Your apocryphal story about Winston Churchill is a retelling of an actual occurrence...but George Bernard Shaw was the man asking the question of the lady.
Interesting theory. Can you give any particular examples where service improved?
My guess is that you can't, because now the support people are required to know a lot of things that previously they didn't need to know. So a smaller proportion of questions can be answered.
You were responding to me, so I thought you might be responding to one of the things I had said. (Otherwise I didn't see the relevance of your comments about workflow.)
P.S.: Dataflow isn't the same concept as functional languages, either. And functional languages, and parts of language, aren't that rare. E.g., Scala is an essentially functional language implemented on the jvm. (And can call Java easily.)
OTOH, I'll agree that some dataflow architectures could be implemented with or as functional languages. The concept is, I think, nearly orthogonal. (I'll admit that I could be wrong about that. I've only experience with one dataflow language. It wasn't functional, but that could be idiosyncratic. I could be being deceived by terminology, but I don't think so. Pure functional languages date back to the 1950's, and they seem to be a very different concept.)
Dataflow isn't workflow. I'm not certain, but I think you were confused by the similarity of names.
Dataflow architectures basically allow each operation to proceed as soon as all the inputs it requires are ready. In programming one you don't place the order the execution of the steps, you specify which results are needed for which step, and let the compiler figure out how to place in order the steps.
Well, that's oversimplified. In the one example I really worked with you drew connections between the output of one step and the input to another, and you clearly need a way to do something like that. OTOH, that one (Prograf) was running on a Mac LC3, i.e., a uniprocessor system. And it was never designed to handle multi-processor systems. But it clearly had the capability of such an extension.
That said, I'll admit that I found it hard to think in dataflow terms. This is probably because it's rather different from normal sequential thought. But it was conceptually elegant, and I'm sure that one could LEARN to think that way. I'm not at all sure that one could learn to think in most parallel logics that I've encountered. (Just imagine trying to think like a neural net...despite the fact that you're using one to do your thinking.)
The trouble with generics is that to allow backwards compatibility they broke the implementation. Otherwise it's an excellent idea. (I'm not really sure I like the syntax, though.)
Still, if you use them properly and carefully, they allow much cleaner code.
OTOH, I'm not at all sure about Java7. I recently downloaded NetBeans 6.9, and it keeps crashing. It's usable, but just barely. And not enough that I continued to use it. (I've started to use Eclipse instead. This is a pity, as Eclipse seems to assume that my screen is larger than it actually is, or possibly that I surely couldn't want to see anything besides it's wonderful self.) Now it's not fair to judge Java7 by NetBeans6.9...but it causes me to feel cautious.
OK, now I've read the linked story. It doesn't mention anything about multi-cores except in cone of the comments. It talks about threadpools and things that are lighter then threads. (OK. I seem to remember that Java threads are now system processes, at least on Linux, but they once weren't, so I don't feel any guarantee that these still are.
Still, it threads are processes, and TransferQueue means what it might mean, then Java will be superior to many languages in concurrent processing. Unfortunately, I don't think that's sufficient. At this rate some development of Erlang will be the next major language. (They've *got* to add ways to do decent graphics into the language in an accessible form.) Mind you, I don't think Erlang is the right model. But it's one that's a lot better (in the multiprocessing area) than what is being proposed for Java, C, C++, Ruby, Python,...
What's needed is a language where the *executable* can look at what it needs to do and what it's environment is, and decide how to parcel out the tasks. This is where dataflow languages excel. But they don't do well in single or dual processor configurations, so their development has lagged seriously.
(I'm not familiar with any that currently exist. Only with a couple that used to exist. They were, in the proper phrase, far before their time.)
Well, that would work. But it would be LOTS of work.
A better choice would be a dataflow language, like Prograf was. (Though preferably one that didn't only have graphical representations of it's programs.)
In the meantime, even Google's go would appear to be an improvement over Java in this area. (It needs LOTS of work on it's documentation...or at least it did the last time I looked at it. And it's libraries are still pitiful...but they claim a knowledgeable user can add any C library, so that should be quickly solved...if their claim is correct.)
But for now... Unicode made me decide that C and C++ weren't appropriate languages. (Perhaps C++ 2012 will change my mind. But I really wish they could also add garbage collection, even if there was a requirement that you never cast a non-pointer to a pointer.) D is really nice, but it's got severe library problems. Python is good, if you're doing the right applications. Ruby is elegant, but, like Python, only for the right applications. (Both are slow at handling large datasets.)
