inanely boring, one wonders how you could waste so long trying to get it =)

Re:Slashdotted?

[Eudial]

C would be Judaism - it's old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can't convert into it - you're either into it from the start, or you will think that it's insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.

Except, the restrictive part really doesn't make any sense at all. There is almost nothing C won't allow you to do (at your own peril).

Re:Slashdotted?

[ceoyoyo]

The people who use that FORTRAN code probably also use their introductory mechanics from time to time.

People who waste their education assume that everyone does so as well.

Re:Slashdotted?

[azgard]

I think assembly is atheism - its adherents simply believe that programming languages are not useful at all, and can live without it.

Re:Slashdotted?

[electrictroy]

I don't "waste" my education.

It's just that my boss hasn't asked me to solve any "free body diagram" problems lately, or write FORTRAN code (or any code for that matter). Almost everything I needed to know I learned in the sophomore-level electronics class.

Re:Slashdotted?

[electrictroy]

NOPE. Assembly *is* a language. Atheism is more akin to programming in a string of bits - 101010000111110101010101

It's kinda like the old punchcard programming of the 1970s (which many unfortunate engineers had to do).

Re:Slashdotted?

[ceoyoyo]

So then you're wasting the rest of your education, aren't you?

If you do USE the rest of the stuff you learned, even if it's not for work (say, for self satisfaction that you know how the universe you live in works), then it's not wasted as you are USING it.

Re:Slashdotted?

[explodymatt]

Didn't you notice, he said he was an engineer.

I'm Atheist I suppose.

[MouseR]

Objective-C isn't in the list. And that makes me happy.

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[QuantumG]

objc is a heretic cult and will be quashed.

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[NCG_Mike]

Obj-C works by messages so it's obviously divine!

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[ZirbMonkey]

Wouldn't that be an a-C-ist?

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[hal2814]

Brian - Are you C Objective?
Member A - Fuck off! We're Objective C. Where is C Objective anyway?
Member B - There he is!
Member A - Splitter!!!!

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[rrhal]

It turns out that you are Methodist. Who knew?

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[dword]

objc is a heretic cult and will be quashed.

Love,
Python

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[Draek]

No, Pascal is like Atheism. Everyone claims to have known it at some point or another, yet no one can agree on what exactly it's supposed to be.

Objective C is like Protestantism. It started off as a grand fork of C/Judaism, but nowadays it's seldom used outside of the area it was born in and everyone else thinks it's the same as Java/Christianism.

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Objective-C isn't in the list

That's because it's just the Reconstructionist Movement of Judaism ;)

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[Anonymous Coward]

Object-C is Gnostic Christianity.

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[tommy_servo]

Brian - Are you C Objective?
Member A - Fuck off! We're Objective C. Where is C Objective anyway?
Member B - There he is!
Member A - Splitter!!!!

BRIAN:
        I didn't want to sell this stuff. It's only a job. I hate FORTRAN as much as anybody.
Objective C:
        Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhh. Shh. Shhhh.
REG:
        Schtum.
JUDITH:
        Are you sure?
BRIAN:
        Oh, dead sure. I hate FORTRAN already.
REG:
        Listen. If you really wanted to join Objective C, you'd have to really hate FORTRAN.
BRIAN:
        I do!
REG:
        Oh, yeah? How much?
BRIAN:
        A lot!
REG:
        Right. You're in. Listen. The only language we hate more than FORTRAN is fucking C Objective.

Re:I'm Atheist I suppose.

[ceoyoyo]

I quite enjoy being a heretic. In regards to both programming and religion.

Left out a few languages....

[scharkalvin]

Left a few out.
What would small talk be? How about focal?
Muddle (MDL, actually a sect of lisp)? Teco? (it's a now forgotten DEC editor, but also a programming language. I remember seeing a Star Trek game written in Teco!) Oh and don't forget Assembler. I guess that would be something like American Indian worship of the 'great spirt'.

Re:Left out a few languages....

[maxwell demon]

Also, what about Unlambda? Whitespace? Shakespeare?

Re:Left out a few languages....

[Creepy]

there are more sects of Lisp like Scheme - personally, I'd like to see them eradicated and their cult leaders imprisoned, but that's just me ;)

And yeah - at a glance I think only Ruby is a true OO language, and that is neo-Paganism... but if COBOL is Ancient Paganism, Smalltalk and even Objective-C (which has all object oriented constructs, unlike C++ which lacks base messaging and a root class) are dialects from in-between.

Teco is kinda pushing it, as it is much more obscure than, say, Postscript, and I wouldn't consider that a mainstream programming language. You could have something like Teco - a popular cult at one time until its leader put poison in the kool-aid. Postscript - a small, rich, and heavily armed cult.

Assembler and Machine Language (technically it's a language because it gets refined to microcode) are fairly similar - that would be more like living in Eden (real close access to God).

But how about...
INTERCAL - Flagilism. Pure self torture to use and intentionally created that way, but the end belief is your soul will be saved.

Re:Left out a few languages....

[glavenoid]

...Or Brainfuck - S&M. Pure perverted pain solely for the love of pure perverted pain.

Re:Left out a few languages....

[slumberheart]

Unlambda?

"""
Out of the thinning mists and the cloud of strange incenses filed twin columns of giant black slaves with loin-cloths of iridescent silk. Upon their heads were strapped vast helmet-like torches of glittering metal, from which the fragrance of obscure balsams spread in fumous spirals. In their right hands were crystal wands whose tips were carven into leering chimaeras, while their left hands grasped long thin silver trumpets which they blew in turn. Armlets and anklets of gold they had, and between each pair of anklets stretched a golden chain that held its wearer to a sober gait. That they were true black men of earth's dreamland was at once apparent, but it seemed less likely that their rites and costumes were wholly things of our earth. Ten feet from Carter the columns stopped, and as they did so each trumpet flew abruptly to its bearer's thick lips. Wild and ecstatic was the blast that followed, and wilder still the cry that chorused just after from dark throats somehow made shrill by strange artifice.
"""

Re:Left out a few languages....

[Lobster Quadrille]

And malbolge, you insensitive clod.

Re:Left out a few languages....

[not-my-real-name]

TECO (Text Editor and COrrector - is it pathetic that I still remember this?) is probably related to Masonry. A group with many secrets, including the secret handshake.

C, "restrictive"?

[fgaliegue]

Uhm.

This is the only language which allows you to shoot yourself in the foot very, very easily.

No, C is not restrictive. It requires a LOT of discipline, though.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[genner]

Uhm.

This is the only language which allows you to shoot yourself in the foot very, very easily.

No, C is not restrictive. It requires a LOT of discipline, though.

C is an extremely liberal church. Anything goes.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[DustCollector]

My thoughts exactly. ints can be chars, you can do pointer arithmetic, you can rotate and mask bits, drop to machine language, etc. And yes, it takes discipline to keep things neat and orderly.

Python can be a bit more restrictive than C in that space matters. But you don't need to declare specific types.

Oh well, the article was all in fun anyway.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[maxwell demon]

Well, C is more restrictive than many people know. The problem is that many forbidden things not only don't give an error, but moreover often seem to work, yet some time in the future it may fail.

For example, most C programmers expect that the following code works:

int p = 3;
*(short*)p = 4;
assert(p!=3);

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[pikine]

Gee, which idiot modded you offtopic? I side with you by saying again that C is the only language that allows you to shoot yourself in the foot very very easily, and it requires a lot of discipline to program.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, most C programmers expect that the following code works:

Really? I bet they don't then.

C is one of the most liberal and flexible languages in existence. Pretty much anything is correct: it just depends on what your definition of "correct" is. Sometimes "obviously wrong" constructs can even be useful, such as zero length arrays and struct hacks, for example.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[Creepy]

C is restrictive in the respect that it is a monolithic language and its core hasn't changed much in the past 20 years to retain portability. C99 added a few features like runtime allocatable arrays, a complex number type, and support for the long long int type (64 bit), but in general it's fairly backwards compatible with C89/90.

    By restrictive, I mean try creating a Window in C without using any external libraries (say, XWindows - the programmers of the XWindows library did all the hard work for you, and remember XWindows isn't compatible with, say, Windows, so you'd need a different library, functions, and bindings there, so it isn't portable) - it's difficult and takes a lot of time. Now try it in Java without using any external libraries - I believe it's one or two lines of code.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[maxwell demon]

Pretty much anything is correct: it just depends on what your definition of "correct" is.

Well, that's the basic misunderstanding. Most C programmers would interpret my snippet as follows:
"First, the variable p is initialized with 3. So the memory where this variable lives contains the machine's representation of 3. Then, the first sizeof(short) bytes of the variable are overwritten with the representation of (short)4. Since there isn't any allowed int representation where the whole number can be interpreted as 3, while the first sizeof(short) bytes contain the representation of 4, there's no way that p is still 3 after that assignment, therefore the assert will not trigger."
And maybe they will test their code with some compiler, say using gcc -O, and will observe that it indeed does what they expect. Then they use that type of cast (without the assert, of course) in real world code, and everything seems to be fine.

Much later someone decides "-O" isn't fast enough, and compiles the code with "-O3". And suddenly the code shows strange behaviour. Or worse, it only shows that strange behaviour under certain conditions which evade testing, but later happen on using the released code.

The code isn't valid C, and some compilers (like gcc -O3) make use of that. The result in general isn't what the author expected.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[ciggieposeur]

Well, that's the basic misunderstanding. Most C programmers would interpret my snippet as follows:...

I interpret that code as "the memory at absolute location 3 will be assigned the value 4", which in most sane systems will segfault before the assert can be tested. Unless you had an & that got eaten, in which case you're interpretation isn't too far off.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[raynet]

Humm, it is only couple lines of code in Java if you include things like javax.swing.*, but those are external libraries that just happen to usually come with the language.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[maxwell demon]

Oops, sorry, there was indeed an ampersand missing; I first typed the code in the Slashdot edit box (forgetting the ampersand), then copied it into my editor, noted the omission and fixed it there, but forgot to fix it in the Slashdot edit box as well.

OTOH, if my intent had been to write to memory address 3, the following assert wouldn't make sense at all. So that should at least have been a strong hint that what I've posted isn't what I actually intended to post, and that I actually intended to "modify" p.

However my point stays: Most C programmers would think my (corrected) code snippet works, when it actually doesn't.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that just because the windowing libraries for C are external and for Java are internal? In both cases someone did all the hard work for you.

Re:C, "restrictive"?

[Yunzil]

This is the only language which allows you to shoot yourself in the foot very, very easily.

This is a joke, right? You can easily shoot yourself in the foot in just about any language. C just assumes that you know what you're doing when you have the gun aimed at your toes, although it may ask you if you're sure if you have the warning level turned up high enough.

LOLCode

[Andr T.]

LOLCODE would be Pastafarianism - An esoteric, Internet-born belief that nobody really takes seriously, despite all the efforts to develop and spread it.

WHAT??? What do you mean no one takes Pastafarianism seriously?? Die, infidel!

Re:LOLCode

[Anonymous Coward]

WUT??? Wut do u meen no 1 taks Pastafarianism sersly?? Die, infdel!

fixt

Re:LOLCode

[berend botje]

Obviously you ment: "Dine! Infidel!" :-)

Re:LOLCode

[jollyreaper]

WHAT??? What do you mean no one takes Pastafarianism seriously?? Die, infidel!

If you disbelief in the deities you're an atheist, if you disbelieve in Pastafarianism does that make you antepasta? And if so, what would be a good wine to match with you?

Re:LOLCode

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear 1.0 is pretty good...

Re:LOLCode

[Arthur Grumbine]

Or maybe, "Dine! With Zinfandel!"

Re:LOLCode

[Anonymous Coward]

You suck.

The first of the I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts:

I'd really rather you didn't act like a sanctimonious holier-than-thou ass when describing my noodly goodness. If some people don't believe in me, that's okay. Really, I'm not that vain. Besides, this isn't about them so don't change the subject.

Re:LOLCode

[doti]

with Fidel?

Re:LOLCode

[DannyO152]

Kill 'em with carbs.

Re:LOLCode

[Anonymous Coward]

"what would be a good wine to match with you?"

A nice Chianti - H. Lecter

Re:LOLCode

[hey!]

Mmmm. Crabs.

Re:LOLCode

[Requiem18th]

Atheist of course The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a real God like Colonel Sanders.

Dual religion is accepted?

[TheDarkMaster]

I am a fundamentalist crhistian (java) AND a satanist (visual basic)? LOL!

I am the incarnated paradox :)

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[PinkyDead]

You are a sick sick puppy.

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[jandersen]

I am a fundamentalist crhistian (java) AND a satanist (visual basic)? LOL!

I am the incarnated paradox :)

How so?

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[theTrueMikeBrown]

I have you beat. I am fundamentalist christian (java) & mormon (c#).

The article made it sound like they were incompatible...

Funny thing is that The LDS (Mormon) church uses more java than c# in their internal applications (As a contractor in Utah I know this)

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[Rub1cnt]

Tonight and the garden: GEEK THUNDERDOME. A three round, no holds barred cage match between the Visual basic developers and the Java developers. Only one language will take it!! Whos syntax will reign supreme?! Find out all about it on SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[MadKeithV]

That's not a paradox, that's a tautology.
*hides from the christians*

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Actually, you are what many experienced programmers refer to as "A Terrorist".

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[TheDarkMaster]

Mwhahahahahahaha, ops! But please, do not say this to mr. Bush

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[wild_berry]

'paradox' roughly translates as 'think again'. [cheap dig about thinking in the first place -- why Visual Basic?]

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[YttriumOxide]

Actually, I would consider Satanism to be a branch of Christianity, as (as far as I know) they do believe the same core things, they just worship the other side of the system as it were.

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[Dolda2000]

[...] java [...] visual basic [...]

And you needed this article to tell you that something was wrong? ;)

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[mcgrew]

*hides from the christians*

Q - Why won't Baptists have sex standing up?

A - They don't want anyone to think they're dancing

Re:Dual religion is accepted?

[DarkLordOfHell]

I made it that way to avoid endianness and other architectural differences. This makes it really easy to steal code and programmers for my empire.

what we have here is a case of splixonotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody who programs SINS, you are all godless HORES so go to IRAN if you dont like it! I heard that mac usetrs are all heterosexual straight people who enjoy penis-in-vagina type sex. That is gross and and ABOMANATION IN THE EYES OF T^HE LORD! So poo on you. Hello my friends............ Spang??????

Shouldn't this be in "idle"?

[theaveng]

>>>Great way to pass the time as work winds down

I wish. They have me working 70 hour weeks. because they want it all done by January 2. So much for vacation.

Re:Shouldn't this be in "idle"?

[theaveng]

P.S.

BASIC is similar to the caveman religions - early prototypical religions about Sun gods, Thunder gods, and so forth. It's where most programmers start.

ASSEMBLY is not for the common man, but for the theologians who like to study the esoteric minutiae (was Jesus a god, a human, or both?). Assembly is for programmers who like to control the lowest level of the machine & worship the flow of the bits.

FORTRAN - like physics problems about "how high does the baseball go when thrown at 1 meter per second", Fortran is a language you learn in college but never use in the real world.

 

Re:Shouldn't this be in "idle"?

[Chris Mattern]

FORTRAN - like physics problems about "how high does the baseball go when thrown at 1 meter per second", Fortran is a language you learn in college but never use in the real world.

Unless you do real world physics problems (seriously).

Theologians will disagree

[Kupfernigk]

I think TFA suffers from the author not knowing an awful lot about the different religions.

IMHO,

• Java is more like Episcopalianism - it's based ultimately on C (Judaism) but rejects some of the more traditional ideas and allows for a wide range of interpretations.
• Erlang is like Zen - initially hard to understand but based around some apparently simple but deep concepts. And yes, I have studied Zen, you insensitive clod!
• C# is Mormonism - a kind of parallel reality to the mainstream Episcopalianism that is Java, and it costs more to join.
• C++ is fundamentalist Christianity - at first sight it looks fine but you have to believe increasingly strange things the more you get sucked into it, and it can just blow up in your face without warning.
• And COBOL is Islam - it has been around a long time, it is still widely believed in, it can be a bit narrow but for many of its believers it works extremely well.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

And Hinduism is not even one language. It is almost as if some 20-30 languages decided to merge and kept the functionality based on popular vote and pragmatism.
The most common equivalent would be like calling the .NET framework a language - MSFT took tons of different languages and then wrote runtimes for each of them (VB.NET, ASP.NET, C#.NET ...) . The britishers did the dumping in Hinduisms case and many Hindus/hindu-likes can't still agree if they are really Hindu or not. (Jains, Sikhs, some tribes/paganists etc.) .
Also interesting is that you can't really convert to Hinduism (no one knows how), but you can easily form a cult and call yourselves a Hindu ( Mono :-)

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Andr T.]

COBOL can't be Islam. Islam numbers are always increasing.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[aaron alderman]

I don't believe in programming.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[VJ42]

Also interesting is that you can't really convert to Hinduism (no one knows how),

On the contrary, it's easy you just need call yourself one. You don't even need a belief in god: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_Hinduism , let alone follow any religious doctrines ;p

but you can easily form a cult and call yourselves a Hindu ( Mono :-)

Yeah, the hare Krishna's learned that one...

Disclaimer: I was born and brought up a hindu, yet am only mildly religious, and even then only on Tuesdays.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[pipboy9999]

Your rationalization of COBOL being Islam are incorrect. Islam is actually the youngest of the three major Abrahamic religions, the others being Judaism and Christianity. In fact, those three religions act like a Russian nesting doll, each containing the fundamentals of the previous iterations and adding new ideas. So the statement that COBOL has been around a long time would imply that it would be Judaism instead of Islam. To be fair though, I don't know nearly enough about COBOL to make a more accurate pick.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought PHP was more like Santaria, it stems mainly from Voodoo but somewhere along the way got whitewashed with Christianity to make it more palatable.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Beorytis]

I think TFA suffers from the author not knowing an awful lot about the different religions.

+1 on that: Several varieties of Christianity mentioned, but not the biggest one, Roman Catholicism ( := Pascal ). All of Islam is lumped into one, and only one sect of Buddhism mentioned. (It's Zen, which is considered non-Buddhist by many other sects.)

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Beorytis]

Yes. PHP is definitely some kind of syncretism.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

> COBOL is Islam

Dude, you're going to end up with a fatwa at this rate! :P

Re:Theologians will disagree

[rrhal]

Perl is Unitarianism. It borrows from (and tolerates) all the other religions. It's worshipers find it very open and freindly while followers of the all the religions suspect it because its such a chaotic mix.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

look ma, a cracker displaying 'white guilt'!

Re:Theologians will disagree

[curtix7]

Still, more thought was put into this than most programming language comparisons, other than the types of boats comparison. Somehow someone thought that if the boat comparison one was funny everything would be funny.

If Programming languages were types of women.
If Programming languages were flavors of soda.

wtf?

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Ruby is Mormonism if you must use that term.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[bill_mcgonigle]

LISP guys will insist that it represents apotheosis.

BTW, congrats on your comment being the root of the interesting discussion thread here. :)

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam has not been around a long time, compared to most other religions.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam isn't that old compared to say hinduism.

Re:Theologians will disagree

[mcgrew]

I like Nomad, but I see you're an MS Access fan, eh?

Re:Theologians will disagree

[mcgrew]

COBOL is an acronym for Crappy Old Bad Obsolete Language

Re:Theologians will disagree

[ducomputergeek]

As an Episcopalian I'm going to go demand the Communion form a comittee to study the effects of...and in ten years make a ruling...and, screw it. Anyone want a Martini?

Re:What, no scientology?

[Andr T.]

Python would be Scientology? I surely don't agree.

You have to pay nobody to learn it. It's fun and there's no Xeno. Also, nobody was attacked after saying bad things about it. I think.

creators' planet/population rescue kode....

