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Patron Saint of the Internet
Quite a number of people have been writing with the news that the Catholic Church is considering naming a patron saint of the Internet. The strongest current contender is St. Isisdore, an 8th century Spanish saint, with is created with making one of the first databases - a 20 volume encyclopedia.
Damn.....now religion is putting it's soiled hands upon our pristine enviroment? Is nothing sacred?
How about Our Lady of the IP Network? Would this make cracking a sin? Can we start an inquisition agains Windoze lusers? CONVERT! CONVERT!
Actually _every_ day celebrates the memory of a saint. Most days celebrate the memory of several saints, so there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, commemorated over the ages.
-Dean
Case in point, prostitutes. Prostitutes do wonderful things for society, yet am I correct in thinking the church isn't overjoyed by them? Yet for a couple of quid (pounds), a bloke (as it generally is) is satisfied (for a while), and doesn't get overcome by his feelings of lust/natural desires that he has to rape some (almost) defenceless person (possibly a girl so young as to almost be a child)?!?!?
Anyway, I wouldn't say indulging in the fantasy is indulging in the bad thought, I would say actually going out and following/stalking/raping the TV star would be indulging (and I agree wrong).
You mention double-standards, but it seems as though the church has more of them than me!
Man, I must appear like some kind of anti-religious nut!
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
Hmm... I should have expected that you would say that (about fantasizing). :-) Indeed, we are getting into a somewhat controversial topic, and I am sure the majority of people would agree with your viewpoint that fantasizing "helps" release sexual pleasure. At least one of my friend (a devout Catholic youth) used to think so too. And I would be lying if I were to say I never fantasize, although nowadays I try my best to avoid having such thoughts at all.
:-)
But the fact that many people think it is alright doesn't mean it is right. "Release" becomes an excuse, and while for many people, they could still somewhat control themselves before going too far, but for many others, sexual fantasies lead them to a slippery slope.
St. Maria Goretti (11 years old) was murdered by Alessandro (19 years old) when she refused Alessandro's rape attempt. Maria was pure at heart, while Alessandro was full of impure thoughts... his room was full of pornographical magazines and posters... Impure thoughts and pornography, as illustrated in this tragedy, are not releases, but rather, fuel to Alessandro's sexual desire to the point that he tried to rape little Maria, and when she refused, he stabbed her 14 times and left her to die. Would he even had thought of raping her had he not been mesmerized and his moral desensitized by pornography?
Regarding prostitutes: The Church does not shun them. (At least we shouldn't.) There are quite a few canonized saints who were once prostitutes before their conversion. The most famous of all is probably St. Mary Magdalen, the Penitent. You might know her story in the Bible: She was nearly stoned to death when the Pharisees caught her in the very act of adultery. When they brought her to Jesus, Jesus asked them whoever has no sin can cast the first stone. The Pharisees hesitated and finally escaped one by one. Jesus then forgave her sin, and said, "Go now in peace, and sin no more." From then on, St. Mary Magdalen left her old sinful way of life, and became a devout follower of Jesus. Just like Jesus had loved her unconditionally, St. Mary Magdalen pour out her love for God too.
Prostitution is sin... but, we hate the sin and love the sinner. In many aspects, prostitutes are victims of our society.
I don't think the Church is being double-standard in this regard. The Church is rather consistent, actually, and some would even say, "radical or "extreme". Raping is wrong, that we all know. Premarital sex? Why not? It is just casual fun, right? Fantasizing about sex is a sin? You've gotta be kidding! And yet, the Church is not budging to public pressure. Afterall, the Church cannot teach against what Jesus taught us: "Whenever a man look upon a woman with lust, he has already commited adultery with her in his heart."
Yes, I realize that perhaps over 90% of Slashdot readers would disagree with what I wrote above. However, to me, to my family, and to many of my friends, Jesus' teaching make perfect sense.
Anthony
P.S. Well, there are lots of people who are anti-religious, so if you are indeed one, you are not alone. However, I do hope that you were just kidding about being an anti-religious nut.
Alessandro was twisted anyway (must have been to rape). The pornography didn't twist him. He was already twsited and was then drawn towards pornography, etc.
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
If the Catholic "intellectuals" were so enlightened, why did the Catholic Church take until the early 1990s to finally admit that its persecution of Gallileo was wrong?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As a recovering Catholic, I am encouraged to see the Church trying to look forward (albeit through ancient rose-colored glasses) rather than ignorantly overlooking the importance of the net or labeling it a fad or wose still - the vehicle of Satan.
:)
I'll have to admit I was quite surprised by this. I was rather expecting a condemnation of the Internet as a vile tool of Satan rife with pornography and atheism.
Also, let's all take joy in the fact that Jerry Falwell has not discovered push technology.
"Shove down throat" technology perhaps.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Are they serious?
Isn't this that same institution that burned Bruno alive at the stake for making the highly heretical statement that the stars were actually Suns and not pinholes in heaven?0
What's next? Are they going to make Penzias and Wilson saints for verifying the Big Bang theory by measuring the cosmic background radiating in 1963?
Just what we need, an anti-reason millenia old institution bestowing their seal of approval on technology.
This may get interesting. The church of Rome will declare one Saint and then Microsoft will declare it to be a false saint. The evil minions of MCSEs and MCSDs will line up behind MS. It will be another Great Schism ...