So. Java is a compromise language, but it's a good compromise, for now. (Something about the code really grates on my teeth, and it's quite verbose, but it seems a decent compromise.) But getting Java to work on multiple processors strikes me as quite icky, and very system dependent. (There's probably some way to automate the starting of processes and binding them to processors, but I can't think of one that could dynamically adapt to other system loads. [nice and renice have their points, but those are shell commands, not all that effective, and it's hard to boost the priority of another process when something else is waiting for it's result.])
I really think that what's needed to use large numbers of cores effectively is a new language. Probably one inspired by Prograf and Occam. And it's got to be able to use C (and preferably C++) libraries without much user coaxing. Normal FFIs just don't cut it. (This probably means that wrappers for the functions need to be included with the language installation.) N.B.: Even *this* language wouldn't be sufficient for the next generation of 100's to 1000's of cores. People just can't consciously think in that kind of pattern. Language is serial. But there might be some automated way to convert a program in a language specified in the manner I mention into one suitable for more parallelized computation. Or perhaps not.
At a bare minimum languages should start to use some phrase equivalent to "for each" to mean "This is a block of instructions that should be executed many times, but the order in which the blocks is executed is not specified. They can be executed in parallel on different processes." rather than using it to mean a really shallow variant of "for".
Python, yes. C, no. Not unless you include the source code, and recompile for the new platform.
Sun's claim was that Java class files wouldn't need to be recompiled to run. I found that reasonably true. (Of course, you had to be running on a compatible JVM which had been compiled for the appropriate local platform.)
Note, by the way, that Python achieves cross-platform capability by an exactly comparable means. Ruby and ECMAscript basically don't HAVE a compiled form, but if they did it would be the same argument. (Don't know about the others.)
No, it's not decoupled enough to be independent...but it's decoupled enough to *become* independent, if enough people put enough time and work in on it. (The constraints listed mean, e.g., that the entire documentation would need to be recreated in a logically equivalent form, but in a form different enough to not run afoul of copyright restrictions.)
Still, good progress seems to be being made in that direction. But much more should be done, even if Oracle demonstrates both commitment and competence.
1) How do you know that the suspected attacker is the real attacker?
2) Why were they able to "wipe the copany's server farm"? Sounds like gross incompetence at the company. What happened to the backups? (That said, backups often AREN'T sufficiently checked for readability...because of financial constraints. But that's still gross incompetence, only at the managerial level rather than at the operating level.)
??? Who knows? Some idiot with an agenda decided to read it that way.
That said, yes, the bible is generally anti-homosexual. Probably because the Greeks invaded Canaan at about the same time they did. (They were refugees, but they knew about iron working, which the Hebrews didn't. OTOH, they weren't numerous, so they were eventually swallowed up or killed off.) I've heard other theories though about rival religions, so I'm not attached to that particular explanation.
OTOH, if someone goes around spouting about how the bible says we shouldn't tolerate homosexuals, ask yourself why they picked those particular parts of the bible. You can be guaranteed that they're ignoring much of Deuteronomy unless they are Orthodox Jews. So they're picking those particular points because it suits their agenda. Like most people pushing a creed, christian or not.
Not precisely. More precisely the idea that the courts would find it legal for you "to be frog marched out of your own home for no good reason". (Where I'm interpreting "good reason" as sufficient cause to obtain a warrant from an unbiased judge.)
Doesn't mean it will happen to most people. I'd be surprised if it did. That doesn't happen even in North Korea. (It does happen in Somalia...but not by the government, usually.) Keep your head down and you'll be safe (with a very high probability).
Sorry, but I believe that's the way the laws (bureaucratic edicts?) read. He didn't assert anything I haven't seen declared at true in other contexts.
I notice that he *didn't* mention that any large airport is considered a part of the border, but that one's true also.
And I really *wish* it were just paranoia.
Some of these have been declared true by bureaucratic edict rather than by legislative action, but they've been affirmed by court cases. (And no, I won't chase them down for you. If you're interested enough, look them up yourself, just like I'd need to.)
Which version of the Bible is your story from? I don't remember that at all.
OK, I just checked again. Your story isn't in the King James Version that was placed by the Gideon Society. I presume that it's an accurate copy. (I know that many have done other translations.)
