Nobody Said That!

[matt_arnold]

I should have included this in my recent list of ways Linux is like theology. You can't criticize Linux because somebody somewhere made their own version of Linux yesterday morning before breakfast which is intended to not have that problem; and they think you're criticizing them. But when I mean Linux, I mean the mainstream. I mean the thousands

Comments

[sarahmichigan]

You know what? If you stand between me and the theocrats, fuck your precious faith. Fuck it in and around the ass region and that vicinity.

Why don't you tell us what you really think? ;)

Re: Maybe a bit preachy

[matt_arnold]

I like a lot of what you've said, and I think it's some of your points are the very same points I tell people all the time. I want my mental map to more closely match the terrain in reality which it's meant to represent, but of course it can never be 100% accurate. This is why I leave it open to correction and improvement. Are you suggesting I should despair of ever getting my symbols to a close representation? How close is close enough? I just need them to be usefully close. I think they are. The struggles over the Supreme Court, and gay rights, and abortion, and pseudoscience in schools, are a real fight. That struggle is not an illusion in my head. I didn't create Focus on the Family or the Christian Coalition or the administration of Pensacola Christian College or Bob Jones University in my head. My view of them, while incomplete, is usefully close to reality, especially since I know them from within from personal experience. In a sense, it's very true that I fight against myself, because my past self was a member and supporter of

Re: Maybe a bit preachy

[matt_arnold]

Hey, I've been mulling over your comments some more and it occured to me that this LJ post really has to do with what is considered normal. But normality is one of the most relative of all relative measurements, so that's how these can be considered fights between symbols in our minds. Would you agree? Look at the examples. When does the problem truly really exist between keyboard and chair, and when is the problem that the software is too demanding? That depends on what level of demanding is considered "normal." In the same way, if everyone compiles their own open source build of religion, are the proprietary codes of the Bible and the Koran and the Torah the "normal" mainstream religions against which all others are compared?