[Anonymous Coward]

is totally user friendly, newclear powered & spiritually based. additionally, there are no gadgets required. it's all in the manual; thou shalt do onto, etc...

Are religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Programming languages are religions.....

Re:Are religion

[PinkyDead]

More to the point, religions are programming languages.

Re:Are religion

[MRe_nl]

Hear, hear!

happy X-mas
Neal Stephenson.

Re:Are religion

[basicio]

There is some unfortunate truth in this.

Re:Are religion

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, religions are programming languages.

/thread

Re:Are religion

[danieltdp]

That's true only in russia.

Re:Are religion

[Anonymous Coward]

You win this thread.
I present you with one free Internet!

Re:Are religion

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, religions are programming languages.

Zing

Re:Are religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure where I heard the quote... but here it is:

Religion is the rootkit of humanity.

Re:Are religion

[zobier]

That was worth reading to the bottom of the discussion.

Reminds me of Snow Crash.

Re:Are religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you're talking.

I wish programming was a religion

[jollyreaper]

Then we could excommunicate people for breaking coding conventions and burn them at the stake for buffer overflows. Of course, this would also mean we'd need altars to Gates and Torvalds in the server room, would have to burn the right incenses and make appropriate obeisances to ward off crashes. Of course, when the crashes happen anyway, we could then have the debate over whether the religion was false or if we simply weren't observing it strictly enough and decide to throw a virgin off the roof and see if things improve. (cue jokes about the likeliest department to find virgins in.) You know, it would be kind of cool to have a giant computing pyramid atop which is the altar we tear out the beating hearts of living sacrifices.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[ShakaUVM]

>>Then we could excommunicate people for breaking coding conventions and burn them at the stake for buffer overflows.

Does this include people that space indent?

Because I might sign on to your crusade if we can burn people that check in space-indented code.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[paulsnx2]

The 10 commandments of coding conventions

1) Thou shalt not place the Left Curly Brace on a line of its own; this shows disrespect to thy Fathers and thy Mothers who only had 80 columns and 24 lines in days of old
2) Thou shalt not use the GoTo, for such disrespects the Prophet of Programming Dijkstra,
3) Thou shalt comment thy code, and provide great detail about the workings of thy mind when thou does first write thy method. And thou shalt revisit and revise thy comments only in the earliest hours of the morning prior to thy code review.
4) Honor thy Sun and thy Java that your days may be long upon the Virtual Machine where thy code livith.
5) Thou shalt Compile before checking in.
6) Thou shalt Run thy code at least once before shipping.
7) Thou shalt Test at least one Browser against thy Server's code, and thy backup Server's code, and thy Neighbor's Server's code.
8) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's operating system unless thy neighbor runs Linux; If ye cast your eye upon thy neighbor's Windows Server, and covet it in thy heart, thy staff shall take thee into thy parking lot and stone thee with mice until the demon of stupidity leaveth thee
9) Thou shalt not make libraries of other gods such as C# or Perl. These are an abomination before thy God.
10) Once thou hast compiled thy code, generated thy Java Doc, Reviewed thy code with the elders of thy people, Deployed thy code upon thy server, and tested thy code upon the Browser of thy God (Firefox 3.0), and thy customer doth stumble upon thy bug, thou shalt blame thy customer with thy mouth, and curse his existence, for thou hath commented, placed thy braces properly, indented with four spaces (and not eight as do the godless), hath capped thy constants, hath lowercased thy methods, and hath passed all thy JUnit tests..... It is the truth of God that if yee hath done all these things, thy customer must be at fault.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[miscGeek]

I guess I must have my own cult cause if you follow command 1 I will personally burn you at the stake.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[maxwell demon]

Quite the contrary. The people who tab-indent are those who should be burned. The tab character was the worst invention in the history of character sets. You cannot even prefix them (line numbers, diff line change prefix, email quote prefix etc.) without breaking the indentation.

Oh, and try to get people to agree how many spaces a tab should be! :-)

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[jonaskoelker]

this would also mean we'd need altars to Gates and Torvalds in the server room, would have to burn the right incenses and make appropriate obeisances to ward off crashes.

What?? You dun... How do you make your servers work?

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Arancaytar]

> tear out the beating hearts of living sacrifices.

This would also be an excellent deterrent against asking stupid tech support questions.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, this would also mean we'd need altars to Gates and Torvalds in the server room, would have to burn the right incenses and make appropriate obeisances to ward off crashes.

What do you mean "would need"? I do this now!

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[rdnetto]

Don't you mean send a virgin to Microsoft? Mind you, it I think they'd prefer to be thrown off the roof...

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[orclevegam]

I guess I must have my own cult cause if you follow command 1 I will personally burn you at the stake.

Thou wilst follow thy K&R style guide or be beaten to death with dangling pointers. Always remember to cuddle your else clauses, they get lonely easily.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Spacelem]

I find the single biggest problem with doing that is the old 24 line issue. I want to see as much of my code as possible, but by splitting lines to accommodate braces I end up being able to see fewer lines of context code.

Also I was shown to do the { on its own line thing when first taught to program; this was in Java, and I really hate Java.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an IT department. They're all virgins!

Oh, you meant a woman? I see.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Octorian]

. . .
} else {
. . .

"To the Bat-Else, Robin!"

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[pizzach]

I used to do my { on the same line when I programmed in Java. Now that I have been programming in C using gtk for a while, I have been looking for any way possible to shorten lines. The function names are just too long in gtk when using C because it's essentially laying attributes of an object oriented language on top of a non-object oriented language. It's just not possible to keep function declarations like gtk_text_buffer_insert_with_tags_by_name in one line a lot of times.

*sigh* I liked my coding style. But I have to find something that is readable with this strange mix. Unfortunately, changing my style means I also have to update the other styles eventually. I have also had to acclimate myself to using much shorter and less descriptive variable names.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Anonymous Coward]

2) Thou shalt not use the GoTo, for such disrespects the Prophet of Programming Dijkstra,

Oh come on. What's the worst that could happen?

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[clone53421]

1) Thou shalt not place the Left Curly Brace on a line of its own; this shows disrespect to thy Fathers and thy Mothers who only had 80 columns and 24 lines in days of old

Blasphemy! They had 25 lines!

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Anonymous Coward]

it makes it easier to read, especially on printout. get over yourself and use it for a month, you'll learn to love it.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Four Spaces? Heathen!!

All true religions use two spaces for indentation.

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[clone53421]

Oh, you meant a woman? I see.

No, your first answer was correct. That's why it's a "joke".

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[EnigmaticSource]

Of course, this would also mean we'd need altars ... in the server room, would have to burn the right incenses and make appropriate obeisances to ward off crashes. Of course, when the crashes happen anyway, we could then have the debate over whether the religion was false or if we simply weren't observing it strictly enough and decide to throw a virgin off the roof and see if things improve. (cue jokes about the likeliest department to find virgins in.) You know, it would be kind of cool to have a giant computing pyramid atop which is the altar we tear out the beating hearts of living sacrifices.

You've never worked in a DEC RSTS/E, VMS, or a VAX Mini shop have you? (the alters are there, just behind the serial multiplexers)

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[mcgrew]

have the debate over whether the religion was false or if we simply weren't observing it strictly enough and decide to throw a virgin off the roof

Throw a what off the roof? Dude, do you know where you are?

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[clone53421]

Yes, he's on slashdot...

No shortage of virgins here!

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Anonymous Coward]

I kind of like your idea of throwing virgins off the roof. When is the next procession to the roof?

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[wubti]

return (a Fundamentailist Christian) ? null : TRUE

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Thou shalt not place the Left Curly Brace on a line of its own; this shows disrespect to thy Fathers and thy Mothers who only had 80 columns and 24 lines in days of old

IF (YouThinkThatStupidConventionIsImportant)
{

FUCK YOU!!!

}

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[Nicolay77]

I think the whole point about tab chars is that you can see it as 4 spaces and I can see it as 2, 6 or 8 and we both are happy.

If you read the original rant about tab chars, it was about programming in Lisp.

I program in Lisp, and agree that tab chars suck in Lisp. I could even say that if you don't know Lisp you don't deserve to be able to comment about tabs in source code files.

For C based syntax ? Tabs all over the way!

Re:I wish programming was a religion

[clone53421]

Ahh, I'd be careful if I were you. I'm not a virgin, but you are!

Visual Basic

[Farmer Pete]

I don't know why VB gets such a bad rap. I'm not saying it's the best language out there, but I view it as a tool in a toolbox. Sure, it might not be the tool you'll go for most often, and if you had to limit yourself to only a few languages, maybe you'd ditch it. But it is still powerful and good for some situations.

Re:Visual Basic

[$RANDOMLUSER]

When all you have is VB, everything looks like a nail.

Re:Visual Basic

[splutty]

If I had a screwdriver that would only work when I did 3 pirouettes, closed my eyes, and wiggled the fingers of my opposing hand before I used it to hammer a nail in.... Then yes.. Visual Basic would be a tool.

Re:Visual Basic

[confused one]

As a former C programmer who has been forced to code in VB for the past half decade... Brother, I can see you've been brought into the fold. We in Hell need you to continue with your work. Continue to disseminate the lies, convince as many as you can that Evil is the One True Way and declare it to be Good. Many will believe you. Many souls will fall to us...

Re:Visual Basic

[Doctor Faustus]

I don't know why VB gets such a bad rap. I'm not saying it's the best language out there
Which VB? VB.Net is mostly just an alternate syntax to C#, and thus, an awful lot like Java.

Classic VB is much less respectable.

Re:Visual Basic

[nschubach]

I hear VB and the only thing that comes to mind anymore is SendKey. The ridiculous amount of automation scripting... it brains my make hurt.

Programming Languages aren't Religions...

[Fished]

Operating Systems on the other hand are. My "other" religion is a Macintosh.

Re:Programming Languages aren't Religions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me more about this Macintosh OS. Is it by chance anything like Nextstep or OS X? I personally am a fan of the Dell and eMachine OSes.

Re:Programming Languages aren't Religions...

[Canazza]

If we're going for OS's, then Windows XP would be akin to Catholicism
It's the largest OS in terms of users and in terms of money earned
It's leader lives in an ivory tower and is only brought out to see the masses of followers during Expos
It's built upon hundreds of previous versions, eventually becoming a warped twisted parody of what it originally started as
Many people profess to use it, but don't really believe in it. They refuse to switch because they don't believe any other OS will work well with their lifestyle, or for fear their friends will shun them.

Re:Programming Languages aren't Religions...

[xgr3gx]

If OSes were religions, Linux would have to be Christianity.
There are so many branches that all do basically the same thing, and are modified to suit the founder's needs.
And they all agree to reject Satan (Microsoft)
Except for Suse, they made a pact with the devil. Haha.

Re:Programming Languages aren't Religions...

[LandDolphin]

MS would probably be the Cathloic Church. Controlling

Apple would be (Radical) Islam. Rabid Fanboys

Linux could be the hundered of branches of Christianity. However, I like Hinduism. Hinduism has many teachings, and people practise differently. Hinduism also claims Buhhdism as a subsect of Hinduism, so that opens you up to even more variation.

Re:Programming Languages aren't Religions...

[orclevegam]

Linux could be the hundered of branches of Christianity. However, I like Hinduism. Hinduism has many teachings, and people practise differently. Hinduism also claims Buhhdism as a subsect of Hinduism, so that opens you up to even more variation.

Actually I think that would make Linux Buddhism and Unix Hinduism.

FORTRAN

[Anonymous Coward]

FORTRAN: definitely Scientology.

python is unrestrictive?

[spottedkangaroo]

I was really into the article until I got to that comment. I really like python, but I find it's anything but restrictive. It seems like there's exactly one way to do things in python and if you deviate at all the other python coders will get insanely angry with you.

I find it more restrictive than java. Elegant, but extremely restrictive. It makes me feel boxed in. I prefer languages where you can do things in various different ways depending on your mood and temperament.

Again, I like python very much, but it's not "unrestrictive." That's just silly.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[quarterbuck]

It is unrestrictive not in the simple keywords and functions sense, but in the sense of object oriented design.
In Java it is next to impossible to write a "Hello World" program without tripping over object oriented design. In python don't really need to create a ObjectFactory to create little widget objects if you don't feel like it etc.
This leaves the user unrestricted when it comes to program design (though python slightly does nudge you in the rightish direction with the way the language is developing).

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[maxume]

Not all of the other python coders get insanely angry, just the insanely angry ones (plenty of people may try to be helpful and point out a way that they think is clearer, or that is more efficient).

I would think that there are insane, angry people who code in many languages, but perhaps python attracts them for some reason.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[characterZer0]

In Java it is next to impossible to write a "Hello World" program without tripping over object oriented design.

Really?

public class HelloWorld {
    public static void main( String[] args ) {
        System.out.println( "Hello World." );
    }
}

How hard was that? You can write completely procedural code in Java.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[maxume]

If you really think it is illogical, then your logic is broken (it can be unambiguously parsed by a computer, this is pretty good evidence that it is logical).

I suspect that you mean it is uncomfortable, or that you prefer a different method.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was really into the article until I got to that comment. I really like python, but I find it's anything but restrictive. It seems like there's exactly one way to do things in python and if you deviate at all the other python coders will get insanely angry with you.

I find it more restrictive than java. Elegant, but extremely restrictive. It makes me feel boxed in. I prefer languages where you can do things in various different ways depending on your mood and temperament.

Again, I like python very much, but it's not "unrestrictive." That's just silly.

I prefer languages where you can do things in various different ways depending on your mood and temperament.

Sweet merciful Torvalds, I hope I never get tasked with maintaining your code.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[Jane_Dozey]

Except, you know, having to make a class just to print out "Hello World".

In contrast to;
print "Hello World"

Java is bogged down in OO, which isn't necessarily a bad thing when you're an OO language.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Are you joking? You just had to create an object class, and call a method on another, to print a 12-character string. That's exactly what quarterbuck was complaining about.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[hey!]

Sure. But dealing learning to deal with structures which enforce scope before you need them is easier than learning to deal with them after you need them.

On top of that, your example conflates the interpretive/compiled environment distinction with the language. The whole point of the original "hello world" program is to introduce you to the things you'll need to build a compilable program. That includes invoking the compiler and linker, and giving the compiler the information it needs through header inclusion.

In an interpreted environment, you don't have those concerns. For example, "hello, world" in groovy is:
println "hello, world!"

In truth, for useful programs the equivalent BASIC program is going to be as or more complex than the Java program. If you were to write the equivalent of, say, the Apache Derby database in BASIC, it would be much more complex.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[tepples]

Except, you know, having to make a class just to print out "Hello World".

In Python, each source code file is treated as a "module", and each module has its own namespace. So a module is like a singleton class in a way, except the word "class" is implicit.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[tepples]

Wow. Are you joking? You just had to create an object class

And in Python, you have to create a module. The only difference is that Java repeats the name of the class/module within the source code file, and Python doesn't. The other difference (a main method) isn't required by Python, but it's a common practice.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[greg_barton]

python don't really need to create a ObjectFactory to create little widget objects if you don't feel like it etc.

That's not necessary in java, either.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[Anonymous Coward]

You had to create a file in Java as well, it doesn't matter that that has additional significance in Python; creating an object class is completely additional to that. As for the "main method" (which isn't even a method in any useful sense, as arguing that it's "a method on the module" admits the interpretation that any language with mutable global variables, C for example, entirely uses methods), that's an additional construct that permits a module to be easily either imported or run directly, and is neither necessary nor useful in a Hello World program.

(There's also the fact that ultimately it isn't even a function, it's an if clause checked at import time; the use of a function to store all of the actual actions performed is, though useful in many cases, by no means necessary or fundamental).

So yeah, you can try to apologize away the bullshit Java puts the programmer through, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[ebuck]

When you say a module (partial compilation construct) is like a singleton (one instance in memory) because it has it's own name space (a naming hierarchy to resolve and allow naming conflicts), it reminds me of this quote from a true master.

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[tepples]

Then let me restate:

In Python, you create a namespace by creating a module, or by creating classes within the module. In Java, you create a namespace by creating classes within a source code file. The difference between Python and Java is that Python adds what amounts to an implicit outer class with all members static for each module. Did "tripping" in quarterbuck's comment refer to the fact that this outer class in Java is explicit while that of Python is implicit?

Re:python is unrestrictive?

[redhog]

>>> class X(object):
    class __metaclass__(type):
      def __new__(cls, *arg, **kw):
        return "Hej"

>>> X
'Hej'
>>>

Forth is scientology

[paulsnx2]

That is why we keep shooting it up into space on satellites.... It hopes to get back into contact with Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy!

BASIC

[SoundGuyNoise]

BASIC is like any Sunday School. It give you a base to start out with. Might not be on the ball with the full tenets of a religion, simplified for a new audience, but it points in the direction for deeper philosophical research.

Re:BASIC

[Anonymous Coward]

And it causes irreversible brain damage.

" ... the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery. " -- Edsgar W. Dijkstra

Re:BASIC

[Anonymous Coward]

And the people who've learned to rely on those simplified principles end up causing trouble for the rest of us.

"What are you doing?"
"Reading Matthew" (alternately: "Teaching myself C++/JAVA/PHP/etc"
"Well, why? We already taught you what the Bible says/how to write a program."

(note: Actual (paraphrased) conversations I've had with both my Sunday School teacher AND my high school CS teacher. They both really thought they'd told me all I needed to know.)

Re:BASIC

[corbettw]

No, BASIC is animism. It lacks many of the features of more advanced religions and is often derided as primitive by others. But it still has many useful features, and many of the others are direct (or indirect) descendants of it.

Re:BASIC

[jonaskoelker]

BASIC is like any Sunday School.

I prepares you for future Microsoft indoctrination in the form of C#?

me ducks ;)

Re:What, no scientology?

[PinkyDead]

Obviously waves of COBOL nostalgia caused your brain to shut down.

APL would be Scientology - There are many people who claim to follow it, but you've always suspected that it's a huge and elaborate prank that got out of control.

Lua

[Leafheart]

FTFA

Lua would be Wicca - A pantheistic language that can easily be adapted for different cultures and locations. Its code is very liberal, and allows for the use of techniques that might be described as magical by those used to more traditional languages. It has a strong connection to the moon.

I program in LUA and I approve this message

Eifel

[Chrisq]

Eifel would be extreme atheism. You can't say anything without defining your predicates and defining the context in which it is valid.

Re:Eifel

[SpiderClan]

I was thinking more that non-programmers/general computer users would be atheists. As far as they're concerned, computers exist and work, and software just sort of comes about on its own. All that talk of programming languages is just the socially awkward trying to develop some kind of relevance for themselves.

Re:Eifel

[Chrisq]

IAll that talk of programming languages is just the socially awkward trying to develop some kind of relevance for themselves.

Shhhhhhh ... it's supposed to be a secret.

Re:Eifel

[clone53421]

They would be more like agnostics... they don't really know how software came about, and they don't really care. They might occasionally hear some of their geekier friends talking about "open source" software, but writing "source code" is like practicing voodoo... it might be real, but then again it might also be some kind of mythology or clever stage magic. They don't buy into the whole "hey, I can write software" idea, and they find it hard to believe that somewhere, somehow, source code existed for Microsoft Office.

Re:What, no scientology?

[thogard]

With python you pay into that false hope of divinity. Like all programs written in python, there is always more to do and its never quite done.

Dec 25th, we have Grav-mass!

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

Logical programmers don't need religions. We can celebrate Grav-mass - a day for "the existence of comprehensible physical laws", which we celebrate by poorly sticking fruit onto a tree :-)

OMG!!!!

[Andr T.]

I just got the news! Python attacked a 3-year-old!!!

Maybe it was a DoS attack or something.