It is possible to interpret "bring them out so that we may know them" to mean sexual congress, but that's not the only way in which the word know was used, and in this context it would only be read that way by someone who had already decided that that was what was going to be meant.
OTOH, quite possibly it's a translation of a word that was less ambiguous. So I want to know which version translated it thus, so that I can decide whether I trust that translator.
(OTOH, it doesn't really matter. The whole thing is clearly a work of fiction anyway. [In some cases historical fiction, but still fiction.]) (Well, I do "sort of" trust the begats. They're so boring that they probably aren't fiction.)
No. It's either in your hand or in your forehead. I don't think that it's predicting RFID chips, though that's a possibility. I guess credit cards, which are often in one's right hand when one is buying something.
OTOH, if you are seriously asking, that "number of the beast" is probably an enumeration of the Emperor Nero's name, and it's so obscure because being clear would have been dangerous. Not sure what the bit about the forehead was, but the official coins of the Roman Empire had the image of the ruling emperor on them, and that could easily be considered the "mark of the beast" that would need to be "in the right hand" in order to buy or sell.
Note that this doesn't make their objection silly. It merely means that they didn't give a valid reason. Possibly because it would be dangerous.
It didn't predict that the mark of the beast would be a number. Go read the book. It did say a mark, but that doesn't imply that the mark would be a number, even if the beast did have a numeric value (at least when he was a man: "for it is the number of a man").
I'll plonk for credit cards. They have much more to do with buying and selling, and my credit card is often in my right hand. (Don't know that I've ever seen one on a forehead, though.)
That happened afterwards. What happened before Lot was evacuated, however, is that he offered his daughters up for a gang-rape. And the mob hadn't even asked for that, they just wanted to talk to the angel.
If you haven't read them, you should. The Communist Manifesto might give you insight into why I claim that there has never been a Communist government over a nation.
(Mind you, I also assert that even attempting such a thing would be futile, and that's why it was never done. If it had been possible it's conceivable that Lenin might have actually attempted it.)
That's why the US is spending so much developing robot soldiers. True, so far they're only telefactors, but that's intended to be just the first step, and even that one reduces the chance for a soldier to feel empathy with the person being oppressed.
OTOH, in Japan to avoid hiring immigrant labor they're working hard at building robots that can care for people. So even xenophobia has some valuable uses.
When talking of a social group, the members of that group are the people that that group accepts as members. I you don't denounce people who behave in a way that you consider "non-christian" when they are actively proclaiming themselves christian, then it is partially *your* fault that the label "Christian" becomes attached to their behavior.
Don't blame me for your actions. I don't defend the label "Christian", because in my mind it's so dirty that redemption is probably impossible. Start calling yourself Nazarene or some such. (But do be aware that in Roman times the Christians killed off the entire Nazarene sect, which was probably the only group to maintain the original teachings of Jesus, presuming that such a person actually existed.)
P.S.: More precisely I should say the sect was killed off by a Roman army commanded by a Christian general. So modern Christians appear to be attempting to maintain historical continuity. (Sorry, that was snide.)
Except that current churches identifying themselves as "Christian" and accepted as such, e.g. the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptists, etc., still engage in fomenting groups of people against other groups of people.
Sorry. These are not groups that benefit society, only certain segments within society. There was a brief flare of "The Gospel of Social Justice" among some Roman Catholics around 30-40 years ago, but it was quickly suppressed.
Funny, as far as social effects go I would call it much worse than nothing. Not, I hasten to add, the things they claim, and continue claiming to do, as in the specific cases that you mention. (Though I've heard that many Indian folk consider that St. Theresa had an overall negative effect on the society due to her anti-contraception propaganda.)
In fact, the one result of christianity that I consider mainly positive is the foundation that it gave to the original scientific method. And pretty much ANY monotheism, or even duo-theism, could have had that effect. (It has to be reasonable to try to "read the mid of God by studying his works" , so a polytheism or pantheism wouldn't work...though atheism or agnosticism works just fine. As Thales, Plato, Aristotle, etc. proved.)
Unfortunately, the state of emergency then declared was never terminated. I don't think the law specifies that those things come with a sunset clause. So as far as legally goes, we may well still be in a state of war, or at least in the state of emergency that was justified by the prior state of war.
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Your apocryphal story about Winston Churchill is a retelling of an actual occurrence...but George Bernard Shaw was the man asking the question of the lady.
