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Jesux, Hoax Confirmed
[Dilbert] was the first of many to send us over to the self-evident reality that Jesux was a hoax. Check out the story we did about it for more details. *sigh* I'm glad this whole thing is done with. Note from Roblimo: Thanks to Alert Slashdot Reader Suraj Peiris, we know the true identity of the Jesux perpetrator, but as a courtesy, we're not publishing it - or his real e-mail address or the password he uses on his anonymous e-mail accounts. (Pudge, if you're reading this, you'd better change that password RAW!)
May I ask, since when dose /. cover a joke site (and a pretty funny one), call it a hoax, and harass the authoer of the site? The two refrences to this wsite on /.'s homepage have been quite agressive. I assume this is all because someone with the power to aprove articles got his christian panties in a wad, but this is highly inapropreate and just down right rude. Now, I don't mind harassing some guy who really is making a distro under BSD, since that would violate the GPl, but it was clear that this was a joke.. so the only explination for the hostility in the articles is that someone was offended by this page. Ok, that's fine.. but you shouldn't raise it to the level of making script kiddy threats on /.'s home page.
I just hope the guy who runs this site has some way to cash in on the hits he is recieving now.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
----
Look at the mish-mash of theologies; it was clearly a joke.
Start at the beginning, with the pronunciation--the latun pronunciation of "Jesu" with an "x" sound at the end. Heavy Catholic overtones.
Then look at the theologians for the quotes: C.S. Lewis is one of them. Lewis was one of the "anglo-Catholics" of the Oxford movement. As I recall, he never converted to Catholocism, instead holding out for a Canterbury-Rome reconcilliation, but he--and his theology--were the very last step before outright Catholicsm. As high-church as you can get (for crying out loud, the High King in the Narnia books is named "Peter").
Then read further down the page. Most of the rest is very low-church (e.g., only the KJV), some to positions generally only held by groups that maintain that all Catholics will go to Hell.
It doesn't match. Not that wacko groups are consistant, but the mish-mash shows mutually exclusive groups setting the agenda.
The one thing they did blow is the CPSL--the list of disclaimers should have referred, in the list of potential losses, one's immortal soul and eternal damnation.
Posting his handle and p/w is just childish and in bad taste. If anything was done wrong it was rob's inability to separate reality and humor.
Vindictively posting his private info makes Slashdot the 'bad guys.' Enjoy it guys, you've earned it.
A previous poster noted roblimo's e-mails to the Jesux perpetrator as proof that slashdot tries to confirm stories, and using this as basis for a claim that they are better than zdnet in this regard.
That's absurd. slashdot -did- run the story... as soon as zdnet did. This proves that when it comes down to a choice between journalistic integrity and keeping up with the zdnets, slashdot chooses the latter.
Aside from the hypocritical game of catch-up played with zdnet, the e-mails reveal how rude and arrogant slashdot editors are.
The first letter begins innocently enough, and yet the flaws in roblimo's journalism are apparent immediately. Instead of objectively asking for facts, roblimo makes the immediate assumption that the project is a hoax, and demands proof that it is not. He also shows a complete lack of respect for anything anonymous, despite the fact that many slashdot submissions are anonymous, and this site has always upheld the right of its users and contributors to remain anonymous. (Given the backlash of random hate against Jesux, would -you- have revealed your identity, even if it were real?) He also assumes that an unknown voice giving an unknown name and assurance of the validity of the project will prove that it is for real. It wouldn't have; a phone call saying 'yes, it is real' is no more assuring than an e-mail saying 'yes, it is real.' So why did roblimo want it? He didn't; what he really wanted was contact information. Fortunately, the author wasn't playing his game.
The next letter is even more insulting in its blatant and unreasonable bias towards believing that the project is a hoax. He also hints at something that is expressed more clearly in his final letter.
roblimo closes the communication by inferring for a third time that the project is a hoax. He then proceeds to tell the author that, real or not, he would get nowhere without slashdot's help, and finally breaks down and outright insults him. His reference to 'the worldly attention our site would offer' is hysterical; I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet that more people read zdnet than slashdot. With regard to his closing words ('Real Christians are proud of themselves and do not hide, Satanlike, behind lies'), I do not feel I need to add anything. The incredibly unprofessional and unnecessary insult stands on its own.
And then we have this article. Roblimo tells the world that he -has- dredged up contact information for the author, and that 'as a courtesy,' they are not posting it. 'As a courtesy'? What is 'Your Rights Online' and the continuing existance of Anonymous Cowards all about? So that we can be told that our privacy is a 'courtesy' that will be withdrawn when we don't respond the way a slashdot editor would like?
roblimo's thinly veiled threat to expose the author's contact information and personal passwords is nothing short of disgusting, especially coming on the heels of his insulting e-mails to said author. I don't think that anybody with his outrageous and inexcusable attitude should be the editor of a high school newspaper, much less a high-profile site such as slashdot.
I eagerly await the -1 moderation of roblimo's pals.
The article is clearly taken right from the website with no effort made to confirm anything. Stating as fact, and hinting that the information came as part of an interview. Since when do journalists start writing everything down as fact that they find on websites? The fact that the article itself appeared as "news" isn't testemony to the skill of the hoaxer, but rather to the fact that the editor was too lazy or incompetent to follow up. This goes back to Journalism 101 people.
This is patently false. The Greek New Testament we have today has more reliability as authentic than any ancient other writing, period. The second best is the Iliad, with 1000 years between its writing and our copies of it, and several hundred copies in existence. The Greek NT has just a couple hundred years of difference (with fragments separated by less than one hundred years), and several thousand copies in existence.
And when a new translation comes out (like the NASB, RSV, etc.) it is translated directly from this work, which all historians and paleographers and textual critics know to be very reliable.