Could be fun to watch though...
-Subotai
"The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into the tiger's den."
Why don't you go down to the local zoo and watch two male monkeys go at it, then tell me that 'natural law' (as created and defined by man) fit's into that.
I'm not sure that the Catholic Church would approve of some of the rituals I've seen:
1. Sacrificing AOL disks to the god of Packet Storms
2. Chanting the names of great hackers to ensure that code will compile without errors.
3. Building a shrine to the god of Greater Bandwidth entirely out of MSN CD-ROMs.
4. Imploring the High Priestess of IT for a larger disk quota.
5. Daemon processes. 'Nuff said.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
I'll agree with that ==> This is not the place for a spiritual debate. I just wanted to clarify your cute, but incomplete sig line.
Don't know about god.com, but god.net is for sale (the bidding is at 100K and counting), so the word god isn't on the list of 'prohibited' domain names.
Hmm. God for sale. How ironic.
paul
Silly Rabbit, sigs are for kids.
You're right, pleasure isn't a requirment, but instinct is. For most mammals, pleasure is what motivates the instinct.
A few seconds?? Obviously you have a control problem.
St Christopherus keeps your car from crashing,
St IGNUcius your computer..
The problem with birth control is that it separates sex from the act of creating new life. This goes against natural law. This is also the problem with homosexual relations (note: the Church doesn't say homosexual inclinations are evil, it says homosexual relations are wrong). This is ALSO the problem with abortion.. Please don't try to tell me that you honestly think sex was intended for pleasure (that just happens to be a wonderful side effect :). -- A practicing Roman Catholic
-- Ace
St. Claire of Assisi is television's patron saint. Apparently she was gravely ill during a mass she wished to attend. As she lay in her bed, she saw a vision of the church service projected onto her wall. This was, of course, back in the 13th century, before they had RealVideo.
Trippy.
Heck, if the Catholic Church wants to its point
hat into the ring. Sure!
I bless you in the name of
the motherboard
the daughter card and
the holy web post!
Actually, the image boost would be helpful.
Plus the good vibes.
When your server meets the bloat code of the
Microsoftalypse, who are you gonna call?
St. Torvalds
Arch Bishop Malda?
Good God! IT'S THE BISHOP!
My sig's praire for $.02
oh you're no fun!
Well the church is even more aggressive spreading their software than RMS..
Actually the patron saint of students is St. Joseph Coupertino (spelling?)
-- Ace
Try www.god.org, www.god.net, and www.god.ca. They all exist, and I'm sure there's others....
---Jason
Not possible. He was gay.
Another License - CPL? :-)
Socrates (who is arguably the true father of Western culture and way of thinking) was an agnostic --he did not believe in the Olympian gods and was searching for a 'god' but mostly, he spoke of man-as-God.
I say unto you, check thy facts and thy history. Read the Apology of Socrates.
I quote:
"This you must recognize, the god has commended me to do. And I think that no greater good has ever befallen you in the state than my service to the god. For I spend my whole life in going about and persuading you all to give your first and greatest care to the improvement of your souls, and not till you have done that to think of your bodies or your wealth."
Socrates was very religious. (And I have no clue where you got this, man-as-god BS.)
Let us praise God. O Lord,...
Ooh, You are so big,...
so absolutely huge.
Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.
Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying, and...
But You are so strong and, well, just so super.
Amen.
kinda cool that everything is evolving to keep up with the internet.... too bad we can't name a god or two of the internet for the greek/roman cultures..
Anyone interested in looking up patron saints should try saints.catholic.org -- it contains an index of the officially-recognized patron saints, plus some good background information.
I will quote their explaination of patron saints here:
Some things to note -- the news article simply mentioned a popular movement to have the Vatican declare St. Isidore the patron saint of the Internet. These popular movements happen all the time within the Roman Catholic Church. Some receive official approval, some do not.
Of course, any Catholic (or anyone else) can request the intercession of any saint in any matter. No one needs to wait for Vatican approval.
Personally, while I can see why St. Isidore would show an interest in the Internet, there are some other saints I would nominate:
Who has http://www.god.com ?
In this case "natural law" means ethical arguments with no reference to any sort of divine revelation . Its a sort of "empirical" or "real world" form of argument often favoured by defenders of Catholic doctrince because, at least in theory, the arguments are developed in a way that should be acceptable to any reasonable person, as opposed to a believer. So, the definition of natural law doesn't provide much of a foothold in attacking these sorts of doctrines, the real fight has to take the arguments on one at a time (which is often were the real fun begins anyway.)
--Paul
I bless your computer, my child!
The problem with birth control is that it separates sex from the act of creating new life.
The real problem with birth control is that if you use it correctly, you don't have kids. But if you don't use it, and it's 'bad', you have lots of kids. Then, because of blind faith, you teach this idiocy to your kids which you've had lots of, because you didn't believe in birth control. And they have lots of kids later. And they teach their kids this stupid idea, so you have lots of grandkids.
It doesn't matter if you live in a third world nation with starvation, monsoons, or poverty. All that matters if you have lots of children, even if it means that your quality of life and your children's quality of life sucks. All that matters is that you produce lots of people for souls to get into heaven.
That tithing thing has nothing to do with it.
Lets name our own patron saint of the internet. Well, i guess we'd have to name a few saints first... Cybersaints.. Pascal comes to mind, any others?