Interesting theory. Can you give any particular examples where service improved?
My guess is that you can't, because now the support people are required to know a lot of things that previously they didn't need to know. So a smaller proportion of questions can be answered.
You were responding to me, so I thought you might be responding to one of the things I had said. (Otherwise I didn't see the relevance of your comments about workflow.)
P.S.: Dataflow isn't the same concept as functional languages, either. And functional languages, and parts of language, aren't that rare. E.g., Scala is an essentially functional language implemented on the jvm. (And can call Java easily.)
OTOH, I'll agree that some dataflow architectures could be implemented with or as functional languages. The concept is, I think, nearly orthogonal. (I'll admit that I could be wrong about that. I've only experience with one dataflow language. It wasn't functional, but that could be idiosyncratic. I could be being deceived by terminology, but I don't think so. Pure functional languages date back to the 1950's, and they seem to be a very different concept.)
Dataflow isn't workflow. I'm not certain, but I think you were confused by the similarity of names.
Dataflow architectures basically allow each operation to proceed as soon as all the inputs it requires are ready. In programming one you don't place the order the execution of the steps, you specify which results are needed for which step, and let the compiler figure out how to place in order the steps.
Well, that's oversimplified. In the one example I really worked with you drew connections between the output of one step and the input to another, and you clearly need a way to do something like that. OTOH, that one (Prograf) was running on a Mac LC3, i.e., a uniprocessor system. And it was never designed to handle multi-processor systems. But it clearly had the capability of such an extension.
That said, I'll admit that I found it hard to think in dataflow terms. This is probably because it's rather different from normal sequential thought. But it was conceptually elegant, and I'm sure that one could LEARN to think that way. I'm not at all sure that one could learn to think in most parallel logics that I've encountered. (Just imagine trying to think like a neural net...despite the fact that you're using one to do your thinking.)
The trouble with generics is that to allow backwards compatibility they broke the implementation. Otherwise it's an excellent idea. (I'm not really sure I like the syntax, though.)
Still, if you use them properly and carefully, they allow much cleaner code.
OTOH, I'm not at all sure about Java7. I recently downloaded NetBeans 6.9, and it keeps crashing. It's usable, but just barely. And not enough that I continued to use it. (I've started to use Eclipse instead. This is a pity, as Eclipse seems to assume that my screen is larger than it actually is, or possibly that I surely couldn't want to see anything besides it's wonderful self.) Now it's not fair to judge Java7 by NetBeans6.9...but it causes me to feel cautious.
OK, now I've read the linked story. It doesn't mention anything about multi-cores except in cone of the comments. It talks about threadpools and things that are lighter then threads. (OK. I seem to remember that Java threads are now system processes, at least on Linux, but they once weren't, so I don't feel any guarantee that these still are.
Still, it threads are processes, and TransferQueue means what it might mean, then Java will be superior to many languages in concurrent processing. Unfortunately, I don't think that's sufficient. At this rate some development of Erlang will be the next major language. (They've *got* to add ways to do decent graphics into the language in an accessible form.) Mind you, I don't think Erlang is the right model. But it's one that's a lot better (in the multiprocessing area) than what is being proposed for Java, C, C++, Ruby, Python, ...
What's needed is a language where the *executable* can look at what it needs to do and what it's environment is, and decide how to parcel out the tasks. This is where dataflow languages excel. But they don't do well in single or dual processor configurations, so their development has lagged seriously.
(I'm not familiar with any that currently exist. Only with a couple that used to exist. They were, in the proper phrase, far before their time.)
Well, that would work. But it would be LOTS of work.
A better choice would be a dataflow language, like Prograf was. (Though preferably one that didn't only have graphical representations of it's programs.)
In the meantime, even Google's go would appear to be an improvement over Java in this area. (It needs LOTS of work on it's documentation...or at least it did the last time I looked at it. And it's libraries are still pitiful...but they claim a knowledgeable user can add any C library, so that should be quickly solved...if their claim is correct.)
But for now... Unicode made me decide that C and C++ weren't appropriate languages. (Perhaps C++ 2012 will change my mind. But I really wish they could also add garbage collection, even if there was a requirement that you never cast a non-pointer to a pointer.) D is really nice, but it's got severe library problems. Python is good, if you're doing the right applications. Ruby is elegant, but, like Python, only for the right applications. (Both are slow at handling large datasets.)