There really is no solid footing to say what you've said.
You don't have to believe the Bible. But it is simply wrong to state that our copies of today are not reliable copies of the original text. Feel free to do some research on the subject. Metzger, Bruce M., "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration", Oxford (1991) is an excellent book on the subject.
There's a typo in the link, it should lead to:
http://news.excite.com/news/zd/ 990929/10/jesux-hoax
-Denor
I think that in general, the media should refrain from reporting on hoaxes, because attention is precisely what these people want.
/. reporting on it as a humor topic. As it was, however, it was attempting to be deceptive and trying to get attention throuhg gullibility.
Baseball, for instance, has a policy of never pointing cameras and people who run on to the field. It cut that out really quickly.
Now, before you tell me to cool off, if this guy openly admitted it was a joke, then I would've been perfectly fine with
I'm personally sickened by the trend in Christianity of taking a perfectly good logo/product/etc. and "Christianizing" it. Several good examples:
- The Coca-Cola logo changed to "Jesus Christ" on t-shirts.
- "Testamints" -- nothing more than imitation Altoids.
- "Bible Beanies" -- I think you can figure out what this is an imitation of.
I can actually see somebody creating a "Christian" Linux distro. After all, even the author seems to think that there is a need for it.Sigh.
This seems to say a few things about debate in general, which probably apply to a lot of discussions other than the one this article concerns:
Evil Again.
It would certainly increase the S/N if people did engage the brain a little before posting. Then maybe we wouldn't have had all this kerfluffle over one innocent, and rather obviously satirical, web page.
Thanks to Alert Slashdot Reader Suraj Peiris, we know the true identity of the Jesux perpetrator
Please tell me Roblimo's crusade is just another lame joke.
Scroll down the email responses to the site, and you'll see Robin's correspondence with the hoax guy. It's nice to know that slashdot puts in more time to investigate and verify stories than other sites who fell for it *coughzdnetcoughcough*.
That aside, I find this whole thing to be a big embarassment to Christians like myself. C'mon... Christians have much more important concerns than nitpicking the words "kill" and "daemon" out of a Linux distro.
When I first read the Jesux homepage, the word joke was written in big, shiny letters all over it. But as soon as a journalist jumps on it and gets screwed for not doing his or her homework, then it becomes a hoax and we're supposed to believe all the guillible parties were fooled, while in fact they fooled themselves.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Well, it also used to be considered very impolite to use the term "leg" in polite company, hence the euphemism "drumstick." Given that there are still individuals who feel this way somewhere should we all avoid discussing le... er limbs?
:)
Besides, though the flame wars do not come to a conclusion, and never will, they still serve a useful purpose -- reminding both sides that the other still exists. When you avoid all uncomfortable or inflammatory issues people start believing that everyone agrees with them.
For example, I found the evolution in Kansas thread quite informative. Creationism has advanced significantly since I last encountered it, and was much better represented on slashdot than I ever could have imagined. I find this to be valuable information, even though I was shocked.
If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the thread.
> Jesus still loves him! Except gays, lesbians, those of other religions, abortionists, liberals, filmmakers, and anti-gun lobbyists. If you don't believe me, read the bible.
It's a Linux distribution put together by L. Ron Hubbard.
Looks and works like any other distro, but first you have to give it all of your money.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Well, I'm still working on my own project -- The Blue Steel Distribution. It is a relicensed distribution of FreeBSD targeted at gun owners.
:)
Some features:
root user can set the "safety" mode. This disables rm and a few other commands famous for borking up files.
Contains support for 15-processor SMP. Due to federal restrictions, though, civilians can only get 10-processor support.
"kill" had been replaced by "shoot". You always "shoot" to "kill".
"Revolver" login mode. If you don't get your password right after 6 tries, you have to reboot.
Mouse pointer replaced by crosshairs.
Once you order the Blue Steel Distribution, you must pass a background check and wait five days before you can install it.
Blue Steel Distribution may not be available in all states. You may need a license to carry a laptop loaded with the Blue Steel Distribution.
Note: this post is neither pro-gun nor anti-gun. I don't care if I get flamed, because I had fun writing it. So there.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I'm serious guys -- a lot of people check their brains at the door as soon as the topic of God comes up. It was not (to me, as a serious Bible student training for ministry and someone who spends way too much time at his church) self-evident that this was a hoax. I know many people who believe this -- and stranger still.
Which brings up another question. A lot of the beliefs expressed behind this hoaxical distro were wrong. That's right. Wrong. For example, there is no cause to not use sendmail just because Eric Allman happens to be gay Biblically speaking. Which just goes to show that you can't believe everything that calls itself Christianity.
As with many areas in life, there is no substitute for careful, independent research and careful, independent thought. You can't just pick what you heard some televangelist say on Sunday morning, mix it in with something you vaguely remember from Sunday School when you were five, and label it as Christianity -- you've gotta do the research and decide for yourself.
One of my favorite quotes is from Victorian Christian apologist George MacDonald:
-- Slashdot sucks.
The only thing that sickens me about "Christianized" merchandise is the excessive price tag. Testamints modelling after Velamints, or whatever else is done, could fall under satire or parody if you wanted to think of it that way, or as a lack of originality or "cashing in" if you wanted to think of it another way. To me at least, it's not much different than all the "alternative" T-shirts where they replace a puma logo with "pimp" or anything else you might find at Hot Topic. Heck, skateboard merchandise has been doing the same thing for years. I guess someone could argue the same thing about the linux icthus for the back of your car. Fact is, if an idea sells, you will have people following up trying to cash in, and people who just want to parody it. To say that this is something only Christian companies do is a bit off.