I'm probably the 20th person to say this, but I thought Linus already WAS the patron saint of the Internet... ;-)
Gimmie a break. How about giving birth control a swing before we time warp all the way into the 90's and the Internet?
www.jackasscritics.com
He deserves the credit more than anybody, and especially more than good ol' Al "Father of the Internet" Gore!
And we _all_ know that if anything needs a patron saint right now, it's the Internet. An omnipotent God just doesn't cut it when the backbone goes down. We need somebody who really cares.
(All in the name of good humor, folks. :) )
How many times have folks beckoned to their creator in the hope that it might somehow bring a server back up, or clear network congestion, or even ensure that a cable is not too short to reach the FRAD (or whatever)?
Being able to get a patron saint medal that can be stuck to the front of a server isn't a bad idea at all, IMHO. Seriously, most sysadmins can use all the help they can get!
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
What about Al Gore?
_______
2B1ASK1
Al Gore invented the internet. Get it straight.
Okay, all silliness aside, Torvalds had nothing to do with the invention of the internet. That happened before he was conceived, as a matter of fact.
Saying that the Catholic church is now what it was hundreds of years ago is like saying that Latin and Church Latin are the same thing. They are not.
The internet, as well as many other things are a result of human inginuity. Clearly not all people believe this, but I believe that human inginuity is not something we made, but something we were given. I am confident you will disagree with me, and I throroughly don't mind at all.
How long has there been a Vatican Political agenda. Not long, the Vatican has not been a soverign nation until this century. This has been very good. It has made some official separation between the Italian political arena and the Church. Clearly, after hundreds of years of the Roman Catholic Church, it will be a while before the Italian part has a chance to fade. The Catholic Church is OLD. When you have been around long enough, people will sometimes do really dumb things. This is no exception. I hope that other people are more forgiving of your decision making, than you are of organized religion.
I am not exacly sure why I responded...knee jerk reatcion I guess. Not so much the aspect of faith, but the historical half-truths and bitter spin you put on the topic. Clearly, your convictions are deep-seated and I am not trying to "win you over." I'm just thinking and letting my fingers click away until I feel better.
This is Slashdot; you can do that.
This list got buried in the thread hierarchy, so I was jonesing for my 15 seconds of fame:
St. Marconi of Unlimited Bandwidth
St. Turing the Mystic
St. Hopper of Transubstantiation of Bugs
St. Ada the Inscrutable
St. Stallman of Hoofed Mammals
St. Torvalds the Flightless
and from Jimhotep:
St. Tesla the Enabler
See for yourself.
St. Isidore's already listed.
So? St. Mary of Magdala was a prostitute, and they canonized her. (At least, I think she's a saint. There are about a gazillion different Marys in the Bible. I might be confusing her with a different one).
Just wondering.
Jaculatoria....
San isidro de Sevilla, sabio y escritor, Que mi correo no traiga un virus destructor...
And the road goes ever on....
Well... i do know that there are a couple of things that are necessary before one becomes cannonized...
The miracles are probably pretty easy to take care of. Anyone who can understand kernel level code obviously has some divine powers...
but they also have to be dead, and i dont think that anyone wants to make linus a martyr right now.
Now Bill Gates... maybe if we sacrificed him....
... hi bingo
It should be St. Vidicon of the Cathode...
Unfortunatly I'm drawing a blank as the the series of books that's from, or what the real anme of the character was.
...the expanses of cyberspace allow plenty of room for God while simultaneously making it quite simple for you to ignore religious material which you find objectionable. Admittedly, I find the idea of an Internet patron saint a wee bit silly. But I find it very difficult to believe that you'll encounter any palpable attempts at 'indoctrination' if the Vatican were to go ahead with this. :)
:) While not a Catholic myself and more recently in history being descended from German Protestants, I know I do.
It's all too easy to bring up the Church's missteps throughout the centuries, but these are human errors, some graver than others. That they were wrongly committed in the name of God does not repudiate the value of the religion's message or its true core doctrines, IMHO. And for centuries the concept of personal freedom was largely unknown to the masses who knew only the Church as the starting and ending points of most aspects of their lives. I think for far too long religion got bogged down in the details of things like the Bible, a fascinatingly confusing document which led to the justification for all sorts of terrible deeds. Recently there have been shifts away from organized religions to "personal faith", a more direct connection to one's deity of choice. A lot of right-wing fundamentalist Christian groups emphasize this, as a result of their disillusionment with Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, etc. etc.
All that aside, today you and I have the freedom to cheerfully ignore religion or complain about it as we see fit. That freedom comes from the labors of generations of our ancestors, Christian, Jew, Muslim, or none of the above. While acknowledging the fact that organized religions have made mistakes, their importance should not be so wantonly dismissed. While I am a Christian (Lutheran specifically), I'm quite liberal, and if you want to be a heathen, hey, that's fine with me. I wonder if the fierce reprisals against religion are because the online demographics are much different than the real world...i.e., a higher concentration of agnostics and atheists in the online population. Who knows?
I would also not be surprised (if you are Caucasian) if you owe your existence to the 'Catholic heritage' at some point way back in history.
What both of you have ignored is that the Catholic Church doesn't condemn anal sex between husband and wife, nor does it condemn oral sex between husband and wife. This would seem to divorce an act of sex from procreation.