The Holy C

[MortenMW]

From the book of the Holy C:

#include
int main(void)
{
printf("Let there be light!\n");
return 0;
}

Re:The Holy C

[orclevegam]

Infidel

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
printf("Let there be light!\n");
return 0;
}

Re:The Holy C

[YttriumOxide]

Not true! God wrote in LISP Code.

Perl

[Maclir]

Perl would be Voodoo - An incomprehensible series of arcane incantations that involve the blood of goats and permanently corrupt your soul.

Actually, the incantations involve the blood of camels.

Re:Perl

[maxwell demon]

And I always thought camels only contain tobacco. Evil camel smokers! :-)

Note: There's no need to teach me about the animal.

Re:Perl

[Xenophon Fenderson,]

Actually, the incantations involve the blood of camels.

Exactly. Goats are only sacrificed when terminating SCSI chains.

Re:Perl

[Remus Shepherd]

I find it frightening that Perl actually does have a connection to stuffed camel dolls and needles. Maybe this comparison to voodoo is a bit more than a joke...

MUMPS

[zepo1a]

Is Visual Basic is Satanism, MUMPS is the Devil himself!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS

Who wrote the list?

[hesaigo999ca]

Who the hell came up with this list, I really don't see it,
anyways to go with what I program, I guess i am dancing with the devil as we speak!
Hail satan!

Brainfck ... ?

[Rhabarber]

Brainfuck would be The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monste - it's made up for nothing but fun.

Re:Brainfck ... ?

[AB3A]

Brainfsck?

That's one of those weird UFO cults that commit suicide upon the arrival of a comet.

Re:Brainfck ... ?

[Canazza]

The Spaghetti monster is Pastafarianism. and that's been mentioned :)

Re:Brainfck ... ?

[Creepy]

does that make whitespace the Invisible Pink Unicorn?

Re:Brainfck ... ?

[maxwell demon]

Well, brainfsck would make a file system check/repair on your brain. Could be quite useful, especially if it created a "lost+found" where all those things you've forgotten can be found again. However, if it went wrong, your whole brain may be damaged so much that only reformatting helps.

Why is Hinduism left out?

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel violated.

Very Subjective

[vawarayer]

Questionnable sense of humour.

Very caricaturist interpretation of religions. Or maybe that's what should have been funny?

Re:What, no scientology?

[Andr T.]

> print "Hello world!"

Done. Nothing more to do in my "hello world" python program.

one religion dominates?

[howardd21]

I fail to see the validity of the comment "or at least maybe wondering why this one religion dominates the rest for these few weeks"; in fact Jewish people have a high holiday season now, as do Muslims. Ask somebody on the middle east of Christmas is dominating, I do not think you will get a yes.

Re:one religion dominates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Hanukkah is not considered a high holiday, it is very minor. Only rosh hashanah and yom kippur are really considered high holidays, occasionally passover gets lumped in there too.

Python

[oliverthered]

like trying to fight your way out of a paper bag (very slowly), but what was the paper bag doing there in the first place, I'd much prefer a world that I could see instead of one that I couldn't.

and then if you want to do anything sensible you have to use C.

still a lot clearer than Perl.

hmmm. What about assembler and ADA?

[apodyopsis]

ADA has me head scratching here.

A religion that enforces how you pray and stops followers talking to each other?

And what about assembler?

A direct line to god that bypasses religion, only for minor deities?

Re:hmmm. What about assembler and ADA?

[McNihil]

ADA is for the Christian Crusaders

Assembler is used by the Angels

VHDL is used by God

Re:hmmm. What about assembler and ADA?

[Anonymous Coward]

ADA - Monastic Chritianity possibly benedictine.

Assembler - Atheism? or would that be programming with the switches on the front panel.

Re:hmmm. What about assembler and ADA?

[YttriumOxide]

VHDL is used by God

No! Not true I tell you!

I was taught assembler
in my second year of school.
It's kinda like construction work --
with a toothpick for a tool.
So when I made my senior year,
I threw my code away,
And learned the way to program
that I still prefer today.

Now, some folks on the Internet
put their faith in C++.
They swear that it's so powerful,
it's what God used for us.
And maybe it lets mortals dredge
their objects from the C.
But I think that explains
why only God can make a tree.

For God wrote in Lisp code
When he filled the leaves with green.
The fractal flowers and recursive roots:
The most lovely hack I've seen.
And when I ponder snowflakes,
never finding two the same,
I know God likes a language
with its own four-letter name.

Now, I've used a SUN under Unix,
so I've seen what C can hold.
I've surfed for Perls, found what Fortran's for,
Got that Java stuff down cold.
Though the chance that I'd write COBOL code
is a SNOBOL's chance in Hell.
And I basically hate hieroglyphs,
so I won't use APL.

Now, God must know all these languages,
and a few I haven't named.
But the Lord made sure, when each sparrow falls,
that its flesh will be reclaimed.
And the Lord could not count grains of sand
with a 32-bit word.
Who knows where we would go to
if Lisp weren't what he preferred?

And God wrote in Lisp code
Every creature great and small.
Don't search the disk drive for man.c,
When the listing's on the wall.
And when I watch the lightning burn
Unbelievers to a crisp,
I know God had six days to work,
So he wrote it all in Lisp.

Yes, God had a deadline.
So he wrote it all in Lisp.

Re:hmmm. What about assembler and ADA?

[recharged95]

Assembly is the old language that everything is based on, sort of like the natural laws of Physics.

.

Assembly: followers of "the force". They are part of the Jedi Knighthood. Others language follower stand in amazement of Assembly-language practitioners.

I object on the Judaism comparison.

[Sabre Runner]

I'm Israeli and I think I can say that you can convert to Judaism (and to C). It's just easier if you haven't tried anything else before.

Re:I object on the Judaism comparison.

[Paradigm_Complex]

There is that whole thing about having to have your mother be Jewish. It's not really such a requirement with the more Reform groups, but the Conservative and especially Orthodox Jews tend to keep it in mind when considering those who would wish to convert.

And even then, there's that whole thing about the Rabbi having to push you away to make sure you really want to convert.

If they said C was Orthodox Judaism, perhaps it'd be more accurate.

Visual Basic as satanism

[jockeys]

Please note that the author is referring to Theistic Satanism (sometimes called Luciferianism) and not LaVeyan Satanism when he references VB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism

Atheism

[Davemania]

I take it Atheism would be binary ... quickly hides

Re:Atheism

[JasterBobaMereel]

Atheism - There is no computer ...

Agnosticism - You cannot prove there is a computer by programming ...

Re:Atheism

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats like saying atheist believes there is no earth

Re:Atheism

[RancidPickle]

What is this 'earth' you speak of?

Re:Atheism

[pbhj]

Atheism - There is no CPU ...

Agnosticism - You cannot prove there is a CPU by programming ...

Re:Atheism

[DarkLordOfHell]

I program therefore I am.

Hinduism would have been better as Fortran

[G3ckoG33k]

Hinduism would have been better as Fortran.

It is truly old and the polytheistic setting for the monotheistic precursor to all other monotheistic religions, Zoroastrianism!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

Re:Hinduism would have been better as Fortran

[GillBates0]

I agree.

The multiple dieties in Hinduism merely translate to various aspects of the One Absolute Infinite Consciousness.

The thinking here is that the "Absolute" is so unfathomable that everybody has a different view of it (like the fabled elephant and 8 blind men). These aspects can be viewed as different dieties and even as different religions.

Indeed, Hinduism allows and *encourages* different views of the Absolute, and thus is inherently Pluralisitc (accepts all religious paths as equally valid, promoting coexistence).

Oh

[mcwolfzhang]

to an atheist is hard

Re:What, no scientology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your program will brake in Python 3.

how about

[poetmatt]

How about "If OS's were religions"?

Christianity = Windows
Judaism = OSX
Atheism/Agnosticism = Linux

Re:how about

[LandDolphin]

Linux is a belief that an OS does not exsist, or that there is no proof that the OS exists? Doesn't work

Atheism/Agnosticism are not religions, they are the absense of religion. They would be a computer with no OS installed on it.

A better choise for Linux would be Hinduism because of the lack of a centralized belief and power structure and the multitude of variations.

Re:how about

[DisKurzion]

Depending on how you look at it...they would be different religions. Also..atheism/agnosticism is not a religion, but a lack thereof, so cannot count in this discussion.

Going by size alone:
OSX = Buddhism
Windows = Christianity
Linux = Judaism

Going by historical relation:
Unix = Orthodox Judaism
Linux = Reformed Judaism
OSX = Catholicism
Windows = Mormonism

Re:how about

[poetmatt]

I figure it's a fun idea that people could actually come up with creative answers for :)

In some versions of it, when you pick major religions buddhism sometimes gets left aside though so depending on perspective some like to lump things like buddhism as "linux distros" basically.

bullcrap

[unity100]

PHP would be Cafeteria Christianity - Fights with Java for the web market.

fights ?

as a developer doing contract website jobs, and as a web host owner that hosts many small business and individual sites i can say that 'dominance' is nowhere near java. we are swimming in a sea of php.

granted, i know that in medium business and up corporate levels, there are many websites that use java, and if someone is in or near those circles, may take the picture differently, but i assure you it isnt the case in reality.

an average box web hosts use generally houses 100 to 300 different websites for clients, and you can tell that we are swimming in a sea of php/mysql as far as the public, small businesses and people are concerned. its to the extent that some clients may not know alternatives exist, or even do not care.

Re:What, no scientology?

[ionix5891]

print ("pfft that print wont work in python3 thou heretic)

Would this make ...

[iaamoac]

... assembler programmers to be atheists?

Fortran?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Fortran? I can't think of an appropriate religion to match it. Any ideas?

Re:Fortran?

[Remus Shepherd]

Fortran is the ancient greco/roman pantheon. It once ruled the world, and was used by white-haired men to throw thunderbolts around. But now it's obsolete. However, pieces of it survive in more modern religions -- most notably FORMAT statements and the prevalence of omnipotent white-haired men.

All languages are OK...

[russotto]

...provided they are languages of the Editor. And yea, that editor is the One True Editor, EMACS.

Re:All languages are OK...

[NiteShaed]

Heretic! You shall be burned at the stake!

Lemme see here....esc, okay, I'm in the right mode now....

Okay, now to find a stake....
/stake

Ah, got it! Now feel our wrath!
:set burnheretic!

Thou shalt put no editor ahead of the lord VI

Next up: text files!

[saltydogdesign]

I didn't chuckle. Can I get my money back?

Prolog must be Soviet Russia style communism.

[lxs]

After working with it for 48 hours I woke up in the middle of the night, convinced that computer was programming me.

Re:Prolog must be Soviet Russia style communism.

[ceoyoyo]

And you were correct.

Re:Prolog must be Soviet Russia style communism.

[Anonymous Coward]

After working with it for 48 hours I woke up in the middle of the night, convinced that computer was programming me.

In soviet Russia computer programs you ??

Re:Nothing remarkable actually...

[berend botje]

On behalf of all satanists, I take offense at that statement!

You might nog like us, you might call us names and you might even throw sticks at us. But calling us christian fundamentalists is foul play, and I think you know that.

Go wash your mouth with soap!

Smalltalk

[CapitanMutanda]

What about Smalltalk.. am I left "faithless"??

Re:Smalltalk

[Rub1cnt]

Smalltalk is an art, not a religion. :)

Re:Smalltalk

[Pikewake]

Smalltalk is not a religion, it is the language of the Illuminati. Smalltalkers laugh att the petty squabbles between supporters of the lesser languages, because we know the truth!
In any case we can always redefine what is #true...

If Programming Languages Were Religions

[Quiet_Desperation]

You mean if they were *different* religions from the ones they already are.

Smalltalk

[cryptoguy]

Among all the religions, smalltalk is the one that is true and pure.

Re:What, no scientology?

[Anonymous Coward]

> print "Hello world!"

Done. Nothing more to do in my "hello world" python program.

You got it wrong, here's the officially endorsed Tom Cruise "Hello, World!" python program:

#! /usr/bin/env python
import sys
from world import *
print "Hello, World and welcome to the wonderful world of Scientology!"
try:
    while !worlddomination:
        for everyone in world:
            fool(everyone)
            getcashfrom(everyone)
            intimidate(everyone)
    prepare(spaceship)
    scribbleonearth('Property of L. Ron Hubbard and Tom Cruise.')
    leavefor(Mars)
    sys.exit('Thank you and goodnight.')

Re:What, no scientology?

[Anonymous Coward]

You left a quote out of the ceremony. These kinds of things have to be verbatim.

Live forever on earth with Fortran

[Anonymous Coward]

Some guys knocked on my door last Saturday trying to give me some books on Fortran.. hmm

Hinduism and Erlang???

[s6135]

Hinduism is one of the oldest religions and one of the top 3 religions practiced throughout the world. I would have hoped that they did some research before coming with this comparison.

Re:Why?

[El Lobo]

Yes, when I saw this article on the Firehose I really really hoped that no editor would pick it. Not only is a variation of a million times seen joke: it's a very mediocre variation as well. I mean, the "jokes" are unimaginative, feel forced and most important: the little bit of objective (no pun intended) truth that any self-respected list of this kind must contain is not present at all here. A waste if you ask me... Or maybe I just don't get it.

IF?

[BCGlorfindel]

What do you mean if?

Religon? Not Just Religion, They're Cults

[RalphSouth]

Has anyone else been in the wars associated with the choice of a development language? I have and it isn't pretty. When one or the other waring camps has "won", you find development going on in the other language in little secret enclaves. "I told you that god would get you" memos flowing years later.

But...

[QuietLagoon]

... programming languages are religions.

Re:What, no scientology?

[Thiez]

> Also, nobody was attacked after saying bad things about it. I think.

You're just thinking that because we hide the bodies very well.

Just wrong....

[mlwmohawk]

I am an Atheist, and I reject that programming languages have any connection with Religion. There is no actual belief system.

I know it is a joke, but on a philosophical level, it feels wrong.

I have loved computers since 1977 when I read Byte magazine on how to build an RCA 1802 Elf computer. I saved my money and built it. It was exciting! It was triumph of intellect over inexperience. I built it, fixed it, and got it to work. I read books, I bought tools. I conquered the subject.

Even viewing the act of programming as a religion is an insult to the pure intellectual pursuit that it is. As anyone who has done anything interesting will tell you, it is often the pure force of intellect that allows you to accomplish.

Re:Just wrong....

[Eponymous Bastard]

It's not that the act of programming itself is a religion. It's that people's choice of programming language sometimes becomes a religion for them.

Have you never met anyone who thought you were an idiot because you don't agree that $LANGUAGE is the best thing out there? You'll have people spend all day arguing that C lets you stay close to the machine and program more efficiently (as if that mattered), that java lets you run the program on any architecture (as if recompiling was impossible), that haskell lets you pass functions around and apply them (as if there were no function pointers), that the C++ STL and destructors save so much time and bugs (As if other languages didn't have container libraries nowadays), that CPAN saves you inmense amounts of work (as if no libraries existed for other languages).

Programming is just like religion in that you cannot prove that one is better than the other and in fact your choice is often a matter of which you learned first and which you like better.

If you're willing to spend hours arguing about your views on programming then it's a religion for you. Sorry

Disclaimer: I prefer C++ but can code in anything you throw at me. I'll look at each project before I decide on a language, and often depends on who will be maintaining it. I also hold a similar view on atheism, it can be a religion or not depending on how much time you're willing to argue about it. Since you view the comparison with a religion as an insult, this might apply to you. Sorry.

Re:Just wrong....

[Anonymous Coward]

?! Get a sense of humour dude! Realise that the world is made up of those scary things called people and they all think differently. Also realise that their is a marked similarity between discussions about which religion and which programming language. Why shouldn't we compare them to religions if their adherents behave like the religious? Don't answer, you probably don't get it: you can't see the wonder in the universe anymore... :/

One small quibble...

[rickb928]

"COBOL would be Ancient Paganism - There was once a time when it ruled over a vast region and was important, but nowadays it's almost dead, for the good of us all. Although many were scarred by the rituals demanded by its deities, there are some who insist on keeping it alive even today."

COBOL is more likely Freemasonry - While claiming to be born before C and Java(and we ask, 'this is a hard teaching!'), it espouses concepts much more ancient, and as yet not disproven in utility. It works unseen, underpinning most of society, gains little public respect (indeed scorn and distrust), and occasionally becomes noticable, usually in crisis not entirely of its own making. Adherents are dying off, but fear not; COBOL still fills a need, and while many Post-Modern competitors rise and fall, COBOL lives on, doing whatever it does, quietly, efficiently, daring all pretenders to replace it. Many have indeed succumbed. Be wary of annoying this breed. They have access to all your bases.

Re:One small quibble...

[Toll_Free]

Obviously you don't work in the manufacturing industry, do you?

COBOL is alive and well, and if you would do a web search for cobol programmers / dev's, you would figure that out for yourself.

I know my old company has as many COBOL programmers and operators as we had for the rest of the IT department.

--Toll_Free

Re:One small quibble...

[DiegoBravo]

Yes, COBOL is (sadly) alive and well. But I agree with GP that is analogous to Masonry or similar societies:

* The are inside all big and important corporations/institutions
* Nobody seems to note they are working silently between the rest of people (so most incorrectly assume they're disappearing)
* Subject to absolutely weird (coding) customs
* They never know the real agendas of their bosses

Re:One small quibble...

[Hasmanean]

I would say Labview is like Freemasonry, or the Tarot more specifically. The use of visual pictures, and arcane rites is something no religion bothers with any more.

Re:One small quibble...

[Just Some Guy]

COBOL is more likely Freemasonry

As a Mason, I demand that you take that back. Fail to do so and we'll appoint Bush again.

Re:One small quibble...

[rickb928]

No, but my little brother does. Of course, his outfit lives on an E-series, and he's proud to not use any Java. Pure RPG all the way.

My point wasn't that COBOL is dead. Far from it. Ask the Governator. I am aware of the premature reports of COBOL's death. And they do have access to all your bases.

Re:One small quibble...

[mcgrew]

Offtopic? Somebody must have stoned the moderator!

Re:One small quibble...

[mcgrew]

WOOSH!!!!

Mod me down some more, dufus.

Were?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they are...

Misconceptions.

[pikine]

Boys and girls, I hope TFA is not the way you learn about these world's religions or programming languages for that matter, because the author apparently is knowledgeable in neither religion nor programming languages.

• C is not restrictive, so that's not its problem. Contrary to Judaism that has strict laws, the lack of laws in (the early days of) C makes your program unportable and difficult to understand by follow programmers who understands the semantics differently. The only similarity between C and Judaism is that, despite C is later standardized, you still get imperfect compiler implementations and programmers (analogy to rabbis and priests) who just can't obey the laws due to their original sins.
• The claim that Christianity voids many of the old laws is non-sense. Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). Java is not theoretically based on C. Java lacks pointer arithmetic, for example. The prevalence of garbage collector in Java also means that you can be sloppy in managing resources (do not have to use the resource you allocated or use a resource multiple times), which you have to do very carefully in C (resources have exactly one ownership). Compare these two languages to classical proposition logic and linear logic, and they are very different in theory.
• Cafeterial Christianity is a derogatory term describing people who pick and choose what they want to follow from the bible. Humm, maybe the author does know PHP very well.
• C++ cannot be Islam because it's a faithful extension (i.e. descendant) of C, and not a sibling to it. Islam and Judeo-Christianity are related by blood as siblings. The root of Islam traces back to Ismael, the illegitimate son of Abraham who has another son Issac who begets Jacob, the father of Israelites. Many of the Christian doctrines have analogy in Islam but they're quite different. This is more like comparing Java and C#, if Java is Christianity and C# is Islam.
• Mormonism is based on some golden tablets with words written on them that nobody has seen but the farm boy who discovered it. The boy believed that all the Christian churches are corrupted in teaching. I don't know if that's the reason why Microsoft made C#, that it believes all programming languages are corrupted. I think the origin of C# is because Microsoft wants to build a common language runtime (CLR).
• Lisp is based on lambda calculus, a set of very simple syntax and evaluation rules that turns out to be a very powerful computation model. Zen Buddhism only has rules that contradict themselves, i.e. change is the only thing that doesn't change, variety is void and void is variety, the four majors are empty. It's impossible to argue against Zen Buddhism's beliefs because an inconsistent logical system can be used to prove falsehood and anything. Lambda calculus, on the other hand, is the basis of many languages (Simply Typed Lambda Calculus, System F, ML) that are proven to be sound.
• Taoism believes "inaction for action", which can be interpreted to mean following and not intervening with the natural flow. The "call by need" evaluation semantics of Haskell doesn't make it an inaction. It's action by demand.
• Erlang as Hinduism by comparing multiple processes to simultaneous dieties? What the crack? Then POSIX threads (pthread) is what, Roman and Greek gods?