So. Java is a compromise language, but it's a good compromise, for now. (Something about the code really grates on my teeth, and it's quite verbose, but it seems a decent compromise.) But getting Java to work on multiple processors strikes me as quite icky, and very system dependent. (There's probably some way to automate the starting of processes and binding them to processors, but I can't think of one that could dynamically adapt to other system loads. [nice and renice have their points, but those are shell commands, not all that effective, and it's hard to boost the priority of another process when something else is waiting for it's result.])
I really think that what's needed to use large numbers of cores effectively is a new language. Probably one inspired by Prograf and Occam. And it's got to be able to use C (and preferably C++) libraries without much user coaxing. Normal FFIs just don't cut it. (This probably means that wrappers for the functions need to be included with the language installation.)
N.B.: Even *this* language wouldn't be sufficient for the next generation of 100's to 1000's of cores. People just can't consciously think in that kind of pattern. Language is serial. But there might be some automated way to convert a program in a language specified in the manner I mention into one suitable for more parallelized computation. Or perhaps not.
At a bare minimum languages should start to use some phrase equivalent to "for each" to mean "This is a block of instructions that should be executed many times, but the order in which the blocks is executed is not specified. They can be executed in parallel on different processes." rather than using it to mean a really shallow variant of "for".
Python, yes. C, no. Not unless you include the source code, and recompile for the new platform.
Sun's claim was that Java class files wouldn't need to be recompiled to run. I found that reasonably true. (Of course, you had to be running on a compatible JVM which had been compiled for the appropriate local platform.)
Note, by the way, that Python achieves cross-platform capability by an exactly comparable means. Ruby and ECMAscript basically don't HAVE a compiled form, but if they did it would be the same argument. (Don't know about the others.)
No, it's not decoupled enough to be independent...but it's decoupled enough to *become* independent, if enough people put enough time and work in on it. (The constraints listed mean, e.g., that the entire documentation would need to be recreated in a logically equivalent form, but in a form different enough to not run afoul of copyright restrictions.)
Still, good progress seems to be being made in that direction. But much more should be done, even if Oracle demonstrates both commitment and competence.
1) How do you know that the suspected attacker is the real attacker?
2) Why were they able to "wipe the copany's server farm"? Sounds like gross incompetence at the company. What happened to the backups?
(That said, backups often AREN'T sufficiently checked for readability...because of financial constraints. But that's still gross incompetence, only at the managerial level rather than at the operating level.)
??? Who knows? Some idiot with an agenda decided to read it that way.
That said, yes, the bible is generally anti-homosexual. Probably because the Greeks invaded Canaan at about the same time they did. (They were refugees, but they knew about iron working, which the Hebrews didn't. OTOH, they weren't numerous, so they were eventually swallowed up or killed off.) I've heard other theories though about rival religions, so I'm not attached to that particular explanation.
OTOH, if someone goes around spouting about how the bible says we shouldn't tolerate homosexuals, ask yourself why they picked those particular parts of the bible. You can be guaranteed that they're ignoring much of Deuteronomy unless they are Orthodox Jews. So they're picking those particular points because it suits their agenda. Like most people pushing a creed, christian or not.
Not precisely. More precisely the idea that the courts would find it legal for you "to be frog marched out of your own home for no good reason". (Where I'm interpreting "good reason" as sufficient cause to obtain a warrant from an unbiased judge.)
Doesn't mean it will happen to most people. I'd be surprised if it did. That doesn't happen even in North Korea. (It does happen in Somalia...but not by the government, usually.) Keep your head down and you'll be safe (with a very high probability).
Sorry, but I believe that's the way the laws (bureaucratic edicts?) read. He didn't assert anything I haven't seen declared at true in other contexts.
I notice that he *didn't* mention that any large airport is considered a part of the border, but that one's true also.
And I really *wish* it were just paranoia.
Some of these have been declared true by bureaucratic edict rather than by legislative action, but they've been affirmed by court cases. (And no, I won't chase them down for you. If you're interested enough, look them up yourself, just like I'd need to.)
Which version of the Bible is your story from? I don't remember that at all.
OK, I just checked again. Your story isn't in the King James Version that was placed by the Gideon Society. I presume that it's an accurate copy. (I know that many have done other translations.)
It is possible to interpret "bring them out so that we may know them" to mean sexual congress, but that's not the only way in which the word know was used, and in this context it would only be read that way by someone who had already decided that that was what was going to be meant.