Please do not claim I am wrong in this either. I nearly became a priest, before I became an atheist. It was common practice to engage in anal sex in the Middle Ages to prevent pregnancy.
[FLAME]
Now go do something more useful, you lamer!
[/FLAME]
:)
Possibly they should consider the REAL St. Linus. He does exist, he has been mentioned during some masses I have attended. If memory serves I believe he was one of the first "deacons" or people who helped to spread the news of Jesus and what He stood for and what-not. I would link to www.catholic.org's page for St. Linus but i believe it is down. Maybe a google cached link somewhere will have it.
---
Isidore was not the 1st encyclopedia compiler.
Pliny the Elder was the known 1st encyclopedia compiler in the European setting. Isidore's work is regarded inferior to Pliny's in quality and quantity. And there are some Chinese candidates for the title "The 1st Encyclopedist", let alone other civilizations, though I believe that title must go to D'Alembert & Diderot.
Now I wonder, what happened to BBC writers' and editors' intelligence. When had this decline bagun?
We appointed a new saint as well, and quite a while ago - St. Beuno, patron saint of computer technicians and the like.
Pope Lx Streetmentioner
There is room for ANYBODY ANYWHERE on the internet. You don't want religion to have a presence on the internet. So, stemming from that, we should censor out all beliefs present on web pages and such. You can't start separating out what should and shouldn't be on the internet. Maybe people don't want your God-forsaking atheism to violate their surfing time. Did you ever take that into consideration?
And no arguments that there are other places and other times for religion. Because there are other places and other times for atheism as well: the public schooling system.
And anyways, just because some organization says that they're going to name someone as the protector of all who travel the 'info superhighway', doesn't mean you have to observe that naming, or wear a medallion or anything.
Why would anyone want to touch a girl's butt? That's where cooties come from! -Bart
Hey, isn't Dogbert the patron saint of something? I have blown-up of that cartoon around here somewhere!!
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
What's next, naming Judas the Patron Saint of Microsoft?
"There has been no official statement from Rome ... "
This is very signifigant. Unless there is an official statement from Rome, this is just a rumor. I'm not saying it won't happen.. I'm just saying that it's not definite yet. At all.
-- Ace
> The church is trying to embrace modern technology, when it can't get rid of it's old,
:-)
out-of-date, nonsensical values.
Sounds pretty Microsoft..
Hmm.. if Bill buys him popehood, he could
declare Windows infailible
I suppose that the renascence and enlightenment which gave birth to modern science just came out of nowhere -- a complete freak of history which occurred in spite of centuries of catholic-inspired anti-intellectualism. Western science, mathematics, technology, computers and the internet could just as easily have come out of Hindoo, Bhuddist or Animist cultures.
This pleasant little fantasy seems to be popular among those who can't stomach the fact that their precious computers would not exist were it not for the intellectual foundation laid down and preserved by Jewish/Christian/Moslem religions. Take a history of science course and come back when you know something.
>Oh dear God no
Does anyone else see the irony in your calling on God for help in order to slam Him?
>There's is no room for God here.
I didn't realize that was in the InterNET ByLaws(tm). I'm so glad you've taken it upon yourself to tell us all the rules.
Why not???
The patron saint of the blue screen perhaps?
The Internet is so vastly huge that it needs at least TWO patron saints. One for the even bits and one for the odd bits. (and perhaps a third for the extremely odd bits)
You are sooooooo dumb.
What purpose does open discussion serve? If folks believe in something, let them believe.
Brainwashed? If you believe that 1.1 billion people have been brainwashed and that you're not, you need to take a very hard look at your reality. EXAMPLE: Tear up a $100 bill. I mean into a thousand, untapeable pieces. Go ahead, right now. You won't, because you BELIEVE it's worth something.
You're as "brainwashed" as anyone else, my friend.
As for Windoze, say what you will. To the winner goes the spoils. That's capitalism. If Red Hat or someone else can wrest control, great! In 10 years others will be complaining about the lack of choice in Linux, and how much BETTER OSDEJURE is because it's cool because it's not as popular as the fascist Red Had.
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
I'm the admin. for a machine that is a list server for a dozen lists. When the worm.explore thing hit I didn't want the lists possibly helping to propagate it; so on Sunday I hacked together a program to filter out .exe attachments from mailing lists. Then, there was a security hole (another one) that was discovered in Sun's statd and I had to deal with that.
Needless to say, I am very pleased at this initiative. All I would need to do is light a candle to St. Isidore to cleanse and protect me from the nasty little viruses, trojan horses and security holes that are clearly the work of
Satan.
Hell, the Vatican was ahead even of the Discordians on this one.
All hail St. Isidore!
Er, no, not unless you haven't checked in about a decade...
Last count: ~ 5.7 Billion
Ergo, % RCC = ~ 19.3%
...which is still a heck of a lot of folks.
Ethnocentricity has no place on the internet? Who's saying that there is any? If the RCC says St. So-and-so is now the patron of the Internet, would it change the Net any more than the "Our Lady of the Highways" shrine changes the Jersey Turnpike? (read: it doesn't)
I don't think so.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Alas, the canonisation of St Jon the creator has been lost in the Postel.
(Collapses into hysterical laughter)
... and today's pet project has
no we dont, but it can make you feel better.... :)
if the Vatican offends you, just pray to BOB, or Discordia, Cthulhu, etc...
it's all in good fun...