I think I'll stop here, as the list grows more and more ridiculous.

Re:Misconceptions.

[maxwell demon]

C++ cannot be Islam because it's a faithful extension (i.e. descendant) of C, and not a sibling to it. Islam and Judeo-Christianity are related by blood as siblings. The root of Islam traces back to Ismael, the illegitimate son of Abraham who has another son Issac who begets Jacob, the father of Israelites. Many of the Christian doctrines have analogy in Islam but they're quite different. This is more like comparing Java and C#, if Java is Christianity and C# is Islam.

Java doesn't have anything from C except for syntactic similarity and a few fundamental types. If there's something like Christianity, then it's C++: Just like Christianity includes most of Judaism as the Old Testament, C++ includes most of C. And as with Judaism/Christianity, while the old religion is actually somehow included, things which were considered good practice there are now considered bad practice, because there are now alternatives which are considered better.

Re:Misconceptions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, shut up you dirty C coder.

Hey, why does C have such so much pointer arithmetic?
Because the memory is free()! Ha!

Re:Misconceptions.

[Xtravar]

You must be fun to hang out with.

Re:Misconceptions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mormonism is based on some golden tablets with words written on them that nobody has seen but the farm boy who discovered it.

About the Mormon Golden Tablets: apparently there were other witnesses apart from the farm boy:

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/thrwtnss
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/eghtwtns

Re:Misconceptions.

[ceoyoyo]

Wow. Computer languages don't perfectly map to religions. I'm glad someone pointed that out, point by point, with gratuitous condescension.

wait,

[mistahkurtz]

they're not?

What do you mean, if?

[smartfart]

If? You're kidding, right?

Slight Tangent

[JoeMerchant]

Taoism: Shit happens.
Confucianism: Confucius say, "Shit happens."
Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit.
Zen Buddhism: Shit is, and is not.
Zen Buddhism #2: What is the sound of shit happening?
Hinduism: This shit has happened before.
Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.
Islam #2: If shit happens, kill the person responsible.
Islam #3: If shit happens, blame Israel.
Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.
Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else.
Presbyterian: This shit was bound to happen.
Episcopalian: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve the right wine with it.
Methodist: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve grape juice with it.
Congregationalist: Shit that happens to one person is just as good as shit that happens to another.
Unitarian: Shit that happens to one person is just as bad as shit that happens to another.
Lutheran: If shit happens, don't talk about it.
Fundamentalism: If shit happens, you will go to hell, unless you are born again. (Amen!)
Fundamentalism #2: If shit happens to a televangelist, it's okay.
Fundamentalism #3: Shit must be born again.
Judaism: Why does this shit always happen to us?
Calvinism: Shit happens because you don't work.
Seventh Day Adventism: No shit shall happen on Saturday.
Creationism: God made all shit.
Secular Humanism: Shit evolves.
Christian Science: When shit happens, don't call a doctor - pray!
Christian Science #2: Shit happening is all in your mind.
Unitarianism: Come let us reason together about this shit.
Quakers: Let us not fight over this shit.
Utopianism: This shit does not stink.
Capitalism: That's MY shit.
Communism: It's everybody's shit.
Feminism: Men are shit.
Chauvinism: We may be shit, but you can't live without us...
Commercialism: Let's package this shit.
Impressionism: From a distance, shit looks like a garden.
Idolism: Let's bronze this shit.
Existentialism: Shit doesn't happen; shit IS.
Existentialism #2: What is shit, anyway?
Stoicism: This shit is good for me.
Hedonism: There is nothing like a good shit happening!
Mormonism: God sent us this shit.
Mormonism #2: This shit is going to happen again.
Wiccan: An it harm none, let shit happen.
Scientology: If shit happens, see "Dianetics", p.157.
Jehovah's Witnesses: Knock Knock Shit happens.
Jehovah's Witnesses #2: May we have a moment of your time to show you some of our shit?
Jehovah's Witnesses #3: Shit has been prophesied and is imminent; only the righteous shall survive its happening.
Moonies: Only really happy shit happens.
Hare Krishna: Shit happens, rama rama.
Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit!
Zoroastrianism: Shit happens half on the time.
Church of SubGenius: BoB shits.
Practical: Deal with shit one day at a time.
Agnostic: Shit might have happened; then again, maybe not.
Agnostic #2: Did someone shit?
Agnostic #3: What is this shit?
Satanism: SNEPPAH TIHS.
Atheism: What shit?
Atheism #2: I can't believe this shit!
Nihilism: No shit.

Re:Slight Tangent

[pbhj]

Feminism: Men are shit.
Chauvinism: We may be shit, but you can't live without us...

Chauvinism would be something like "We may be shit, but Women are the shit of the bugs that live off our shit". FWIW, which isn't much.

Re:Slight Tangent

[jmerlin]

What's with all this religious shit?

Re:Slight Tangent

[Anonymous Coward]

Church of Emacs: Press M-X Shit-happens-mode to make shit happen

Re:Slight Tangent

[bcrowell]

You got unitarianism in there twice.

Re:Slight Tangent

[gishzida]

I'd like to a acouple of things to your list-- Judaism #2: You are commanded to do THIS shit but not THAT shit.

Commericalism #2: We only sell the best shit.

Universalism: Shit is Everywhere.

Pantheism: Everything is Shit

and then add a list for you physicists:

Statistical Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Shit always happens in the middle of the Bell Curve.

The Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Shit does not happen until you observe it. If you don't see Shit, you can't talk about shit.

Participatory Anthropic Principle of Quantum Excrement: Shit does not happen until someone consciously observes it. If I don't see shit then it is not really shit.

Consistent histories of Quantum Excrement: Shit happens over the sum of all of the possible histories. The Shittiest outcome is history.

Objective collapse theories of Quantum Excrement: Shit happens and I might observe it or maybe not. Many worlds Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: As Shit happens it fills all possible worlds.

Stochastic mechanics Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Shit Happens in a Classic manner.

The decoherence approach Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: The Tidal Wave of Shit never collapes. We just see the passing of its wake.

Many minds Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Different Shit for different minds.

Quantum logic Interpretation of Excrement: Shit has its own logic.

The Bohm Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: All our Shit is One.

Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Future Shit makes shit happen now.

Relational quantum mechanics Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Shit is relative to where and when you see it happening.

Realist Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: This shit is real.

Local Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Shit only happens here.

Non-local Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Shit that happens here can make shit happen some where else.

Determinist Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Shit must Happen.

Murphy's Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: Shit always happens the wrong way.

The String Interpretation of Quantum Excrement: You only see this shit because of the shit that happens in other dimensions.

Re:Slight Tangent

[Anonymous Coward]

Hare Krishna II: Shit happens, shit happens, happens happens, shit shit

Re:Slight Tangent

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgot one: Universalism - This shit is everywhere.

Re:Slight Tangent

[Anonymous Coward]

You're full of shit

Re: Slight Tangent

[Anonymous Coward]

Church of SubGenius: Give me shit OR KILL ME.

There is but one true God

[dkixk]

And God has three aspects: recursion, Î-calculus, and Turing machine. All others are mere shadows of the true Form. Kleene, Church, and Turing are the prophets.

I guess the Ebionites?

[Moraelin]

I guess the followers of Objective C would be akin to the Ebionites then. An ancient cult which insisted that they know what the New Testament (Java in TFA) really should be like, to the point where they accuse the mainstream's apostles of apostasy. Everyone else calls them heretics. Chances are you weren're even aware of them or their beliefs until you stumble upon The Da Vinci Code. Or upon the code of a Mac-owning co-worker who ignores the sacred style guide and writes methods like "setValueForKey(Object value, String key)" (instead of first key and then value, like everyone else) and insists that it's the rest of you who've been doing it wrong all along.

Assembly?

[Anonymous Coward]

So then would Assembly be Zoroastrianism?

please don't kill me

[spacemky]

I LOL'd hard at that last line in TFA.

On what planet?

[Anonymous Coward]

On what planet is C a restrictive language?

Zen Buddhism

[Kupfernigk]

Zen Buddhism only has rules that contradict themselves, i.e. change is the only thing that doesn't change, variety is void and void is variety, the four majors are empty.

If you think that is what Zen is about, you do not know Zen. Zen asserts that certain truths can only be asserted without affirmation or negation, therefore there is no contradiction. It's a bit like the superposition of wave functions...or just a statement that, by trying to classify the world in black and white terms, we fall into error. You cannot argue against Zen Buddhist beliefs, not because Zen implements an inconsistent logical system, but because Zen relies on the primacy of experience. If you fall into a river, you cannot extract yourself by argument. It is meaningless to affirm or deny your predicament, the only thing to do is to start swimming.

Re:Zen Buddhism

[danieltdp]

Second that. GP's knowledge isn't deep. At least in Zen. There is no contradiction in Zen. Absolutely none. Even if you don't get Zen's spirit, you should at least understand this. Nothing is as simple and complete as Zen.

Re:Zen Buddhism

[pikine]

Zen asserts that certain truths can only be asserted without affirmation or negation, therefore there is no contradiction. It's a bit like the superposition of wave functions...or just a statement that, by trying to classify the world in black and white terms, we fall into error.

That's not what Wikipedia says about Zen. Actually, what Wikipedia says is more like you discover Zen within yourself, so whatever the stupid neurons in your brain happen to make a random connection to want to believe in something, that becomes Zen.

Therefore, nobody knows what Zen is, and I'm free to make up whatever I want to say about Zen.

Re:What, no scientology?

[Arthur Grumbine]

And everyone knows that Scientologists without Xeno can't get anywhere.

Converting into Judaism

[Jason Levine]

The article's author says about Judaism:

The catch is, you can't convert into it - you're either into it from the start, or you will think that it's insanity.

This isn't true, however. You can convert into Judaism, we just purposefully make it difficult to do so. The custom is that you need to turn the person away 3 times. Only after they come back after the third turn-away can they begin the process to convert. This helps ensure that people don't take conversion to Judaism lightly. The conversion itself is mainly classes to get up to speed on the religious laws and then a dunk in a mikvah (a kind of ritual pool). Males have an extra obstacle - circumcision. And don't think that hospital-administered one will get you out of it. In the case of an already circumcised male convert, a drop of blood is still taken (as a sort of token religious circumcision). The end result is that converts are actually more likely to be religious than natural-born Jews and aren't likely to convert away from Judaism on a whim.

Re:Converting into Judaism

[Anonymous Coward]

The custom is that you need to turn the person away 3 times.

You mean like fight club? Cool!

Re:Converting into Judaism

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't think that hospital-administered one will get you out of it. In the case of an already circumcised male convert, a drop of blood is still taken (as a sort of token religious circumcision).

As an addition to the previously posted list:

Already circumsized male Jewish conversion applicant upon hearing the circumcision-blood bit: Holy shit!

Already circumsized male Jewish conversion applicant upon hearing the circumcision-blood bit #2: F**k that shit!

Re:Converting into Judaism

[joranbelar]

I've never understood this. What's to stop someone from just saying "I'm a Jew" without going through all the hoops? Who is going to prove them wrong?

Re:Converting into Judaism

[Jason Levine]

Honestly, not much. To some degrees, it's an honor system. It's not like Temples are going to run detailed background checks on your family history to make sure you are Jewish or were converted in the proper manner. However, if the truth gets out that your conversion merely consisted of you declaring "I'm a Jew now," you'll be ostracized from the community. Even the most lenient of Temples, require some form of ritual/study combination to ensure that your conversion is done properly. The rules aren't meant to stop someone from imitating a Jew nor are they meant to prevent someone from studying Judaism or from following the Jewish laws, there are meant to stop "on a whim conversions." (Conversions by people who are likely to convert back after a week or so.) By all means, follow the laws of kashrut and observe the Jewish holidays all you want (I do it and believe me, it's not easy!), but you can't just declare that you've joined a community without following that community's rules for acceptance.

I beg to differ

[MarkusQ]

Basically violence has nothing to do with religion. People will use ANY religion as an excuse to justify their view they they are right and everyone else is wrong.

I was right with you up till that.

Religion (and yeah, any other non-rational shared belief system, like football (aka "soccer")) is a key component of most episodes of large scale violence. It's hard to get people to do things that are liable to get them hurt or killed, or lead them to hurt or kill others. Their natural reaction will be to think "But wait, what if somebody gets hurt?"

This is where all having the same imaginary friend comes in. If you can get people worked up by some non-falsifiable hogwash you can whip up a mod that will believe and do anything. Getting people to do stupid things is much easier if you shut their brains down first.

The great thing about imaginary friends for this sort of thing is that they can't contradict you. If you use a living celebrity ("Come on, people, let's kill him for Oprah's sake!") there's always the risk your Chosen One will step up and say "WTF are you thinking?"

There's a reason it's so easy to associate specific religions with specific stupid bloodthirsty acts, and that's that they were causal in the perpetration of those acts..

--MarkusQ

Re:I beg to differ

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I believe Stalin (as well as Pol Pot, and those responsible for Rwanda's genocide) adequately demonstrated that atrocities need no basis in religion. You can just as easily come up with a flawed ideology that is not based on a belief in the supernatural and use that for genocide.

Re:I beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can get people worked up by some non-falsifiable hogwash you can whip up a mod that will believe and do anything.

Enough with the mod bashing! They're just doing their job.

Re:I beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

However you don't NEED a religion to do this, any sufficiently strong social organization is vulnerable to this. All that really is needed is an ideal or thought that can be corrupted to appear to over-ride any reasonable objections, including those based on the organizations' own core principles. Look at how many attrocities were committed by secular or even atheist organizations. Since all social organizations are human-based, it seems to me the root cause has something to do with human beings in general, and not specifically religions.

Oh and the situation in Northern Ireland isn't a cut-and-dry case of inter-religious terrorism. It is as much, if not more, a political and cultural conflict. Even if all concerned were Catholic or Protestant, many Irish would still resent the fact that the UK forcfully dominated another their centuries, and is still holding on to a large chunk of it. On the other hand you have many descendants of the English and Scotish that settled in Northern Ireland who consider it their rightful homeland and resent the thought of being forced-out or becoming part of a unified Ireland. Add to that the fact that both sides have committed unjustifiable acts towards the other, and the religious differences are really just a simple, but not totally accurate, way of distinguishing the two sides.

Re:I beg to differ

[Joe the Lesser]

But their atrocities were based in ideology, which religion is a subset of.

If one believes in a cause, perhaps one can kill for a cause.

Of course, mysticism is popular and easier to use than political beliefs..., but Stalin and Hitler were able to use other beliefs to the same effect. All of it uses a similar mantra: "you need to be afraid of the enemy, assume the worst, and strike first. To do otherwise is to let them win." Ironically the phrase 'Evil needs only for good men to do nothing' is a double edged sword.

The caveat is that for good to succeed all that is required is for evil men to do nothing.

If all causes can be used for evil, then sometimes doing nothing is the moral choice.

Re:I beg to differ

[greg_barton]

If you use a living celebrity ("Come on, people, let's kill him for Oprah's sake!") there's always the risk your Chosen One will step up and say "WTF are you thinking?"

Really? I'm not so sure. Just ask Robert Paulson.

Re:I beg to differ

[Rycross]

Well but then you're not talking about religion but something else. What you're referring to is that its fairly easy to get humans to rally around any sort of idea or belief, and then paint their group as being under attack, which will provoke a defense response. Its a fundamental human nature that gave us a competitive advantage when we were still just small groups strewn about the globe.

I think people give religion too much credit. Religion is not some special-case organization, but rather a simple result of the mental quirks that evolved in humans to help us survive. You can see a lot of the behavior from people who adhere strongly to political parties, racial-supremacy groups, nations (nationalism), and even sports teams. Even the religion-is-bad crowd says a lot of shit that is stunningly similar to a lot of stuff that the religious crowd puts out.

The reality is that its a problem with humanity, not a problem with religious people. Religion just tends to be an easy and comfortable target to project their fears and anger on. Kind-of like the atheist version of Satan and heathens, so to speak. Of course, recognizing that its a human condition brings up all sorts of uncomfortable truths.

Re:I beg to differ

[MarkusQ]

All that really is needed is an ideal or thought that can be corrupted to appear to over-ride any reasonable objections, including those based on the organizations' own core principles.

While this may be true in principle, corrupting something like mathematics in that way would be a lot harder than corrupting something like scientology. If the axiom set you start with contains things like "Death to Infidels!!" and "Anything I tell you our imaginary friend told me, you must believe or face eternal damnation!" you're going to be a lot better off then if you have to build up from things like "two distinct lines share at most one point" and "there is no largest prime."

--MarkusQ

P.S. And yes, it has been done (by the Pythagoreans) but that was before peer review became common.

Re:I beg to differ

[Hognoxious]

I'm a rocker, you insensitive clod!

Re:I beg to differ

[phantomfive]

Nah, think of the Trojan war, it was about a woman. The atrocities committed under Stalin had nothing to do with religion. Again, world war 1 had absolutely nothing to do with religion, and despite the focus on killing jews, world war 2 really didn't either. Neither did the Vietnam war, the Cold war, the Persian Gulf war..........

If you really look at it seriously, it's harder to find a war that IS fought because of religion than a war that ISN'T fought because of religion. Even the 30 years war, which had religion as an overt motivation, was more about power than religion. Basically, any time you can manage to divide a people into different groups on any lines whatsoever, you can get them to hate each other and to try to kill each other ("if you don't kill them, the will kill you!"). If you can't think of a way, you aren't thinking hard enough.

This is also why patriotism is a double edged sword....while it can be used to unify different groups, it can also be used to divide them from other countries (which basically happened in WW1). On the other hand, patriotism could be very useful, for example, in Iraq, where right now the people divide themselves mainly into tribal groups, if it brought the people together working to build up their country.

Re:I beg to differ

[mattwarden]

So you've shown that religion isn't necessary for violence. I don't think that's what anyone is saying. Would you say it's easier or harder to organize a violent effort when religion is involved?

Re:I beg to differ

[MarkusQ]

1. The existence of millions of people who died from something other than eating rat poison does not mean that eating rat poison won't kill you. Likewise, listing bad things that weren't caused by religions doesn't change the fact that religions cause bad things.

2. Patriotism is just another religion in this context, with the imaginary friend being "Uncle Sam" (he wants you, you know) or the King (not the flesh and blood King but the notional one that makes people chant "the King is dead, long live the King!") or whatever instead of some magic ghost.

--MarkusQ

Re:I beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

"If one believes in a cause, perhaps he will kill for a cause."

True. Also, respecting the other half of the whole truth:

"If one believes in a cause, perhaps he will do great, wonderful things for humanity and for his community for a cause."

Just because religion, ideology and other "causes" humans believe in are scapegoats or vehicles for atrocities, does not mean they are not also vehicles for similarly great beneficial things.

I'm really tired of hearing people say things like "Fuck all religion" because once again, they are failing to consider all sides of the issue. Once again, people are gravitating towards using a scapegoat in favor of analyzing the truth of the matter.