OTOH, quite possibly it's a translation of a word that was less ambiguous. So I want to know which version translated it thus, so that I can decide whether I trust that translator.
(OTOH, it doesn't really matter. The whole thing is clearly a work of fiction anyway. [In some cases historical fiction, but still fiction.])
(Well, I do "sort of" trust the begats. They're so boring that they probably aren't fiction.)
No. It's either in your hand or in your forehead. I don't think that it's predicting RFID chips, though that's a possibility. I guess credit cards, which are often in one's right hand when one is buying something.
OTOH, if you are seriously asking, that "number of the beast" is probably an enumeration of the Emperor Nero's name, and it's so obscure because being clear would have been dangerous. Not sure what the bit about the forehead was, but the official coins of the Roman Empire had the image of the ruling emperor on them, and that could easily be considered the "mark of the beast" that would need to be "in the right hand" in order to buy or sell.
Note that this doesn't make their objection silly. It merely means that they didn't give a valid reason. Possibly because it would be dangerous.
It didn't predict that the mark of the beast would be a number. Go read the book. It did say a mark, but that doesn't imply that the mark would be a number, even if the beast did have a numeric value (at least when he was a man: "for it is the number of a man").
I'll plonk for credit cards. They have much more to do with buying and selling, and my credit card is often in my right hand. (Don't know that I've ever seen one on a forehead, though.)
That happened afterwards. What happened before Lot was evacuated, however, is that he offered his daughters up for a gang-rape. And the mob hadn't even asked for that, they just wanted to talk to the angel.
Believe it if you want to.
If you haven't read them, you should. The Communist Manifesto might give you insight into why I claim that there has never been a
Communist government over a nation.
(Mind you, I also assert that even attempting such a thing would be futile, and that's why it was never done. If it had been possible it's conceivable that Lenin might have actually attempted it.)
That's why the US is spending so much developing robot soldiers. True, so far they're only telefactors, but that's intended to be just the first step, and even that one reduces the chance for a soldier to feel empathy with the person being oppressed.
OTOH, in Japan to avoid hiring immigrant labor they're working hard at building robots that can care for people. So even xenophobia has some valuable uses.
That's about it. The official terminology is "A test of faith", but I think "God fucking with our minds" says it better.
When talking of a social group, the members of that group are the people that that group accepts as members. I you don't denounce people who behave in a way that you consider "non-christian" when they are actively proclaiming themselves christian, then it is partially *your* fault that the label "Christian" becomes attached to their behavior.
Don't blame me for your actions. I don't defend the label "Christian", because in my mind it's so dirty that redemption is probably impossible. Start calling yourself Nazarene or some such. (But do be aware that in Roman times the Christians killed off the entire Nazarene sect, which was probably the only group to maintain the original teachings of Jesus, presuming that such a person actually existed.)
P.S.: More precisely I should say the sect was killed off by a Roman army commanded by a Christian general. So modern Christians appear to be attempting to maintain historical continuity.
(Sorry, that was snide.)
Except that current churches identifying themselves as "Christian" and accepted as such, e.g. the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptists, etc., still engage in fomenting groups of people against other groups of people.
Sorry. These are not groups that benefit society, only certain segments within society. There was a brief flare of "The Gospel of Social Justice" among some Roman Catholics around 30-40 years ago, but it was quickly suppressed.
Funny, as far as social effects go I would call it much worse than nothing. Not, I hasten to add, the things they claim, and continue claiming to do, as in the specific cases that you mention. (Though I've heard that many Indian folk consider that St. Theresa had an overall negative effect on the society due to her anti-contraception propaganda.)
In fact, the one result of christianity that I consider mainly positive is the foundation that it gave to the original scientific method. And pretty much ANY monotheism, or even duo-theism, could have had that effect. (It has to be reasonable to try to "read the mid of God by studying his works" , so a polytheism or pantheism wouldn't work...though atheism or agnosticism works just fine. As Thales, Plato, Aristotle, etc. proved.)
When I've met 10 Christians of the kind you refer to, I may seriously consider that you have a point.
Ideology is generally used to justify the actions one would have performed anyway.
Unfortunately, the state of emergency then declared was never terminated. I don't think the law specifies that those things come with a sunset clause. So as far as legally goes, we may well still be in a state of war, or at least in the state of emergency that was justified by the prior state of war.