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
The Bibles are man-made. But the content isn't.
1) "May all your segmentation faults be benign"
2) "That'll be 20 Hail Marys and 5 lines of assembly code"
3) "Thou shall not covet thy cubicle neighbor's video card"
4) "And God shall smite thee by sending a power surge through your CPU"
5) "God is compassionate, my child...everyone is tempted by the Fruit of the Tree of Microsoft once or twice"
6) "And Apple begat Macintosh, Macintosh begat the PowerMac, and PowerMac begat iMac..."
7) "And on the Seventh Day, Torvald created Linux. And Torvald saw that it was good.
-
Yes, but St. Mary of Magdala _repented_ and quit being a prostitute. Christianity doesn't require you do be perfect from cradle to grave. The keyword is _forgiveness_
(Sadly, too many Christians loose sight of that.)
Say that too fast, and it sounds like "Stalin" :)
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Anyway, this is the wrong place for a spiritual debate.
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
I've never taken a history of science course, but I see some flaws in your reasoning:
You neglect the influence of the ancient Greeks on those religious cultures, and on modern cultures despite the religions.
You imply that the religions are responsible for the intellectual foundation of Western society. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say the church scholars are responsible for it? It is the nature of those who would choose that life to treasure knowledge and history, regardless of religious teachings. With religion so dominant, where do you think academic-minded people would gravitate?
Now consider this, where is the scientific method in this religious tradition?
If the catholic church were to declare a patron saint for the internet, that means the church either does not understand the internet, or that there may be hope yet for it to become less of a conservative patriarchal hierarchical institution.
Who says she was a prostitute? She was supposedly unmarried. You are getting popular interpretation mixed up with fact.
I'm sure the sexual practices (and other lifestyle choices) of Saints have little to do with their Sainthood. We know basically nothing about how most of them lived. There were no tabloid magazines back then to expose every detail of private life.
Why is everyone forgetting the only one St. Postel ?
Actually, there *is* a patron saint for cars -- at least, there is for hot rodders: St. Christopher. He is featured in many Robt. Williams paintings and many rodders, regardless of religious affiliation, display the St. Christopher cross from their rearview mirror.
I wonder if he'll see this post...
-=================================-
"Computers are mighter than the pen, sword and usually the programmer."
since when does one gain sainthood for crappy perl programming?
Oh, sure, they claim it's Japanese for "hope," but we know better...
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
"Ethnocentricity has no place on the internet."
Eh? Not to speak up as a big proponent of the RCC, but it really is anything but ehtnocentric in this day and age. The Church spans the globe from Europe to the Americas to Asia to Africa. Most of the new priests are coming from India, the Phillipenes, and central Africa. The Church is anything BUT ethnocentric.
Now, if you want to accuse them of forcing their values on people through violence and torture for thousands of years, that's another story. I wouldn't call that "ethnocentric," I guess it could be "religiocentric" (or possibly "megalomanical" YMMV). The RCC embraces all people of all nations, as long as you tow the philosophical line of the Church. (Much like the Democratic and Republican parties, in that respect...)
(Some accuse them of forcing "Western" values on everyone, but since I see "Western" values nowadays as a love for science and technology and a desire to make a lot of money, I don't see that either...)
Jer (posting as an AC 'cause my password's not here grrr...)
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pst00813.htm
...was the candidate who appeared in two places simultaneously, as certified by three witnesses.
It seems to me that anyone capable of witnessing such a feat should have an equal claim to the spot.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yeah, you are _some_ product inspite of Catholic heritage. You got that one right !!!
Really? The vatican doesn't appear to have a ftp.vatican.[net|va] site at all...
The only two machine which have an FTP service on them both give back:
555-You are not permitted to use the ftp operation.
555-Please contact your system administrator.
555-
555
Now I don't know what OS they're using on their WWW server, but it's running Netscape Enterprise server.
You might, of course, mean either vatican.org or vatican.com, neither of whihc has anything to do with the Holy See.
Even their search doesn't say anything about Linux, although it does mention Compaq and Altavista... And gives some mighty weird junk back if you simply ask it for the HEADer of '/'...
Sorry for pissing on your fire, and all.
Meanwhile, Isidore (Soon to be known, I hope, as Izzy), only gets a mention in the footnotes of Vatican II, in relation to the celibacy of the preisthood.
Saints htons() and htonl().
They will save us from the mess Intel left with us, and allow the Internet to spread the gospel of bigendianess.
I got there from kernel.org's list of mirrors ... I never actually checked, but kernel.org does say "Vatican City" - ftp.va.kernel.org
Not sure if the site is physically located in VC, but it makes sense that it would be.
support gun control: take guns from cops
I got there from kernel.org's list of mirrors ... I never actually checked, but kernel.org does say "Vatican City" - ftp.va.kernel.org
Upon inspection I found that the site is actually hosted in the UK. ???
support gun control: take guns from cops
It might sound crazy, but shouldn't the Patron Saint of the Internet be the man who invented the Internet--Torvalds, Linus Torvalds?
Hm. I can just see Linus introducing himself a-la James Bond: I'm Torvaldus. Linus Torvaldus.
The arch angel Gabriel is the patron saint of Telecommunication,
wouldn't the Internet fall under that?