To say that religion or ideology is CAUSAL of atrocities is the same thing as saying that the Caucasian race is CAUSAL for all the atrocities occuring at their hands. I say, stop blanketing the blame. I say, use your brain for once and blame the INDIVIDUALS responsible. Humans are ALL capable of great good AND great evil. ALL of us. We ALWAYS have a choice, and we ALWAYS have an escape (like blaming religion or a dictator or a race or a partisan political party).

Open your eyes! Please...

In regards to the original topic of the discussion...I found the list to be hilarious and pretty spot-on. As someone may have mentioned, we can (mostly) all recognize the stereotypical MIScharacterizations of the religions (and in some cases, languages) and laugh at the parody.

Re:I beg to differ

[Rycross]

Depends on the flavor of religion. I know a lot of Christians that would be extremely difficult to organize into violence because their flavor leans heavily on the "turn the other cheek" aspects. On the other hand, I've known atheists who have advocated taking religious peoples' children away and committing them to a mental institution. Because, you know, teaching religion is child abuse, and theists are obviously insane. No, I'm not making this up, it was quite literally their position. I've seen genocide, murder, war, suppression, and various other atrocities advocated for such a wide variety of reasons it makes my head spin. The only commonality between the people is that they were all human.

So no, I don't think its safe to say that religion necessarily will make things easier. What makes it easy is that we're human, humans have the same fundamental survival traits as other animals, and these traits can either lead to lifting ourselves up, or putting others down, depending on which we feel is more advantageous to our survival.

For example, America didn't go into Iraq because of our religion, we went into there because our leaders told us that they had WMD, and that it was plausible that they would be used against us. We went there because our leaders told us we were simply defending ourselves. All other justifications were just intended to make us feel better about what we did after the fact.

Re:I beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting anon to avoid undoing a moderation.

I mean you no offense, but as an objective(or so I would like to believe) observer, your post comes across very emotional, and dare I say irrational. Perhaps take a breather and re-read it?

In any case I doubt I will change your mind, but I am often told that one of the key points in a certain major religion is that any adherent or potential adherent must be allowed to question the whole thing - otherwise it is not true faith, but wacko fundamentalism. Perhaps grouping all religions together in order to dismiss them is not so wise? Perhaps grouping all adherents of a religion together in order to dismiss them is equally unwise. I would suggest you start taking people as they are.

Just saying...

Have fun. :-)

Re:I beg to differ

[mattwarden]

The Iraq thing... the message was that they hated our way of life. 'Freedom' is modern day religion.

The atheist thing... atheism is just another religion.

Re:I beg to differ

[Rycross]

Well, now you're just redefining religion into something more general: the actual human condition. Ideologies, group think, herd mentality... they're traits that helped us when we were out in nature and had to depend on our group for survival. They helped the group form, adapt, and react quickly to challenges. The same mental and biological traits can be harnessed to good or bad ends.

In your freedom case, the message is that they are different than us, that they don't like that we are different, and will attack us because we're different. That hits all of the salient points that are involved in group think: their group is not our group, they are a threat (we know this because people don't like things that are different), we must deal with the threat.

If you want to place the blame, then place it appropriately. Just redefining religion to include any belief or way of thinking is intellectually dishonest. There is no god of freedom.

Re:I beg to differ

[clone53421]

1. The existence of millions of people who died from something other than eating rat poison does not mean that eating rat poison won't kill you. Likewise, listing bad things that weren't caused by religions doesn't change the fact that religions cause bad things.

No, but the existence of millions of people who ate rat poison and didn't die from it would imply that eating rat poison won't kill you.

Now, AFAIK, no such persons exist. However, there do exist millions of religious people who haven't done bad things.

Re:I beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but the existence of millions of people who ate rat poison and didn't die from it would imply that eating rat poison won't kill you.

Now, AFAIK, no such persons exist. However, there do exist millions of religious people who haven't done bad things.

Sorry clone53421, but MarkusQ's other posts on this story indicate that he is incapable of conceeding your point. He has stated that in his opinion no reasonable person can believe in any religion. Explaining how much how this belief is similiar to those held by religous extremists is probably futile as well.

Re:I beg to differ

[williamhb]

So you've shown that religion isn't necessary for violence. I don't think that's what anyone is saying. Would you say it's easier or harder to organize a violent effort when religion is involved?

The evidence is that it is much much harder. Even just recently, Rwanda, Chechnya, much of the Balkans all sparked off very easily for tribal or nationalist reasons, and killed many times more people than the religious terrorists have managed in decades of trying. Similarly the "famous religious bloodshed" of the crusades and inquisition that get trumpeted on Slashdot actually had a very small number of casualties as wars and oppressions go. Although religious violence gets a lot of press, it is a tiny dot against the massive non-religious bloodshed of human history.

Re:I beg to differ

[Haeleth]

Well said. Now I wish I hadn't wasted all my mod points in the holy-font article.

Re:I beg to differ

[MarkusQ]

1. The existence of millions of people who died from something other than eating rat poison does not mean that eating rat poison won't kill you. Likewise, listing bad things that weren't caused by religions doesn't change the fact that religions cause bad things.

No, but the existence of millions of people who ate rat poison and didn't die from it would imply that eating rat poison won't kill you.

Now, AFAIK, no such persons exist. However, there do exist millions of religious people who haven't done bad things.

But remember, we were talking about religions, not individuals. There don't exist millions of religions that have never cause anyone to do something bad. Remember, the claim sequence here has been:

• Religions can cause people to do bad, things like try to kill random strangers
• But there have been bad things that weren't caused by religions
• That doesn't matter (the rat poison argument).

If you want to stretch that argument to cover the effect of religion on individuals the analog to faith would be something along the lines of "eating something you found in a box without checking what it was" and the argument would be something like so:

The existence of millions of people who died from something other than eating something you found in a box without checking what it was does not mean that eating rat poison won't kill you.

No, but the existence of millions of people who ate something they found in a box without checking what it was and didn't die from it would imply that eating rat poison won't kill you.

You can see the flaw in this I hope.

There may be millions of people who take orders from their imaginary friend and do whatever the he tells them to. And most of the time he tells them harmless things like "change your socks every day after lunch" or "eat fish on Fridays" or whatever, and no harm is done. But they are still crazy people, and potentially dangerous, since at any time the voice could start telling them to blow up gas stations that sell girly magazines or kill their own children or who knows what.

And, because they've decided to do whatever the little voice tells them, they will.

That's what makes them dangerous.

--MarkusQ

Re:I beg to differ

[mattwarden]

> Well, now you're just redefining religion into something more
> general: the actual human condition.

Don't trivialize it. This "human condition" is believed to be given by god and be in god's image. This rhetoric is alive today in Bush's words, for example.

> In your freedom case, the message is that they are different
> than us, that they don't like that we are different, and will
> attack us because we're different.

No, the message is not that they are different. It is: they hate us because we are better and more closely in god's image. The subtext is critical (although, of course, ridiculously illogical).

> If you want to place the blame, then place it appropriately.
> Just redefining religion to include any belief or way of
> thinking is intellectually dishonest. There is no god of freedom.

No. Freedom and free will are precisely what god is said to have given his chosen people.

Re:I beg to differ

[smegged]

As a "religious nutter" myself - well said. Human nature, or in religious terms - sin - has been the cause of conflict. Not the ideas presented in each religion or belief set. Some ideologies are more prone to shaping violent tendencies, but ultimately violence is a part of human nature, and large scale violence is a part of that condition.

Re:I beg to differ

[MarkusQ]

I mean you no offense, but as an objective(or so I would like to believe) observer, your post comes across very emotional, and dare I say irrational. Perhaps take a breather and re-read it?

Did it. Looks fine to me.

In any case I doubt I will change your mind, but I am often told that one of the key points in a certain major religion is that any adherent or potential adherent must be allowed to question the whole thing - otherwise it is not true faith, but wacko fundamentalism.

Ok, so the ones who question it, realize that there really is no rational basis for believing the teachings (thus the need for faith) and opt out at that point aren't part of that religion anymore. That leaves the ones who either knowingly embraced an irrational belief system and those that weren't sharp enough to see the problem in the first place. Sounds about right to me.

Perhaps grouping all religions together in order to dismiss them is not so wise? Perhaps grouping all adherents of a religion together in order to dismiss them is equally unwise. I would suggest you start taking people as they are.

I am talking people as they are. What I'm not doing is taking them as they'd like me to take them.

There was a guy that used to live in a subway station I'd pass through. He talked to people that no one else could see. He heard voices. He thought it was very important that everyone listened to what the voices had told him. He wanted us to take his imaginary friend very seriously.

Religious people are basically of the same ilk (although some of them are doing it second or third hand -- they don't have an imaginary friend themselves, but they know somebody who does).

The problem isn't that religious people want to be taken as they are, it's that they want to be taken as more than they are, as emissaries from their really important imaginary friend. Who, like the subway guy's friend, wants to be taken very seriously.

I'm not dismissing them, I'm just not granting them the importance they think they are entitled to.

--MarkusQ

Re:I beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

And the assumption that all points of view except yours is irrational? I don't mean to get into a flamewar, but you've done it again - you have made two groups - "those who agree with me" and "those who don't". I am sorry to say this to you, but the fact that your logic and thought processes has proved to you that there is no God, does not imply the non existence or existence of God.

One thing I have learnt is there is *always* a counter argument on both sides. The general consensus seems to be you can't prove it either way. Unless you are beyond supergenius level and have traveled the world researching this, I very much doubt you have answered all counter arguments.

You may very well be correct(or not), but since you can not prove it, your contempt for those who look at the world differently makes you come across as arrogant and irrational, and does not help your argument. It is extremely difficult to see yourself form the other point of view(trust me). And you will never convince anyone - except the weak minded - without first understanding their point of view, and respecting it. Maybe I'm wrong, but this issue seems important to you.

If you can not see what I am saying from the above, then you probably never will. Feel free to have the last word. After all, I am only an anon coward.

Have fun :)

Re:I beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

And the assumption that all points of view except yours *are* irrational?

Preview is my friend...Preview is my friend...Preview is my friend...Preview is my friend...

Re:I beg to differ

[clone53421]

The flaw in your argument lies in the fact that you assume, because religion causes bad/demented people to do bad things, that religion is dangerous. Those people would be dangerous with or without religion.

That's like saying breathing is fatal... although technically this may have basis, the outcome was inevitable.

Re:I beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

While this may be true in principle, corrupting something like mathematics in that way would be a lot harder than corrupting something like scientology.

Only because mathematics traditionally isn't concerned with the non-mathematical thoughts and behaviours of people. However, as you pointed out, the Pythagoreans did connect mathematics with non-mathematical thoughts and behaviours. I disagree that modern peer-review would have prevented this though, and the reason shall be shown below.

If the axiom set you start with contains things like "Death to Infidels!!" and "Anything I tell you our imaginary friend told me, you must believe or face eternal damnation!" you're going to be a lot better off then if you have to build up from things like "two distinct lines share at most one point" and "there is no largest prime."

Interestingly, you use the term "axiom" in the context of religion, and yet you seem to imply that mathematics can be rational but religion cannot. Axiom is a proper word in both cases, because an axiom is an unproven and assumed basis for a logical construct. Even though we use mathmematics to describe the physical world objectively it is just subjective as religion. Don't believe me, then remove or change one of the fundamental axioms of algebra and see what happens to it. In many cases you will still have an internally logical construct, just one that gives different answers than conventional system. If you want a specific example try changing "no dividing by 0" to X/0=X.

Re:I beg to differ

[MarkusQ]

And the assumption that all points of view except yours is irrational?

No, of course not. But any point of view that upfront declares itself to be inaccessible to reason, unreachable by any rational process, only obtainable through faith is, by definition, irrational. That's what I keep saying. It doesn't have anything to do with agreement or disagreement with my point of view.

but the fact that your logic and thought processes has proved to you that there is no God, does not imply the non existence or existence of God.

My thought processes have not proved any such thing. I am an agnostic, not an atheist. Atheists are just as irrational as theists, in that they take a proposition that is intrinsically unfalsifiable and claim to have falsified it.

And you will never convince anyone - except the weak minded - without first understanding their point of view, and respecting it.

Well, since my target here is the weak minded I'm not to worried.

As for respecting their point of view, that really is the key question here. The thing that makes religious people with imaginary friends so much more dangerous than your average street crazy with imaginary friends is that they expect to be taken seriously and we do it. If we reacted to tem the way we do to random street crazies (including not electing them to public office) they couldn't cause so much trouble. Conversely, if we treated the random street crazies with the same respect we give christians, jews, muslims, etc. they would be just as big of a problem.

The problem isn't with religions per se; we shouldn't let anyone who takes their cues from an imaginary friend hold a position of responsibility.

--MarkusQ

Re:I beg to differ

[sac13]

Well but then you're not talking about religion but something else. What you're referring to is that its fairly easy to get humans to rally around any sort of idea or belief, and then paint their group as being under attack, which will provoke a defense response. Its a fundamental human nature that gave us a competitive advantage when we were still just small groups strewn about the globe.

I think people give religion too much credit. Religion is not some special-case organization, but rather a simple result of the mental quirks that evolved in humans to help us survive. You can see a lot of the behavior from people who adhere strongly to political parties, racial-supremacy groups, nations (nationalism), and even sports teams. Even the religion-is-bad crowd says a lot of shit that is stunningly similar to a lot of stuff that the religious crowd puts out.

The reality is that its a problem with humanity, not a problem with religious people. Religion just tends to be an easy and comfortable target to project their fears and anger on. Kind-of like the atheist version of Satan and heathens, so to speak. Of course, recognizing that its a human condition brings up all sorts of uncomfortable truths.

Exactly. And Slashdot illustrates this point everyday. People choose a side and it's us vs. them. We get the capitalists v. socialists, unions/small guy/whatever oppressed group v. the corporations, democrats v. republicans, MS v. Linux v. Apple, etc.

We've all got our dogma and refuse to ever truly question OUR side. After all, we're the one's that are right. Those other guys are just evil and selfish...

Re:I beg to differ

[sac13]

So you've shown that religion isn't necessary for violence. I don't think that's what anyone is saying. Would you say it's easier or harder to organize a violent effort when religion is involved?

It's easier when power is involved. Without power or the desire for power, there's very little violence to be had.

So, yes. It's easier to organize violent effort with religion. It's also easier with government. All you need is someone with power that uses propaganda to create in-groups and out-groups. Ratchet it up and you get your violence.

So, if you want little violence, you need to ensure that power is never concentrated. Unfortunately, we like our religion... and for those that don't, we like our government...

Re:I beg to differ

[clone53421]

any point of view that upfront declares itself to be inaccessible to reason, unreachable by any rational process, only obtainable through faith is, by definition, irrational.

Faith is necessary for life in general. For instance, most of what you learned in school had to be accepted under the assumption that what was being taught was correct... even if there was a lab activity to support the lecture, you still had to assume that the phenomenon you observed in the lab was truly caused by the processes you were learning about.

As far as history is concerned, someone with sufficient motivation and resources could fabricate history, so you're required to again exhibit faith when you accept what's in your history book as factual.

Even in a court of law they aren't able to "prove" what has happened. They are merely able to come to a conclusion, in light of the evidence which is assumed to be real and not fabricated, that this is what happened and that a reasonable person would agree to this interpretation of the evidence. Once they've decided what they believe has happened, they can make a determination in the case, but even then the system isn't 100% certain.

Yes, any view which is wholly inaccessible to reason is irrational, but most sane people (i.e. not crazy) have evidence which, at least in their reasoning, supports their beliefs, be they religious or otherwise. If someone holds faith in something that is false, yet they believe their faith is justified, it's more accurate to call them misguided than irrational... for example, "I believe this because it's what my parents taught me" would be an appeal to authority, but even so it is a rational argument which a sane person may use to justify a belief. It starts with a flawed premise ("my parents knew what they were talking about"), but the logic is sound...

1. "A Rational individual, given enough Information, will come to a Correct conclusion." (R & I => C)
2. "Person X made statement A regarding some subject." (no symbol representation)
3. "Person X is knowledgeable on that subject." (I)
4. "Person X is a rational individual." (R)
.'. Statement A is correct. (C, from lines 1, 3, and 4)

Various premises may be incorrect, but the logic in that argument is valid.

Re:I beg to differ

[MarkusQ]

The flaw in your argument lies in the fact that you assume, because religion causes bad/demented people to do bad things, that religion is dangerous. Those people would be dangerous with or without religion.

No, I'm saying that people who take instructions from voices in their head, imaginary friends, all powerful beings no one can see, dogs, secret messages from space aliens, and so on are dangerous. Religion doesn't cause this, its just another instance of it.

--MarkusQ

Re:I beg to differ

[clone53421]

people who take instructions from voices in their head, imaginary friends, all powerful beings no one can see, dogs, secret messages from space aliens, and so on are dangerous.

On the contrary, whether or not they are dangerous depends on what they perceived those things to say. The vast majority of religious people aren't going to go on a killing spree because they think God said so, and the ones who might are probably mentally unstable anyway, religion aside.

It's the best excuse, tho.

[FatSean]

Once some dumb half-wit actually believes they'll live forever...they embrace that idiocy and uses it to justify horrible acts because they will live forever after they die anyway.

Belief in the irrational and unprovable is the real issue. We need to stop lending credence to the insane ideas that are religions.

I program in Slashcode

[Yvanhoe]

and CowboyNeal is my pope

Evil link, dude

[theonetruekeebler]

Jesus Christ, dude, why did you post that link? Couldn't you have made an analogy involving the Spice Girls or something?

The last fucking thing I needed this morning was a graphic description of infant abuse.

Re:Evil link, dude

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiiiiight. and the spice girls are much better of coruse.

Re:Evil link, dude

[digitig]

We've been getting it served up to us at our breakfast tables for a few weeks here in the UK. The good news is that the legal requirement for anonymity stops the media from publishing the photos that they're longing to show.

Applescript

[AntEater]

I guess Applescript would equate to "New Age" beliefs. It's easy to understand, relatively unrestrictive but, unfortunately, doesn't really solve any of the problems facing humanity.

Re:Applescript

[nog_lorp]

On the order of religions, Applescript is a fart joke. For gods sake, it has the built in "say" command to do text-to-speech!

tell application "Microsoft Word" to quit
say "I smoke crack-cocaine!"

Obviously a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

It was obvious it was a joke with a lot of irony, as he compared Python to humanism.

Imagine! Insulting humanism like that.

Re:Obviously a joke

[nschubach]

Yeah, I saw nothing about required white space when reading about Humanism. ;)

REBOL..

[codevark]

..Sassenrathianism :)

Small nitpick

[AlXtreme]

Python would be Humanism

Humanism isn't a religion.

Naturally, you have to draw the line between religion and philosophies somewhere. Buddhism, Taoism and some of the other 'religions' mentioned fall in this area. Personally I define 'religions' as beliefs that require you to believe in fairytails.

I really hope that over 200 years humanity will look back at religion in the same way most of us now look at L. Ron Hubbert's sect or like an adult looking in amazement at the imagination of a child.

There is very probably no God. Now finish your supper and go to bed.

Re:Small nitpick

[ceoyoyo]

Karma, rebirth, Buddha performing miracles... sounds like Buddhism passes (fails?) the belief in fairy tales test.

Taoism is too diverse to really treat under one umbrella, but two major subsections under the name "Taoism" are out-and-out religions. Philosophical Taoism still has quite a bit of mystical overtones.

I know of few religions that require you to believe in fairy tails though. Perhaps some forms of paganism? Little people worship? Disney? I really don't remember my Disney theology well enough to know whether fairies are supposed to have tails or not.

Re:Small nitpick

[nschubach]

I really hope that over 200 years humanity will look back at religion in the same way most of us now look at L. Ron Hubbert's sect or like an adult looking in amazement at the imagination of a child.

