[I am not subscribed to debian -bsd.] On Sun, Dec 14, 2003 at 08:30:48PM +0000, Roger Leigh wrote: > Nathan Hawkins <utsl@quic.net> writes: > > I'm not opposed to anything else you've said. I do believe these > > particular names are a bad idea, however. One of the reasons the BSD > > mascot is considered "cute" is that it has no real connection with > > demons, in name, or otherwise. Which to people of several religions are > > _not_ cute. > > Thanks for raising this point. I'm very interested in the Debian > GNU/*BSD efforts, but if named as such I would never consider using > them (the BSD daemon is, to my mind, only borderline acceptable as it > is). What would be unacceptable about it, and why is it only a "borderline" case? What would push it over the borderline? > I'd be happy with an alternate name, which didn't have such unpleasant > and unholy connotations. Unpleasant and unholy by what standard? Which religious sect's standards of decorum is the Debian Project to officially adopt? > I don't have any good ideas as or an alternative right now--it's worse > than a tiebreaker! This is revealing. The fundamentalist mind is much more practiced at identifying what it's opposed to, than at identifying what it supports. Perhaps we should use the names of famous atheists and other critics of religion. David Hume: "The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one." "When I hear a man is religious, I conclude that he is a rascal, although I have known some instances of very good men being religious." Mikhail Bakunin: "A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." Mark Twain: "Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of." "If there is a God, he is a malign thug." Ambrose Bierce: "FAITH: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." "RELIGION: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. "OCEAN: A body of water occupying about two thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills." "SAINT: A dead sinner revised and edited." "[Christians are a] powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call 'war' and 'commerce'." Hmm, that last bit explains George W. Bush's deeply religious feelings quite well! :) -- G. Branden Robinson | America is at that awkward stage. Debian GNU/Linux | It's too late to work within the branden@debian.org | system, but too early to shoot the http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | bastards. -- Claire Wolfe
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature