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

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:wow

[Otter]

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

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: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.