What is likely to happen is that archeologists will dig up remains of temples and make wild assumptions that we were all religious people and followed the same religious beliefs based on territory. (ie: all Egyptians believe in Ra, all Greeks believed in multiple gods, all Aztecs were sacrificial gold mongering neanderthals.)

That is, unless we can somehow create a written history that could survive a meteoric catastrophe, and the fanatic people that may come after such a disaster trying to erase that history for fear of it happening again.

Re:Small nitpick

[DarkLordOfHell]

I very much doubt it. It's been that way for what, 6000 to 8000 years of recorded human history. It will probably be that way for the next 6000 to 8000 yrs.

Python is mondern fundamentalist christianity

[Anonymous Coward]

People call Python nonrestrictive, just like modern fundamentalists. But remember with Python, there is one preferred way to do things, just like modern fundamentalists.

Perl on the other hand, is quite nonrestrictive.

Re:Python is mondern fundamentalist christianity

[Anonymous Coward]

If Python itself forced you to do things the "pythonic way" then you'd have a point. Fact is, the language allows to to do a whole bunch of "unpythonic" stuff. Don't blame the language for the developers preferences!

Drugs, rock music, and java

[Tony]

No, the 90s where a turbulent time filled with drugs, rock music and Java.

When you put it like it, Java actually sound like a lot of fun.

The only way you can code in Java is after consuming a lot of drugs. It's not for fun -- it's necessity.

Re:What, no scientology?

[dword]

nobody was attacked after saying bad things about it. I think.

Yeah? Watch this:

PYTHON SUCKS!

(now let's see what happens to my karma)

Try Assembly

[msu320]

It will MOV you.

what the fuck are you talking about?

[ClioCJS]

They worship the same damn god. While I think *all* religions are scummy and create murderers, you really need to blame Abraham for creating Judaism, which split off into Christianity, which split off into Islam (and later Mormonism).... All four are crackpots who worship the same god, Abraham's God. Renaming him Allah or Yahweh doesn't change this fact.

You're also pretty damn clueless about atheists. An atheist may be just as likely to sacrifice their life. If you're an atheist, and you don't believe in the afterlife, would you not trade your life for your family's, so that they can live? Afterlife or no afterlife, most parents are willing to put themselves in the place of their child regardless of consequence, and most family members will sacrifice themselves to save *the whole rest of their family* regardless of consequence too.

I think you don't understand altruism. Your post makes it sound like the only people willing to sacrifice their lives are those that think there is an afterlife. Those people are the *selfish* ones willing to sacrifice their lives, but there are *unselfish* people out there too - believe it or not.

Re:what the fuck are you talking about?

[networkBoy]

You're also pretty damn clueless about atheists. An atheist may be just as likely to sacrifice their life. If you're an atheist, and you don't believe in the afterlife, would you not trade your life for your family's, so that they can live? Afterlife or no afterlife, most parents are willing to put themselves in the place of their child regardless of consequence, and most family members will sacrifice themselves to save *the whole rest of their family* regardless of consequence too.

I am not an atheist, and I am fairly selfish.
That said I would easily stand in for my children or my family should that ever be asked of me.

Re:what the fuck are you talking about?

[BlueStraggler]

They worship the same damn god.

This is the popular belief, but it doesn't stand up well to academic scrutiny. The Jewish, Muslim, and Christian gods can be traced back to different ancestral deities, which became fused as monotheism (belief in one and only one god) gradually replaced monolatry (belief in many gods, but worship of only one).

The Judaic god is Yahweh. The Muslim god is Allah, formerly El (the etymology survives as Elohim in the Bible, as well as in the names of the archangels, Gabri-El, Rafa-El, Micha-El, Uri-El). El was a sky god, and therefore a king of the gods, like Zeus. (Elohim is a plural form, and probably originally referred to El plus his lesser gods, analogous to the Olympians.) In Judaism, Yahweh took over El's duties either by absorbing a neighbouring tribe that worshipped El, or by the mythological feat of overthrowing El and taking over the King of gods position, as did Zeus, when the Jews had risen to a position of political and military power that clearly signaled the ascendance of Yahweh. In any case, Yahweh absorbed many of the aspects of El, and after several rounds of edits, they came to be referred to interchangeably but not especially consistently in the Old Testament. El survived this fusion outside of Jewish realms, but because of Judaism's superior documentation of the matter, the fusion was accepted by later religions such as Islam.

The Christian god is Jesus, an entirely different figure who took on all of the myths and characteristics of Roman Empire sun gods. Sun gods generally were fathered by the king of the gods, and birthed by a virgin. That meant that Jesus worshipers needed two more gods, a father and virgin mother, to fit the sun god archetype. But the trinity idea didn't work so well with the trendy monotheism thing, and kind of distracted from Jesus himself. After a couple centuries of various heresies, purges, and whatnot, the Christians got it all sorted out: the trinity was really just facets of the same monotheistic god; the Father was the abstracted god in heaven, easily equated with Yahweh-El (or any other local King god, which was how it got sold to the Romans); Jesus was the real manifestation of that God on earth; and the Virgin got booted from the Trinity because there was no room for another god or another person. (Nevertheless, the Virgin cult has survived in many respects to this day.)

Re:what the fuck are you talking about?

[ClioCJS]

I don't consider Jesus the Christian God myself. I consider God the Christian God. (Where does Jews For Jesus fit in in your analysis tho - I sense the answer might be humorous.)

Re:what the fuck are you talking about?

[rossifer]

Very interesting. Thank you for posting that.

Re:what the fuck are you talking about?

[BlueStraggler]

The doctrine of the Christian Trinity says that one god exists as three persons. Jesus, as one of the three, is therefore God, the same in substance as the Father, and it is this particular concept of God that distinguishes Christianity from other monotheistic religions.

It is non-Christians (ie. those who do not accept the divinity of Jesus) or poorly-indoctrinated Christians (who have never heard of the Nicene creed) who don't accept Jesus as God.

Jews for Jesus don't appear to add anything interesting to the mythological equation. They just run with all the stock myths.

Re:what the fuck are you talking about?

[TheLoneCabbage]

Actual research tells a different story. Communism, as evil as it is, is based on the idea of selflessness or at least the idea that humans are capable of acting selflessly.

A study last year, reviewed the success rate of Kibutzim in Israel (semi-autonomous communist enclaves). Love it or hate it, Israel is the only place in the world where Communism kinda sorta worked. The study broke down the Kibutzim (that's plural) into 2 groups, secular in religious. You can do that in Israel, because the divide between them is so huge, for ideological creations like Kibutizim, there is little grey area.

What they found was staggering. First, religious Kibutizim had 3 times the success rate(with 80% all Kibutzim failing after 60 years). Male members of kibutzim that met 3 times daily for communal prayer, were more likely to take care of children in the family, then those who didn't.

Oh, and no I'm not pulling this out of my arse:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/322/5898/58

Re:what the fuck are you talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of discussions about Evangelion.

Re:what the fuck are you talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

"What the fuck are you talking about?" is the right question to ask.

1- the article is supposed to be an innocent joke with no offensive background.

2- How many of you moth** fuc***s live in the Middle East or in a Muslim environment to have an opinion or judgment about the believes or the people of that region?

3- Your politicians, governments & our dumb rulers are the ones behind all the killings, the fanatics and terrorists. They created them you naive bastards!

C++ == Shaolin Monks

[GodfatherofSoul]

That's an easy one since the heart of my C++ programs can explode with 5 well-placed finger taps.

bingo!

[Anonymous Coward]

indeed...dawkins et al like to deride religions as irrational, but they all miss the point: the target audience of religious teaching is the pre-rational mind - ie: children. a conscience has to be planted before it's too late, and religions exist in all cultures because of their darwinian survival value.

Re:bingo!

[PinkyDead]

I think you'll find that that particular issue got a good airing in Dawkins' (et al) last book - he even went so far as to describe it as child abuse.

Re:What, no scientology?

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT DOWN!!!!!!!!!!

Judaism - wrong

[AviLazar]

C would be Judaism - it's old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can't convert into it - you're either into it from the start, or you will think that it's insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.

Many people convert to judaism. It is not only allowed but considered a mitzvah. Now the thing with Judaism, once you are in you can't get out. Once a Jew always a Jew :)
Also, as for restrictive, Judaism is an a-la-cart religion which came about since Jewish people had to practice underground for centuries depending on where in the world they are located. Also, since Jewish folk didn't have, until recently a country of their own and they were spread out - a Jewish person from Africa will celebrate the religion different then one from Russia. Certain things will be the same, but a lot of nuances will be different - giving more flexibility. This is even seen today in the US. I can go to a Yemenite Jewish home and see different practices then say a Persian Jewish home, and then a Sphardic Jewish home.

If you want restrictive religion that can drive people nuts go Catholic. Had a friend born/raised catholic and converted to Jewish - he said that Catholic religion never made sense to him (e.g. born into sin) but the Jewish one made a lot of sense.

Re:Judaism - wrong

[nog_lorp]

Yeah, but you're talking reform Jewish, which isn't saying much. The core tenets of reform Judaism involves what you eat at certain times of the year (brisket, latkas, etc).

Also, if you want to be really really accurate, you can convert to Judaism but it is a huge pain in the ass and takes years of study (more difficult than binet-mitzvot from what I've heard).

Re:Judaism - wrong

[AviLazar]

Like everything else in life - depends on where. If you go to a very strict place sure, if you go to a moderate place...one year of going every two-three weeks to an hour/two session with a rabbi. Not the worst thing in the world. That's what my friend did. He could have done it faster but he travels for his job, so it was every two-three weeks.

Re:What, no scientology?

[danieltdp]

Actually, you should do
print("Hello Word!")

Some people argue that this is a *new* religion and not a reform

If you're gonna go for a parody religion...

[ClioCJS]

The Church Of The Subgenius beats the pants off of Pastafarianism any day. FSM is fucking funny as hell, but it has no depth. Which is part of the point, but it works against it.

Would you mock a 1000 page book with a knock-knock joke, or another 1000 page book equally ridiculous? I'd prefer to mock something with some depth with something of equal depth. The Book Of The SubGenius, The Hour Of Slack Radio Show, real-life events with real-life weird people -- all things FSMism doesn't offer.

So let's start a parody-religion war!

Re:If you're gonna go for a parody religion...

[bursch-X]

But then again discordianism beats the pants off of Church of the Subgenius, because it's much more fun and expandable.

Wow, spot on some and others not even there

[edwartr]

Perl as Voodoo is 100% - I have seen Perl do things with such weird code that it had to be voodoo magic!! However, I don't see Fortran or Pascal listed which is both hilarious and so sad that I took classes for both. (One reply mentioned Pascal as being like Roman Catholicism and I would agree to that wholeheartedly.)

Convergent Evolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the reason why these stories are interesting is that cars, religions and programming languages follow some type of convergent evolution.
That is, the development of any mechanism intended to make sense of the human condition will necessarily end up being similar.

Shell Scripting

[robpoe]

Shell scripting: Athiesm. There is no language

I don't get it

[Jeff Hornby]

Given all the arguing over language dogma here on Slashdot and everywhere else on the internet, I always thought that computer languages were religions.

the difference between religions and programming

[emeraldemon]

If you learn a programming language, at least you can write some useful programs. Also it's worth noting that learning a new programming language gives you insight and new perspective. Does someone who knows one religion have incentive to learn another?

Crock of shit summary #2 for today.

[Toll_Free]

Maybe you haven't seen the religious zealots that permeate this web board. Wait, we call ourselves geeks.

--Toll_Free

What does this make me

[andrewjj20]

I code in C/C++, Java, Perl. Does this make me a voodoo-Islamic-judeo-Christian fundamentalist?

Re:Why - It's a near copy of Umberto Eco's joke

[elwinc]

This somewhat strained joke is based on a much better piece by Umberto Eco. Years ago (1994) Eco wrote a piece comparing the MS world and the Mac world to major religions. His comparison fits much better. Read it all here.

. . . I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

. . . You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.

Calling languages religions?

[Requiem18th]

It's blasphemous!

Rastafarian computer language

[nofactor]

And which is the rastafarian computer language? The true one that will save us from Babylon and lead us to Zion.

VB?

[gsmraxe]

The visual basic comparison is an insult to Satanism. Anton LaVey would be insulted.

Ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

This might possibly be the dumbest thing I have ever seen on the Internet.

Atheism...

[PPH]

..is Whitespace.

Re:Atheism...

[atomic-penguin]

..is Whitespace.

No that is nihilism, the belief in nothing. Atheism is the belief in no God.

One could define atheism with a Perl one liner as such:

my $God = undef;

Re:Atheism...

[againjj]

If every programming language were a religion, atheism would be using machine code.

Nihilism is believing the computer doesn't exist.

Re:Atheism...

[bill_mcgonigle]

No that is nihilism, the belief in nothing

Nihilism is probably too broad. Ignosticism might get you closer.

Re :Atheism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said! I used to say I was an Atheist until someone pointed out that not believing in stupid things doesn't need a special name. I don't need to disbelieve in any god, the very idea is silly.

Re:Atheism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whitespace is the God of the gaps.

Re:What, no scientology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment will BREAK in English.

Sure

[MarkusQ]

You can just as easily come up with a flawed ideology that is not based on a belief in the supernatural and use that for genocide.

Sure. I pointed that out, with the remark about football (aka soccer). Or hockey in Canada. Organized sports aren't that different from organized religion (though with the former you do run the risk of the star players or franchise owners speaking out against you).

--MarkusQ

Re:Sure

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I thought your whole point was that the belief in an "imaginary friend" caused the violence. I think there is enough evidence of cases where belief in an "imaginary friend" was not even involved, to call that conclusion into question.

To take your sports analogy ( which makes no sense to me as an US citizen, where sports violence is limited to drunken fans running on the field, or a few cars turned over after a championship), There are also authority figures in various religions that can denounce violence sort of like the star players or coaches. In either situation, the problem comes in the rational ( yes that is correct, there is rationality, logic, and thinking in most major religions) voices are ignored.

Re:Sure

[MarkusQ]

I thought your whole point was that the belief in an "imaginary friend" caused the violence. I think there is enough evidence of cases where belief in an "imaginary friend" was not even involved, to call that conclusion into question.

That reasoning isn't sound. I claim X causes Y. You point out that there are cases of Y without X and "call my conclusion into question." Let's try that reasoning pattern on a less emotional case and see how it works:

• I claim poking your eyes out with a sharp stick causes blindness.
• You point out that there are a lot of blind people who have never had their eyes poked out.
• Can you "call my conclusion into question" on that basis?

In either situation, the problem comes in the rational (yes that is correct, there is rationality, logic, and thinking in most major religions) voices are ignored.

The rationality, logic, and thinking in any religion is strictly limited. Otherwise, somebody would think. "Hey, what if Santa Clause isn't real?" and that would be the end of it. The whole basis of religion is picking some set of goofy beliefs that no reasonable person would believe and saying "Ah, but what if you weren't allowed to question them, and had to take them on faith? Would you believe them then?" and then in the cognitive confusion that creates whacking it home with an argument by authority.

--MarkusQ

Re:Sure

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Choose a better analogy. There are a pile of buttons on a table. Some of them are red. Some of them are blue. all of the blue ones are round. All of the red ones are round. Can we say that being red causes a button to be round? Or that being red is related to their roundness?

That is a much different scenario than if all of the red buttons are round, but the blue ones are octagons.

The face that there are blue round ones in addition to red blue ones cast doubt on any hypothesis that would link the redness and the roundness attributes together.

If it helps your brain think about it, consider the implications of a universe with different values for the fundamental constants. Its not a true universe, as in, we don't think it exists, but physics and chemistry would be completely different. Pointing out that we don't know the universe exists, doesn't have to stop us from logically determining how physics and chemistry would work in such a system. Religion is no different.

Re:Sure

[MarkusQ]

If it helps your brain think about it, consider the implications of a universe with different values for the fundamental constants. Its not a true universe, as in, we don't think it exists, but physics and chemistry would be completely different. Pointing out that we don't know the universe exists, doesn't have to stop us from logically determining how physics and chemistry would work in such a system. Religion is no different.

Ah, but it is. Religion asks (well, generally tells) people to act in this world on the basis of speculation about that other, hypothetical world.

Further, religions with few if any exceptions, insist that what they teach is literally true.

Further still, most religions involve some sort of imaginary friends who they claim tell us things about this hypothetical world. Not only do they insist that the things their imaginary friend tells them are true beyond question, but they insist that there imaginary friend is real (sometimes even insisting that he is in some sense more real than we are) and must be treated with enormous respect or he'll smite us.

And lastly, they often take matters into their own hands and do the smiting for him.

That's hardly the same as speculating about alternative systems of physics and chemistry.

--MarkusQ

Re:Sure

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Ah, but it is. Religion asks (well, generally tells) people to act in this world on the basis of speculation about that other, hypothetical world.

No, it says this world is the hypothetical world. Which is pretty much what you said int he next part.

Further still, most religions involve some sort of imaginary friends who they claim tell us things about this hypothetical world. Not only do they insist that the things their imaginary friend tells them are true beyond question, but they insist that there imaginary friend is real (sometimes even insisting that he is in some sense more real than we are) and must be treated with enormous respect or he'll smite us.

No, the changeability of beliefs is not universal to Religions. Most are relatively static in their belief set. Furthermore, they don't universally teach that there will be consequences in this world for not following its tenets. Smiting, again, is not a universal tenant of all religions.

If you are being critical of Religions that are every changing on the whim of a small group of individuals that advocate violence, great you'll find many people that agree with you. Many of whom belong to Religions that can not be described as such. But you can't universally attribute a belief in God with a propensity to commit atrocities. It just doesn't hold water.

Guaranteed to generate ad revenue

[Anonymous Coward]

"Guaranteed to [...] generate a good long thread here on slashdot."

Oops, I thought notes for the editors weren't supposed to be visible in the summary?

Nope

[Moraelin]

There's a reason it's so easy to associate specific religions with specific stupid bloodthirsty acts, and that's that they were causal in the perpetration of those acts..

No, it's usually because people usually have no clue about what other religions did. So they have religion X for which they know evil acts A, B and C, and religion Y about which they don't know jack. So they do a jump to conclusions that religion Y was all saintly, harmonious and benevolent.

If you look at it deeper, yes, the GP is right, virtually _any_ religion that existed prior to the 20'th century at all, has been perverted into justifying some atrocities -- or at least turning a blind eye to them.

E.g., taoism is all enlightened and all about harmony and doing the right thing... but caused one of the bloodiest revolts in recorded history.

E.g., shintoism and generally the Japanese view of the world is all about purity, duty, respecting the spirits, avoiding murder and generally doing the right thing... but the mindset around it is what _caused_ such massacres of civillians as the Rape Of Nanjing or the Japanese atrocities against prisoners and civillians in WW2. The rationale was that since the enemy didn't do what the Japanese philosophy demands (e.g., fighting to the last breath, regardless of odds), they lost their right to be called humans, and can be treated like cattle. E.g., the fact that the Chinese soldiers discarded their uniforms and tried to hide among civillians, to escape the Japanese atrocities, was seen as such a breach of what a true human should do, that they and the whole city deserved nothing less than mass slaughter.

E.g., Tibetan buddhism is all enlightened and all about scoring karma points for your reincarnation... but has been a justification for the most abject slavery of most of their population. The justification being that if you were born a slave, well, you deserve that and it's your punishment for your evil deeds in a past life. So you had a religion which preached benevolence to your fellow man, and a theocratic caste treating their fellow man like shit in its name. Go figure that one out.

The religion may not have _demanded_ such massacres, and there may not have been a "pope" to decree it, but that particular view of the world was distorted into basically, "anyone who doesn't see the world exactly like us, deserves death." Go figure.