Out of date? Why? Because it's the 90's? Well, it was the 90's 100 years ago and it will be the 90s in another 100. The church's values are not the point of debate. You're talking about a religious organization that stretches the globe, has 1.1 BILLION adherents, and has existed for nearly 2000 years.
I personally am GLAD the RCC moves slowly. Society needs an anchor, a set of ideals that keep it civilized. Imagine had the church gone pro-eugenics in the 1900s. Many of us would no doubt be dead. (unless you're PERFECT in every possible way. Yeah, right). Et cetera.
The point is that the church is actually very good about keeping up with the times, all things considered. Why NOT a patron saint for the 'Net? It HAS kept up with modern technology... ever go to the Vatican website? Remember the flood of fax machines, computers and other stuff the church smuggled into Poland during the Reagan years?
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
We Catalan netizens already have a patron saintess: Santa Tecla (check http://www.antaviana.com/capella/). Her name, Tecla, means key.
Can someone refresh me on this one?
The arch angel Gabriel is the patron saint of Telecommunication
(really, look it up!) . Wouldn't the Internet fall under his domain?
"by bishop42 (bishop@vatican.rome.it)"...
The Vatican has their own TLD and domain name; vatican.va.
Yup,
The fact Algebra came out the Moslem world is unlikely a freak of nature.
I find it ironic that Newton concluded that being able to describe all physical movement with five simple equations was evidence of God.
Yeah, I think Voodoo is probably the best religion for the Internet. Anyone ever try getting your local telco to test an LDDS without bitching about it? Yeah, Voodoo, for sure.
Before the pope declared birth control wrong in the 60's he made an advisory council (probably of bishops) which actually concluded that birth control was NOT wrong. The pope didn't take the council's advice, however. Also, the Church has made formal mistakes before. For example, the Spanish Inquisition, selling of indulgences, and the placing of Galileo under house arrest for the remainder of his life for saying that the Earth revolved around the sun (holy sh*t, he was right!).
I'm not declaring my stance on birth control here. I'm just saying that nothing is set in stone, not even what the Catholic Church teaches.
--Another practicing roman catholic/linux geek
I mean, we already have a patron saint of the internet, his name is kibo.
...since I haven't seen it posted yet (though, I also haven't read threaded discussions).
2 02.html
Wired has this too, here.
http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/20
Cupertino, as in the headquarters of everyones favorite iMac manufacturer? I guess that explains their marketing push in the early 90s... :-)
Tom Byrum
Err... lemme see: the ancient Greeks developed philosophy and the scientific method (never mind math) mostly as a counterweight to the popular dodecatheon religion --which most scholars of the time did not accept. Pythagoras (he of the theorem) went too far in that respect by accepting arithmetic as god-like, with certain numbers being more 'magical' than others (3, 7, 9, etc).
Socrates (who is arguably the true father of Western culture and way of thinking) was an agnostic --he didnot believe in the Olympian gods and was searching for a 'god' but mostly, he spoke of man-as-God.
The Arabs invented algebra also as a means to a 'magic', in the old alchemistic quest for the touchstone. Magic is, almost by definition, a negation of religion, a search for a super-power that anybody can use.
The Jews have their own mystical-magical respect in Judaism, the kabalah, which to me seems very Pythagorean-like, with letters in the place of numbers. It's out of the kabalah that many modern 'beliefs' come from, like '666' as the sign of the beast, etc.
If you look closely, I think you will find that true scientific and social progress has not been made because of the belief in any one religion but because of doubt, questioning and the search for God, for a higher or deeper meaning.
Just ask Copernicus.
Isn't Bill Gates the online saint?
:)
www.god.com? Heaven is a commercial organization? Guess that explains where all the cash I've dropped into collection plates over the years has gone ;-)
Spokesman for the Catholic Media Office Tom Hallwood said: "There are patron saints of many things, so why not let the Internet have one?
Oh dear god no. I'm happy being a heathen without further indoctrination from a fucking organised religion as Catholicism which has traditionally been responsible for the alientation, persecution of many people advocating doctrines which did not fall with in the Vatican's political agenda.
There is no room for God here. We're a product in spite of the Catholic heritage certainly not as a result of it. If I want to pray it sure as hell will not to be what I am told is permissable by a body which murdered and desicrated scientists, philosophers, astronomers, witches...
I recant!
BLAMMO shaken not stirred
It might sound crazy, but shouldn't the Patron Saint of the Internet be the man who invented the Internet--Torvalds, Linus Torvalds?
I think Christopher Stassheff's "Patron Sain of Computer Operators" from his novels fits the bill.
What the matter that he will not be born for a couple of more decades.
NRRPT/RCT
http://www.cet.middlebury.edu/herren/pages/satan.h tml
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
> I think the question is better as why? What purpose will it serve?
Good question. I can't answer that either, but it is something to think about. For me, the saint's life will remind me and make me reflect on what I am doing on the Internet, and help me search for knowledge and do the Right Thing(TM) according to God's will.
Anthony :-)
:-)
(Practising Catholic and a Debian semi-developer.
Check out Our Lady of Victory Camp Home Page!
Patron Saints have usually been assigned to a persons' position in life (St. Thomas Aquinas for students) or some kind of a problem to pray for (St. Jude for lost causes)
There isn't a patron Saint for TV or automobiles.. Is this patron Saint for the Internet really true? Do we really need to pray for guidance from the Lord when MCI is having network probelms?