E.g., look at any "enlightened" and "noble savage" shamanistic or animistic cults, and you'll find a history of endemic warfare and slaughter, where generations after generations of young warriors are sent to rape and pillage under the shaman's blessing and guidance. In fact, the very first depictions of warfare we have on cave walls -- interestingly enough coinciding with the invention of missile weapons -- show groups of archers shooting at each other, each lead by some shaman with some holy symbol. That's how the history of human organized warfare _started_.

And I'm not even getting into ancient religions demanding a stream of human sacrifices and the like.

Look as far back as the first religious hymns we have, e.g., The Exaltation of Innana by her high priestess Enheduanna, and you'll find a disturbingly blood-thirsty girl praising her Goddess for turning major rivers red with the blood of her enemies -- soldiers and innocent bystanders alike -- and destroying their crops. That's early human religion for you.

So, pray tell, which religions do you have in mind, which _didn't_ facilitate a few choice atrocities? Again, only those which existed for any length of time, please, not late 20'th century new age cults or jokes like Pastafarianism.

Re:Nope

[Raul Acevedo]

So, pray tell, which religions do you have in mind, which _didn't_ facilitate a few choice atrocities? Again, only those which existed for any length of time, please, not late 20'th century new age cults or jokes like Pastafarianism.

Well, actually Buddhism:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/history/slavery.shtml

There's a HUGE difference between a religion which, at its source, justifies slavery, death and destruction, vs a religion which expressly prohibits it. Anyone can perverse anything. That isn't really relevant. If you really want to "judge" the religion, you have to look at its source, not just what zealots have done to twist its meaning.

In this capacity the religions of the Old Testament clearly suck and don't really deserve to be a model for a just, free society. Buddhism is completely different; under no circumstances is killing allowed, and slavery is also seen as bad.

Re:Nope

[explodymatt]

Not that I'm terribly knowledgeable on the subject, but what about Jainism?
As far as I'm aware Jainists are all about the 'don't hurt anything, ever' school of thought.

Re:Nope

[Moraelin]

Well, actually that's the whole point: humans can pervert anything, and can be manipulated do equally horrible things in the name of any good commandment.

Buddhism is actually no different. Yes, killing isn't allowed, but buddhists went to war and did various atrocities just as well. Japan has been and still is half-buddhist/half-shintoist all along, and I've already used them as an example. Yes, slavery is bad, but the peasants in Tibet... well, they were theoretically _serfs_ so that was ok, but were treated basically like in a chattel slavery system by any other name. It's funny what you can get away with, if you just use a different word.

But to not pick just on religion, heck, moralism, legalism and confucianism in China weren't even religions, they're philosophy schools really. But in the name of the first two, the first emperor Qin Shi Huang Di buried some hundreds of confucianist philosophers alive. And conversely, Confucianism, otherwise all about doing the right thing and knowing your place, was used at various points in history to incite against people who saw the world differently.

Re:Nope

[Moraelin]

While I'm too lazy to research exactly who was a jainist there and who wasn't, I hope you realize that the ancient history of India is as full of warfare as the history of any other nation. You can't really find an island of tranquility there. You had city states and kingdoms which waged war upon other city states and kingdoms, regardless of how many relics pointing at jainism or buddhism you find there.

And war in the ancient times was... well, just as brutal as what you find in any other zone at the time. They took slaves, they killed enough civilians to make the others too scared shitless to revolt any time soon, etc. Not every monarch there was as enlightened as Ashoka, and even that one debatably only got enlightened after seeing the brutality that his army did.

You got off easy

[Kabuthunk]

PHP? Man, you got off easy. I still like messing around in Visual Basic time to tmie :P.

Re:You got off easy

[genner]

PHP? Man, you got off easy. I still like messing around in Visual Basic time to tmie :P.

Heathen!

Re:You got off easy

[networkBoy]

my %doll=(
              hair => 'VB' ,
              body => 'corn_husk' ,
              pinT => 'hat_pin' ,
            );
my $response = &pokeNose(\%doll);
unless (lc($response) eq 'yell'){&burnDoll();}
exit (13);

Re:You got off easy

[Luke-Jr]

You forgot to bless the hash into a doll...

Re:You got off easy

[networkBoy]

use curses;

Huh?

[MarkusQ]

There's a reason it's so easy to associate specific religions with specific stupid bloodthirsty acts, and that's that they were causal in the perpetration of those acts..

So, pray tell, which religions do you have in mind, which _didn't_ facilitate a few choice atrocities? Again, only those which existed for any length of time, please, not late 20'th century new age cults or jokes like Pastafarianism.

I'm puzzled. Your tone implies that you think you are disagreeing with me and then you go on to make the same case I did (but with lots more detail). And then end up challenging me to offer a counter example to the converse of the position we seem to agree on.

To make this blindingly clear, even if someone could come up with an example of a religion such as you describe (I certainly can't) it wouldn't change my position. Just because some hypothetical irrational belief system hasn't yet led it's followers into committing stupid acts doesn't mean it won't start tomorow.

Basing your actions on what the little voice(s) no one else can hear is crazy. It's crazy and stupid if you can't hear the voices yourself, but have to trust somebody else who claims they can. Even if the little voices have only said things like "pick up litter" and "love they neighbor" you have no guarantee they won't start saying "kill people who don't like bacon" tomorrow.

--MarkusQ

Re:Huh?

[Moraelin]

Well, the word "specific" must have confused me, especially in the context of a thread which once again degenerated into Islam-bashing and guilt by association fallacies. Sorry about the misunderstanding then.

Re:Huh?

[MarkusQ]

Well, the word "specific" must have confused me, especially in the context of a thread which once again degenerated into Islam-bashing and guilt by association fallacies. Sorry about the misunderstanding then.

What I meant was, if you think of any specific atrocity it's pretty easy to identify the specific religion(s) that participated in committing the atrocity. I claim this is because irrational belief systems (in general) facilitate irrational acts (in general). A general claim such as this should be true in any specific case (that's what being true in general means), which is why I pointed out that it was.

I'm not bashing Islam specifically, but rather pointing out the danger of all people who take their cues from their imaginary friends. I don't care if it was your dog or your god or the shoelace on your left shoe that told you to set fire to the mailman or the dentist office or your own hair, in my book you are crazy, and quibbling over which type of crazy is worse misses the point.

--MarkusQ

Ever heard of tacit approval?

[Hognoxious]

So if one terrorist says "I'm a Muslim" then everyone who doesn't immediately renounce their own Islamic faith is a terrorist too?

But by not denouncing the act (or denouncing it with a "but") they are supporting it. Tacit approval, look it up.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[cshark]

So if one terrorist says "I'm a Muslim" then everyone who doesn't immediately renounce their own Islamic faith is a terrorist too?

But by not denouncing the act (or denouncing it with a "but") they are supporting it. Tacit approval, look it up.

Why should every Muslim have to individually denounce every act of terrorism? When was the last time every christian denounced every individual abortion clinic bombing?

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[tnk1]

Which is not what he was saying nor the OP. The OP was saying you have to leave your religion if one person or even a substantial group of people who claim to be of your religion does something you don't like.

Which is complete and utter tosh.

I do agree that not speaking out against extremism is terrible and does represent tacit approval, but particularly in the case of Islam, we need to remember that many people in the Islamic world do not get the full story from their media and tend to see a different side of the extremist groups.

In the West Bank, Hamas is a political movement and a charity organization. No one really thinks much of them being militant because everyone in the West Bank is militant to some degree to protect themselves. Being in the middle of the situation tends to give you a certain tunnel vision about things which leads to the "buts..." that we tend to decry.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The OP was saying you have to leave your religion if one person or even a substantial group of people who claim to be of your religion does something you don't like.

That's not what I said. I said that if your organization is being lead in a direction you oppose and you have no say in that direction, then you should leave. There's no point letting other people drag you about. It is the leadership of an organization that is the problem. If they become extremists, then you should get out, otherwise you are explicitly supporting extremism.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[Slippery Slope Man]

Yes, because clearly there is no difference between fundamentalist Muslims and mainstream Muslims, especially not when it comes to what their leaders are saying. Exactly like how all Christians think that soldiers are dying in Iraq because the military has a hands off policy on homosexuals, just because some of the more extreme televangelists say so. Personally I'm an agnostic, but I think both of you are missing the great-grandparents point-- he was talking about individual churches, not entire religions. I'm not sure how you two got modded insightful, especially not after simplifying to the point of being utterly ridiculous.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[rossifer]

Which is not what he was saying nor the OP. The OP was saying you have to leave your religion if one person or even a substantial group of people who claim to be of your religion does something you don't like.

False. The OP said that if the group is heading in an objectionable direction, dissenters should leave or risk their membership being counted as tacit approval. If the leadership of the organization explicitly or tacitly endorses the objectionable behavior, and you can't change it, it's probably time to go.

It's not important if there's a kook who can claim membership but acts in a way contrary to the organization. You scorn the person, council the person, kick them out, whatever. If you're the oddball though, and the organization is the one being nasty, your continued membership in that case becomes a tacit approval of the problem.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[Pentavirate]

Every Muslim should denounce every act of terrorism that they don't agree with. They don't have to take out an ad in a newspaper or anything. They can denounce it in their hearts and if it comes up in conversation they can make a point.

Equally so, I denounce all abortion clinic bombings and if it comes up in a conversations, just like it just now did, I'm more than happy to tell you so.

What would really be nice to help their cause, is if Muslim organizations would go out of their way to make press statements denouncing terrorist acts. From what I've seen, when these leaders from Muslim organizations come out on TV to talk about Muslim extremism, they'll usually try to neatly sidestep any attempt to get them to denounce the acts. Then again, it may be for their personal safety that they do so.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[Anonymous Coward]

But by not denouncing the act (or denouncing it with a "but") they are supporting it. Tacit approval, look it up.

Denouncing it with a "but" is approving it?

Since when did "Murder is evil and there is never any justification for it, but these evil deeds are only committed because you Westerners do not show respect for the beliefs we hold sacred" mean "We approve of murder"?

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[Hognoxious]

Why should every Muslim have to individually denounce every act of terrorism?

Because every one of them takes offence over a few drawings. If they're a group when someone does something they don't like, they're a group when they do something other people don't like.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[Hognoxious]

we need to remember that many people in the Islamic world do not get the full story from their media and tend to see a different side of the extremist groups.

So what's the excuse here?

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[Hognoxious]

Yes, because clearly there is no difference between fundamentalist Muslims and mainstream Muslims, especially not when it comes to what their leaders are saying.

Since I've never heard any mainstream muslim leaders say anything, that point is moot. In fact I see no evidence of their existence. So either they don't exist, or they're too scared to say anything - which shows that extremists are in charge.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[Hognoxious]

The second half of that sure sounds like a justification.

Re:Ever heard of tacit approval?

[clone53421]

"X is wrong and never justified, but you deserved it" is a logical contradiction.

Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone mirror this because the site isn't working?

We had a verion of this back in 1985

[John Sokol]

Back in the BBS days it was being passed around, but this was in the days before Java, and PHP.

I wonder if I can find it in google groups somewhere.

I found this one from 2002,
Religions as programming languages , but it's not the one I am looking for.

http://groups.google.com/group/nl.humor/browse_thread/thread/ff38cd7da81c59e8?hl=en&q=%22Programming+Languages%22++Religion#c87bfd9fb1cfdf4e

Oh well I tried, it's lost in a sea of data.
I am sure it's on one of the many old MFM hard drives decomposing in my garage.

check out my http://www.churchofbsd.org/ site

I'm a Muslim!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Muslim but I do not know C++
I use PHP, JAVA and C#

where that puts me

Re:I'm a Muslim!

[TheDataBase]

Hell!?!

Won't somebody think of the flying cars?!?

[BenEnglishAtHome]

///snip/// various bits of excuse-making skipped over because I'm too tired and lazy to formulate snappy comebacks about really serious stuff ///snip///

- the 500 years of the dark ages when Christianity ruled over science and anyone questioning the authority of the church was killed (murder/massacre)

OK, now you got me.

If humanity was 500 years further along, we'd all have our flying cars by now. So, ultimately, if you want to condemn Christianity then blame us for the lack of flying cars. That one really hurts.

Re:What, no scientology?

[Requiem18th]

By that metric objective-c would be scientology, you have to pay large sums for the special equipment as well as the information about how to use it and it's followers worship their leader even though they admit he is only human.

  I love Python and Humanism but calling Python Humanism sounds very biased.

Re:What, no scientology?

[Requiem18th]

Except?

yes, Rome

[peter303]

It built a might empire, with buildings and bridges still standing after all these millennia.

Therein lies the rub

[dcollins117]

If programming languages were like religion then I'd be like the Woody Allen character in Hannah and Her Sisters - desperately searching for something to believe in, but fatefully destined never to find it.

For many projects I end up using C++ not because I necessarily feel its the best language for the task but because I have so much time invested in learning it. It's like a commitment.

For some tasks I have to program in Lisp. I wish I enjoyed it, but I really don't. "Let's see, is that 17 or 18 closing parentheses? What the heck I'll just add more until it compiles." I guess I haven't yet reached nirvana.

Cool

[ClioCJS]

You sound pretty normal than! Now, if the afterlife is taken away, would you suddenly lose your willingness to stand in for your children or family? I'm going to venture that the answer is no.

Re:Cool

[networkBoy]

your venture would be correct. Also, I may have forgotten to mention my pedantry.... I believe "then" would be more appropriate than "than". :-)
-nB

Assembly is physics

[opencity]

It's how it all actually works before humans / philosophies / superstitions get involved.
Is physics a religion? YMMV

You forgot...

[Balance Man]

Cookism: Someone has shit on the coats.

The more things change...

[keptwench]

.. , the more they stay the same. I remember when the type of computer you had was somewhat equivalent to your religion. (damn right I owned an Amiga. :)

Confucianism is SQL

[Koreantoast]

Confucianism is SQL: highly relational, practiced as a secondary with other languages from LISP to Java and almost never practiced by itself, and continuously debated on whether or not its actually a programming language.

I call B.S.

[IdahoEv]

Basically violence has nothing to do with religion. People will use ANY religion as an excuse to justify their view they they are right and everyone else is wrong.

This is total B.S. borne from political correctness. You want to believe that all religions were created equal and that religion itself is never actually the cause of violence, but that simply isn't so.

Some religions, either because of the contents of their holy books or because of the associated culture, are far more prone to incite violence than others.

If you really believe that all religions are used to justify extremism and violence, then I challenge you to show me examples. Particularly for the Jain, Wicca, and Quaker faiths, all of which have some form of "do no harm" as a fundamental principle of their faith.

hahaha

[ClioCJS]

Honestly, I can't believe I made that mistake. Your onto something. (now i'm doing it on porpoise:))

TRON

[catbertscousin]

Ram: "Do you believe in the users?"
Chron: "Yeah, if I don't have a user, then who wrote me?"
Ram: "That's what you're doing here."

Pastafarianism as mother of all coding religions

[commodore73]

Spaghetti coding begat them all.

There's a glaring discrepancy here.

[weatherwax]

Most of the languages are referenced allegorically, while Perl's usage is literal.

JavaScript

[Anonymous Coward]

It's missing JavaScript, which I think is like superstitions. It inserts itself everywhere by little bits and pieces and it's very hard to get rid of it entirely, even though you know you ought to disregard it you keep doing it.

Well, I found it rather uncannily good...

[MoxFulder]

As a Jew with somewhat Humanistic leanings, who is a devoted user of C and Python...

spot on the mark :-P

Re:Well, I found it rather uncannily good...

[HiThere]

It had it's points. But I only LOLed at the "Visual Basic is like Satanism ... except that you don't REALLY need to sell your soul to be a Satanist". But then I've had to *use* Visual Basic.

God's Programming Language

[osu-neko]

'nuff said.

liked the other proof better

[junkgoof]

In a philosophy class I took we went over proofs for the existence of God and why the ones thought up so far don't work (if anyone proves a god exists please tell the people setting the philosophy curriculum and the rest of humanity). 3 or 4 proofs in one of the students said "I prefer using proof x we did last week" and phrased it as though she was justifying her own belief. Logic is wasted on some people.

Re:What, no scientology?

[ceoyoyo]

But if Python had nukes and spacships it would be even cooler.

throw is a goto

[tepples]

Thou shalt not use the GoTo, for such disrespects the Prophet of Programming Dijkstra,

Dijkstra's 's prophecy was taken out of context, and it needs to be read along with things such as "Structured Programming with go to Statements" by the living prophet Knuth. Notice that in whatever language you use, the looping structures (be they "while", "for", or tail recursion) are ultimately translated into GOTO. So are exceptions that you throw or raise.

What do you *if* ??

[gujo-odori]

What do you mean, "If programming languages were religions?" Next, you'll be trying to convince us that vi and emacs aren't religions either :p

of course they are

[Anonymous Coward]

Violence is the supreme authority from which all other authorities derive.

Religions, insofar as any of their members decide to set up their teachings as an authority of some sort, will include violence.

Humans often use violence to resolve conflicts. Religions are composed of large numbers of humans. The association of religion and violence just naturally declines from that, if from nothing else.

This is not to say that all humans are always violent, of course. Some humans, due to genetics and cultural conditioning, dislike violence and generally prefer to avoid it. However, few and far between are humans who would not be motivated to violent action when forced to watch a loved one be unjustly injured.

Besides, the extreme amounts of violence recorded in both our history and our popular forms of entertainment pretty much settle any dispute about whether or not humans are a violent species.

This is redo of a old joke.

[Neanderthal Ninny]

The man walked into the ladies department at Neiman Marcus. Somewhat flustered, he shyly walked up to the woman behind the counter and stuttered, "Excuse me, but, I'd like to buy a bra for my wife"

"OK. What type of bra?" asked the clerk.

"Type?" inquires the man "There is more than one type?" Beads of sweat began rolling down his back and forehead.

"Look Around," said the saleslady, as she showed a veritable ocean of bras in every shape, size, color and material.

"Take heart," she said smiling. "You know, even with all of this variety, there are really only three types of bras..."

Relieved, yet a bit confused, the man asked what were the types.

The clerk replied "The Catholic type, the Salvation Army type, and the Baptist type. Which one do you need?"

More confused our here asked "What is the difference?"

The lady responded, "It is all really quite simple.

The Catholic type supports the masses,

The Salvation Army type lifts up the fallen,

and the Baptist type makes mountains out of mole hills."

Re:What, no scientology?

[nschubach]

Also, nobody was attacked after saying bad things about it. I think.

Apparently you've never been around when someone suggested adding !OPTIONAL! brackets for blocks that could be used instead of white spacing. Same keywords, just using blocks instead of white space. Google "Python braces" if you don't believe me. There are VERY VERY VERY "religious" python devs who would rather carpet bomb your country than let you suggest such things.

Also, tabs tens to be a touchy subject lending way to statements of ones IQ being questioned for using a "non-compliant" editor.

a Truly religious experience

[secondhand_Buddah]

Try writing an ACID 3 compliant HTML parser in Brainfuck for a truly religious experience.

Re:What, no scientology?

[Andr T.]

I know that. Some time ago I searched for an incremental operator (some kind of simple a++ or something like inc(a)) but I found that the people who asked about that were having their heads hammered.

If?

[Uzik2]

Programming languages ARE religions.

if C is Judaism...

[Tumbleweed]

does that make D 'Jews for Jesus'? :)

Stop me if you've heard this

[mcgrew]

A lawyer, a priest, and a Rabbi are on the Titanic when it hits an iceberg.

"Save the children!" yells the rabbi.

"FUCK the children!" snarls the lawyer.

"No time for that!" excaims the priest.

//alternate version for those who don't like lawyers//

A rabbi and a priest are walking down the sidewalk when they see a poor waif in tattered, wet clothing shivering homeless in a doorway. "Poor thing," says the Rabbi, "What should we do with him?"

"Take him home and fuck him" the priest says.