I don't know the details of European history, but in the case of Henry VIII, he was starting his own Church of England for very selfish reasons (e.g. to divorce his wives and to remarry), and he killed many people who opposed him, even his own former Lord Chanceller Sir Thomas More (now a saint). The "court" cut Thomas' head off and put it on top of the London Bridge for all to see. Henry VIII was an outright tyrant, and you tell me that the Pope was at fault?
Anthony Fok
It is a good idea and might be able to help us all when we are about to crash.
How absurd. Try using Apache, instead.
Linux: Because rebooting is for adding new hardware.
Kibo??
And for that matter, Legba?
Though I suppose Isidore is appropriate for his accomplishments. Glad to see the Vatican is more techno-savvy than the extreme right-wing.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
... get a good grip, we're going for a ride!
great line by Tom Waits. He's gone on tour again, and is better than ever.
the AntiCypher
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
90's? try the 1900's first, then work up to the 90's.
Honestly, a patron saint of the internet? OK, and the point of this is what exactly?
_______________________
All Bibles are man-made
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
Finally the Patron of Free Software Movement!!!
he he he
rockzmanila
In fact, since we humans have no bone in our
penis, pleasure is prerequisite to procreation.
Pleasure creates erection, erection makes
procreation possible.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just a little
backwards in your argument.
pleasure is *not* a side-affect of sex. It's the
other way around.
The church has no idea what peril they are entering; they live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that they should voyage far. Sending your prayer packets to this so-called "St. Isisdore" only helps to draw attention to both the source and destination addresses.
"But whose attention?" you ask. Well, perhaps it would be better to ask "What's attention?" There are impossibly ancient hungers that lurk out there, furtively waiting in the dark until the comm satellites are right. And when the time comes, it will be both swift and agonizingly slow at the same time. A swift tentacle probing here, a ping packet there, and then you will be beset by the true horror: Shub-Internet, the black beast of the 'Net with a thousand bastard processes!
We already have a patron ... thing. (I guess calling it a "saint" wouldn't quite be right, huh?) Better to leave well enough alone, and pray (quietly to yourself, where nothing can snoop your prayer) that the dawn of Its era comes long after you are safely in the grave.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Did you all know that? the first time I saw that, it freaked me out.
It's funny to tell newbies they can download the latest linux kernel from the vatican's ftp site.
support gun control: take guns from cops
I was not able to fit the whole post in the Reply form (how do you do that?). For now here is an excerpt, but it well worth the effort fetching the original article from UseNet:
-Eos (goddess of dawn): goddess of the bootstrap processes (lilo, Drive A:, BootManager, boot.ini, IO.SYS, etc).
-Nyx (goddess of night): goddess of shutdown -h, screen blanking, and Jolt.
-Morpheus (god of dreams): god of vaporware.
-Muses (nine sisters, goddesses of respective arts and sciences): goddesses of Yahoo, and related Internet directories; goddesses of multimedia and multimedia plugins.
-Hestia (goddess of the hearth): goddess of servers and standalone units; patron of proxy servers and (with Aesculapius, see below) firewalls.
-Titans (various important, antecedant gods): Ada, Babbage, Turing, Hopper (goddess of _software_ programming**), Thompson, Kernighan & Ritchie, GHades (giving the devil his due), and many more.
-Ares (god of destructive war): god of flamers and flaming; also, patron god of all that is M$; god of Doom, Quake, etc.
-Pan (god of flocks & shepherds): god of NNTP; also, along with Demeter, protects databases; patron god of tarballs and PKWare.
-Hymen (first name, "Buster"; god of marriage): patron of device drivers; god of application suites (MS Office, Corel WP suite, StarOffice, etc.); god of Java.
-Eris (goddess of strife & discord--she began the Trojan War): another patron of Usenet; goddess of software copyright infringement. li>-Priapus (god of fertility): god of Internet; patron of the viruses that work by loading up one's ha unending Usenet strings and cascades; god of software bloat; god of AOL & MSN disks.
-Hermes (messenger of the gods, also, patron of thieves, highwaymen, and, I believe, of commerce): god of spam.
-Athena (goddess of wisdom, and all that is noble in war): (with Tux)Linux; patron goddess of GNU.
-Aesculapius (born mortal, deified as god of Medicine): patron god of Unix gurus; god of UPSs, spike protectors, firewalls, etc.
-Chaos: god of random # generators; patron of trolls; god of Error 404.
Are there saint for the other technological revolutions? Such as the steam engine?
...why does one Onion article come to mind?
Perhaps the Church is merely coping with its relative marginalization from the glory days of when it had serious power in the temporal realm as well as serving as a spiritual influence...
Because Stallman's already an arch-angel, complete with halo.
I can't recall the number of times I've been asked how to fix something telco related (anyone here ever deal with Ascend products?) - my favourite reply: "Wave a dead chicken in the air and paw through some goat entrails. Should fix it right up." (although I got a nasty look when I recommended this to the head of a Catholic school :)
VooDoo all the way!
By the way, if you want to talk about the existance of our "precious computers" being thanks to moslo-judeo-christiano-bullshito, please don't forget one important fact of computing history: Alan Turing was a homosexual. Yes, that's right. The man who devised the fundamental concept of computing, the namesake of the Turing Machine, the one whom after the ACM grants it's most prestegious award (the Turing award, or course) was GAY! And, since homosexuality is a capital or near-capital offense to Jew/Christian/Moslem churches we are once again lucky to have what we have NOT because of them, but IN SPITE OF THEM.
BONUS! Bible trivia:
Q: How many people did Satan kill in the Bible?
A: All of Lot's children (After God said he could)
Q: How many people did God kill in the Bible?
A:more than 399,933 (not counting the entire population of the Earth in Noah's time and 3 cities after) PLUS more than 2,017,956 people killed by followers of God (see Why Christians Suck).
Q: Does that jive with what you were told as a child about God being good and Satan being evil?
A: (An exercise left up to the reader)
-- Raven
Taken straight out of the Warlock books, 'Saint Vidicon of Cathode' My vote for patron saint of the Internet, and anything based on the magic of electronics.
;-)
I've a little sticker on my monitor:
'St. Vidicon of Cathode, Pray For Us' to ward off the Imp of the Peverse (sp?) The symbol of the Order of Cathode? A simple orange(?)-handled screwdriver in the breast pocket. I'm not Catholic, but that's one Saint I could handle.
Saint Vidicon of Cathode, Pray For Us
St. Marconi of Unlimited Bandwidth
St. Turing the Mystic
St. Hopper of Transubstantiation of Bugs
St. Ada the Inscrutable
St. Stallman of Hoofed Mammals
St. Torvalds the Flightless
[OBJOKE]
Al Gore was rejected because he isn't Catholic, and even if he gets elected, he'll only have one miracle to claim. [smile] This really seems like joke material. I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1.
[/OBJOKE]
This really seems like joke material. I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1.
All kidding aside, does the internet really need a patron saint? Maybe so. You see, this may actually help some technophobes overcome their instincitve Luddite fear of the net (remember the kids being "talked to" because they admitted to playing DOOM?). The technology can be seen as being "blessed" as it were, by the Vatican.
For its part, the vatican has been keeping tabs on the internet, with a web presense. Actually, only the Church of Scientology comes to mind as being more net savvy, although the stories associated with the Scientologists are usually negative with respect to the net.
The presense of the Vatican may be even more beneficial, as the internet currently has an image problem (maybe rightfully so) as being awash with pornography, weapons how-to's, and other negative things. Its nice to know there is a major organized religion that may actually champion this technology and help get it seen as acceptable for families, etc.
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
The Internet has always produced an overwhelming riot of new connections and fantastic stimulation; it was created in the wake of the Sixties by a bunch of longhairs, among others. Check the Lycaeum for the identity of the plant teacher that our neighbors to the South call "San Ysidro"! ;)
:(
-A very anonymous coward; we're still a very medieval mob, after all
I'm a heathen too, but raised Catholic so I _thought_ I knew all the saints. BAH! After living in Belgium, it turns out that there are at a minimum 52, because every week or 4 days they had another "Saint whoever's" day. Couldn't get any work done.
Posted by The Incredible Mr. Limpett:
:/
WHY?
I think this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Why give anything a "patron saint", so the CHURCH(tm) can proclaim it safe for the world and get a piece of it? So all the WWJD jesus-freak-teeny-boppers will feel all safe and fuzzy whenever they logon? Why can't they just leave well enough alone? I grew up roman catholic and have nothing but contempt for the church and their medieval view of taking over and influencing everything they see In The Name of GOD(tm).
i must be stressed here at work today...
----
"Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a
villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify."
...it cause we wouldnt what to draw attention to /. Shub hasnt seen ( for lack of a better word) us. we must pray, yes pray and hope that.. Shub didnt hear you. now quick moderate this down so Sh^H^Hit doesnt see this...
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
...It's the holy ghostscript.
If 'God' is a collective of all the knowledge in the universe into a single unified omnipotent and omniscient entity, then the only thing that even comes close to 'God' is the internet itself.
As for a 'Saint' for the Internet, that sounds vaguely hypocritical, if not heretical and demeaning to other saints. Not to say that the Net might not deserve it, but the Net is too large an entity to attribute one person as it's patron saint. Saints are reserved for professions and personal achievements and sacrifice on the behalf of others, not for things developed by millions of people who probably had little (formal) religion on their minds when the Net was forged.
If a Patron Saint was named for the Net, it shouldn't necessarily be an ordained clergyman.
This really sounds like a ploy by the Church to take credit for developing a medium of communication that they did their best to destroy.
The Vatican has always had a political agenda. Recall the various fights for power between Popes and German kings, and Henry VIII's fight with the Pope leading to the founding of the Church of England. Popes have always wielded, or attempted to wield, considerable political power, misusing church instruments such as excommunications and threats of bans on any religious worship in a kingdom in order to intimidate their political opponents.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I thought St. Joseph Cupertino was the patron saint of test-takers?
"Hired man... there is a sick girl in my house. I hear the dice being tossed for her bloody dress."
I tried to remember the rest, but I think this says it all.
I always thought Alan Turing should be the patron saint of something, especially given his treatment at the hands of the heathens. The patron saint of decryption, maybe? I'd pray to him each time I download a bunch of keys from distributed.net... "c'mon Saint Turing, daddy needs the $1000 prize!"
Surely he'd be "St. Alan"? It seems that saints tend to be referred to by their first names.