"Out of what?" asks the rabbi.

//one more//

Two Muslims are walking down the st%$&*&^5J[no carrier]

Re:Stop me if you've heard this

[clone53421]

Somebody must have heard the Muslim one.

Apathy is NOT a solution.

[Xenographic]

> But their atrocities were based in ideology, which religion is a subset of.

So apathy is the solution? We can't care deeply about anything? Because that is the root of it.

Even people who are fanatical about atheism can go crazy and kill lots of people (e.g. Stalin's purges).

Sorry, but I don't think apathy is the answer.

Re:Apathy is NOT a solution.

[Joe the Lesser]

I did not say apathy was a solution.

Sometimes doing nothing is the right choice, sometimes calm and cautious action is the right choice, and sometimes sudden and rash action is the right choice.

What's important however is to evaluate your ideology, and the actions you are taking to promote that purpose, on a daily basis because blind faith leads to atrocities. Even those who believe in peace, freedom, and justice can commit them in the name of their beliefs.

False dillema

[Xenographic]

> Would you say it's easier or harder to organize a violent effort when religion is involved?

Neither. It's absolutely the same (which proves that it's a matter of getting enough people royally pissed off, not a matter of religion).

You don't need religion to piss lots of people off. Religion is a popular target, but there are plenty of others and I sincerely doubt you'll find anywhere that doesn't care about something. I mean, even on Slashdot we have the RIAA to whip people into a frenzy.

Given the proper incitement and some torches & pitchforks ...

i have to put something here?

[igguks]

"C would be Judaism - it's old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them."

How is C restrictive? C let's you do whatever the fuck you want.

Scientology IS a religion?

[zrl]

Scientology IS a religion? This guy knows some names of some religions, just like he knows some names of some programming languages, that's probably how much he understands programming and religion. Most programmers have great skills in not just on language, and most religious people has only one religion.

Oblig xkcd

[Anonymous Coward]

xkcd

religions are programming languages

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if you consider religions to be memes, or more exactly memeplexes, then religions are in fact programming languages.
They reproduce themselves by programming human minds to believe and spread their ideas (memes).

Must read Snow Crash again...

Obviously the author likes python

[suso]

Obviously the author is a python programmer because they think that Python is perfect and unrestrictive. Pft!

Besides, I thought that mod_rewrite was voodoo, not perl.

Python has a namespace per file

[tepples]

As for the "main method" (which isn't even a method in any useful sense, as arguing that it's "a method on the module" admits the interpretation that any language with mutable global variables, C for example, entirely uses methods)

C is different from Python and Java because C puts all functions/methods defined in every file into the global namespace:

//file1.h
void foo();

//file1.c
void foo() {
//do something
}

//file2.c
#include "file1.h"
int main(void) {
foo();
}

Python, on the other hand, does not have global variables; it instead has module-level variables that go into separate namespaces:

#file1.py
def foo():
spacespacespacespace# do something
spacespacespacespacepass

#file2.py
import file1
file1.foo()

(Please excuse the ugliness of my workaround for SLASH's inability to handle Python code examples.) Notice the "file1." in front of "foo" in file2.py.

If they really were religions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Their grammars would have been handed down over the generations, misty in their origins, self-contradictory in their meaning.
The managers would use them as a tool to keep the programmers subjugated.
Your programs would never generate output, but that doesn't matter. It only strengthens your faith that your program is running.
You cannot prove that the compiler doesn't exist. People who point out no binaries or output exist will be prompty shunned (or executed if you can get away with it).
If some group places their curly braces by themselves on one line, they shall be excommunicated.
If you think someone has money you will arrest him, and force him to confess missplacing a brace. Then you will curlybrace him to death.
If someone ever writes programs in a new language that do run and generate output, and points this out to you, you shall call him strident. You shall not listen to him, nor read his grammar, let alone run his programs. (But you may write programs of your own to answer his ones - your faith that they run clearly proves him wrong.) ...

I'm out, it's the middle of the night here. But I'm sure that you Slashdotters can add lots more, possibly more amusing. If they'd've gone with something like this, and fleshed it out a bit, the result might have been funny. The article isn't.

You need to read more carefully

[MarkusQ]

He has stated that in his opinion no reasonable person can believe in any religion. Explaining how much how this belief is similiar to those held by religous extremists is probably futile as well.

I said rational, not reasonable, and it isn't an opinion, it's by definition.

Even most religion concede the point that you have to take them "on faith" because rational thinking won't get you there. Religions, for this reason, are irrational by definition.

And the key difference between my position and that of religious extremists is that they always make a special pleading for one specific religion (and as luck would have it, it's always theirs) whereas I'm applying the same criteria to everyone who takes their direction from their imaginary friends, with no exceptions for anybody.

I don't care if you're a priest or an imam or the guy that lives in the subway station, if you claim that we all have to listen to you 'cause you've learned The Truth from somebody that no one else can see, my response is the same.

--MarkusQ

Re:You need to read more carefully

[clone53421]

Even most religion concede the point that you have to take them "on faith" because rational thinking won't get you there.

Ahh, but so do the athiests take their beliefs "on faith"... absence of evidence does not amount to evidence of absence, yet they claim God does not exist. The existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved. The only ones who refuse to have "blind faith" are the agnostics, and even they must assume that the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant to them – which may or may not be true.

It's a pot and kettle situation: everyone believes something, and there's always the possibility that they're wrong. Therefore, they're taking on faith the assumption that, because evidence proving them wrong hasn't been found, they are correct.

Re:You need to read more carefully

[MarkusQ]

Ahh, but so do the athiests take their beliefs "on faith"... absence of evidence does not amount to evidence of absence, yet they claim God does not exist.

Exactly. That's why I'm not an atheist.

The only ones who refuse to have "blind faith" are the agnostics, and even they must assume that the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant to them - which may or may not be true.

It doesn't matter if its irrelevant to me or not. If the question is intrinsically unanswerable, discovering that it is also important does not suddenly make it answerable.

It's a pot and kettle situation: everyone believes something, and there's always the possibility that they're wrong. Therefore, they're taking on faith the assumption that, because evidence proving them wrong hasn't been found, they are correct.

If that was all it was, there wouldn't be a problem.

I don't have a direct objection to people with imaginary friends, only to the ones that insist that we must act on the basis of what their imaginary friend says.

If I found out my stock fund was being managed by someone who got their investment ideas from their cat, I'd take my money out. Talk to your cat, fine. Invest on the basis of what the cat say, no so much.

Likewise people who start wars because their imaginary friends told them to (such as Bush, Bin Laden, etc.) or want to change textbooks or deny their neighbors rights or any other such shenanigans.

--MarkusQ

Re:You need to read more carefully

[clone53421]

Exactly. That's why I'm not an atheist.

Well, I haven't heard you criticizing atheists for their faith.

I don't have a direct objection to people with imaginary friends, only to the ones that insist that we must act on the basis of what their imaginary friend says.

Nobody is demanding you to do much of anything because God said so. If the stated political reasons aren't compelling enough to garner your support, you are free to disagree, but don't claim the argument has gone to a whole new level just because someone believes, aside from the political reasons, that it is also the moral thing to do.

Re:You need to read more carefully

[MarkusQ]

Exactly. That's why I'm not an atheist.

Well, I haven't heard you criticizing atheists for their faith.

I have, elsewhere on this thread for example (though I don't think it was in direct response to you). But I don't do it nearly so much since atheists aren't nearly so much of a problem. Anyone who says "I know for a fact that God doesn't exist and I'm here to tell you that He wants us all to do such and such" gets shut down pretty quickly.

I don't have a direct objection to people with imaginary friends, only to the ones that insist that we must act on the basis of what their imaginary friend says.

Nobody is demanding you to do much of anything because God said so. If the stated political reasons aren't compelling enough to garner your support, you are free to disagree, but don't claim the argument has gone to a whole new level just because someone believes, aside from the political reasons, that it is also the moral thing to do.

That last is a complete non sequitur. I have no objection to people choosing to do things on moral grounds, and there's nothing intrinsically moral about hearing voices or talking orders from somebody that no one else can see.

As for the first part, I don't know what planet you live on, but this one is full of people trying to dictate how others live based entirely one what their imaginary friends told them. A disturbing number are willing to kill (or even die) over it, and many times more are willing to throw rationality out the window on account of it. They dominate world politics and drive debate on countless issues. Even sports fans are reasonable and harmless by comparison.

--MarkusQ

Re:You need to read more carefully

[clone53421]

I don't do it nearly so much since atheists aren't nearly so much of a problem. Anyone who says "I know for a fact that God doesn't exist and I'm here to tell you that He wants us all to do such and such" gets shut down pretty quickly.

I find that when it comes to a condemning, holier-than-thou attitude, atheists often outdo the religious folks. At least the religious people generally recognise the fact that some of their beliefs can't be proven or disproven and therefore must be held in faith.

I have no objection to people choosing to do things on moral grounds, and there's nothing intrinsically moral about hearing voices or talking orders from somebody that no one else can see.

The ancient writings of certain well-established religions are, by and large, the authority when it comes to morality. Or do you disagree? As I said before, arguing your case politically/logically and then following it up with "...and I think God would want me to do this" doesn't invalidate the previously discussed political/logical reasons for doing that.

As for the first part, I don't know what planet you live on, but this one is full of people trying to dictate how others live based entirely one what their imaginary friends told them.

I don't know what country you live in, but here in America I don't have to do much of what they demand. Unless you meant the people who decided that murder etc. should be illegal, but those laws tend to be pretty widely accepted despite their religious basis.

[...] based entirely one what their imaginary friends told them. A disturbing number are willing to kill (or even die) over it, and many times more are willing to throw rationality out the window on account of it.

I agree that the people who get their orders from voices in their head or from some invisible guy in a weird rabbit costume are dangerous. However, the followers of the varied sacred texts tend to be significantly more predictable, and at the very least that makes it easier to tell which ones are potentially dangerous and which ones are just trying to follow what they believe is right without hurting anyone.

Even sports fans are reasonable and harmless by comparison.

Say what? Sports has its fair share of nutjobs. (Not to pick on "soccer"/football unfairly; I seem to remember the World Series has been known to cause rioting too and I'm sure other sports have had their fair share of out-of-control fans.) All in all, this just further supports my argument that "some religious people are nutjobs" isn't a causation relationship... nutjobs are nutjobs regardless of whether or not they "got religion".

Lisp has it's dogmas

[NotSoHeavyD3]

I mean the 2 commandments Thou must never hit the return key for that is the way of readibility. and of course Thou must use loads and loads of parenthesis and use exactly the right amount or face damnation. (Ok, so I absolutely hate lisp. I don't think I'm the only one.)

Jew-Bu?

[Anonymous Coward]

But according to that list, C-Lisp would be a Jew-Bu. And that analogy doesn't hold.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[Anonymous Coward]

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, didn't Faith kill a guy who studied Prolog programmers?

Fears of atheists

[jesterzog]

And atheists fear death above all else. They will never react against a successful death cult. That does not make sense to them.

As an atheist, I think I fear organised religion above all else. By their nature, organised religions generally tend to have a high proportion of people who want to be told what to think and what to do, as opposed to thinking for themselves, and this will often lead to corruption at the higher levels where you're more likely to find people willing to take advantage of that.

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[account_deleted]

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Let me guess...

[MarkusQ]

Meanwhile, there's one particular religion that you can just turn on the TV and see them killing people TODAY.

That would be the Christians, right? The ones that bomb schools and stuff 'cause there might be somebody bad inside? The ones that shoot up car loads of people because they didn't like the way they were driving?

When it comes to Iraq at least, the Christians are kicking butt.

They're not doing so good on the "love thy neighbor" score, but...

Why is it so hard to accept that the absolute worst thing a xian does to you TODAY is try to have a sticker placed on your science book. Oh the horror!

I gather from this that you are light beige to pinkish, Christian, and don't travel much.

--MarkusQ

Re:Let me guess...

[clone53421]

That would be the Christians, right? The ones that bomb schools and stuff 'cause there might be somebody bad inside? The ones that shoot up car loads of people because they didn't like the way they were driving?

When it comes to Iraq at least, the Christians are kicking butt.

They're not doing so good on the "love thy neighbor" score, but...

Ok, this explains it... you are under the delusion that all Americans are Christians. Well, they aren't. America isn't a "Christian nation" and it hasn't been one for a very long time.

Re:Let me guess...

[MarkusQ]

Ok, this explains it... you are under the delusion that all Americans are Christians. Well, they aren't.

Of course not.

But the US currency proudly proclaims a trust in God. Over three quarters of the US population (and over 95% of the elected officials) identify themselves as Christians. The percentages are higher in the military, especially of evangelicals.

Since we (for example) routinely call Pakistan "a Sunni nation" with less justification, and especially since the christian right has been so vocal in their support of the war, which the president said his god wanted him to start and called "a crusade," I think it's a fair label.

The US may not be a "Christian nation" by your definition (John McCain claims that it is one), but the situation in Iraq is a "Christian Occupation" by almost anybody's standards.

--MarkusQ

Re:Let me guess...

[clone53421]

the situation in Iraq is a "Christian Occupation" by almost anybody's standards.

Wrong again. The situation in Iraq had nothing at all to do with religion.

especially since the christian right has been so vocal in their support of the war, which the president said his god wanted him to start and called "a crusade," I think it's a fair label.

Just because someone believes that it's the right thing to do doesn't mean their reasons are religious. Just because someone believes their God would approve of something doesn't mean their reasons are religious. As far as the "crusades" were concerned, although they were explicitly conducted for religious reasons, the real reasons were political. It was simply easier to whip up the highly-religious populace of that time to support the crusades if the stated reasons were religious. The vast majority of Americans wouldn't support a religious war, and the case for attacking Iraq was based entirely on political rationale.

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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Christmas is about Christianity only.

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you didn't mean to ask why this time of year is dominated by one religion in particular?

"With Christmas around the corner I know we are all thinking about religion, or at least maybe wondering why this one religion dominates the rest for these few weeks"

Just in case...

Christmas is only about one religion - Christianity.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

It is a religious holiday.

Christams is not about giving presents.

If you are not Christian you won't be celebrating Christmas (by definition) - you will just be having a random holiday while the Christians celebrate. Just as you wouldn't celebrate Passover if you weren't Jewish, and you wouldn't celebrate Ramadan if you weren't Muslim.

Santa Claus is a reinvention of St. Nicholas (the Christian Saint).

Re:Christmas is about Christianity only.

[clone53421]

Christmas is only about one religion - Christianity.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

It is a religious holiday.

Christams is not about giving presents.

If you are not Christian you won't be celebrating Christmas (by definition) - you will just be having a random holiday while the Christians celebrate.

I'm betting you'll still call it Christmas.

Complete procedure to convert to Judaism

[mahadiga]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ger_tzedek

God != Religion

[mahadiga]

1. Every religion injects fear in you
2. Every religion now is a form of socio-economic collusion

Jan Hus burned at the stake for far less.

[deodiaus2]

Maybe not now. Probably because Catholicism does not possesses the power it once did.
No, today, we just bomb countries whose ideologies conflict with ours (really because they have assets that we don't).
This country was stolen from the Indians using techniques far more barbaric.

Zoro-astrianism?

[nog_lorp]

Any nominations?

Java

[sentientbrendan]

the programming language is like Java the religion. That's less of an analogy as an identity though.

Excuse me?

[bryan1945]

You mean they're not?

What? No Intercal?

[RockDoctor]

Ptah! No religion dare to be compared to the brain-warping reality of Intercal. though I guess the depth to which ternary numbers are sunk into it might tempt one to start making Catholic jokes about it. What was that Frank Zappa one about cows tongues? And more to the point, how did he know what a cow's tongue feels like? (You do have to have heard the song.)

No, perl is one of those ancient Incan religions

[Anonymous Coward]

That is, it was written once and understood at the time, but now no one has any clue how to read it.

php is for small potatoes operations

[Anonymous Coward]

It is virtually nowhere to be found in large businesses. They use Java. Php just doesn't scale well.

What about Forth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps whatever religion Yoda believed in. :)

Pascal & FORTRAN

[Anonymous Coward]

... I guess that they'd be agnostic ...

correlation is not causation

[ClioCJS]

More black children are fatherless in america than white children. I guess being white makes people more likely to take care of children in their family, then?

Maybe secular people in Israel are discriminated against, since it's a religious state. You haven't really proven anything, you've just provided a correlation.

Re:correlation is not causation

[TheLoneCabbage]

Religious people in Israel are discriminated against, because it's the secular 70% that dominate the country.

20% of the population is Russians, who are secular thanks to a century of communism.

20% of the population is Muslim, who is religious or not is to complicated to get into.

5% is Christian or other.

60% is ethnically Jewish. Of that, 70% keep any kind of affiliation or cultural identity (ie 30% eat piggy). 1/2 have family meals on the holidays. And 1/3 (of the 60%) choose to keep "all" of the laws and customs.

  The proportion of people who claim regular "church" visits, is less than the USA. In fact, Israel is the only place in the world where rabbinic financial arbitration has no force of law. There are religious aspects of the gov't that definitely exceed American standards for separation of church and state, but would be comparatively mild compared to British standards (the Israeli gov't structure is inherited from the Brits).

Calling Israel a religious state is pushing it.

In any case, the study has been peer reviewed (positively) in top Journals. The data was collected and analyzed according to scientifically accepted standards.

i've heard that

[ClioCJS]

And yet I see tons of SubGenius stuff, and have been to several great events too. Meanwhile, I see nothing about discordianism anywhere, other than the occasional person who mentions it when CotS is mentioned. What do discordians *do*? do they exist? Where's their art mines? Where's their radio shows? Where's the website? How do you get ordained? Can you get legally set up to marry people by being a discordian, like you can be being a subgenius?

History as it really was....

[sgt_doom]

Yup, good citizen ClintJCL, I remember the old days. Abe's father would come home after another hard day carving one of the 1,000 gods worshipped at the time, and bemoan:

"Abe, oh, Abe! If only there were one god. It would make the business of stone-cutting sooooo much easier!"

Abraham....always the dutiful son.....

Re:What, no scientology?

[Nicolay77]

I think you need to be more specific, like:

Significant Whitespace is the most moronic feature of any language!

Re:What, no scientology?

[dword]

Well true :P
But I was hoping to get modded Funny or Flamebait... guess it didn't work, which means I was wrong. It was just a test. 123. Testing. 123.

Interesting look on JEWTUBE.COM for "Jew Join KKK"

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, Chris Johnson is the Grand Dragon (is it)? The KKK was originally a gentlemans' club that aimed to keep the negros out of their side of society, primarily interracial marriage and study. Summary checks out as being in adhoration of Yeshuah (the Christ) from the House of Judah. KKK as I've known it didn't seem entirely like that scholastically as a whole, but still applicable; it looked more like a bunch of men angry about how such-and-such relative in their kin married out of their race into a nasty culture they want no common ground with and so they assert their separation by intelect and custom. The "negro" as they call them have actually been proven to be more racist than even whites, so far as legislating inverse racism. That corporation Antidefamation League is the same thing, but they are mostly Jewish; to which the KKK being in strict adhoration of the non-Jewish (Torah Hebrews) Christ from the House of Judah would say that all from the Synagogue of Shatan are Jews (adhering to the Talmud and San Hedrin far back as Mount Sainai below Moses). There is a common mis-conception that Jews are from Judah. Jews came out of Babylon. Jews are not Judean.

Re:What, no scientology?

[clone53421]

IcompletelyagreeinfactIthinktheEnglishlanguageshouldfollowthatruletoo!

Ruby is Mormonism

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a good reason for this? (beyond the faith of the original author)

If Programming Languages Were Religions

[nurb432]

There would be 'geekwars' with digital carnage all over the place.

The only use of religion is to justify burning your neighbors villages to the ground.

Delphi

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle?