Linux move to FreeBSD

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dmitry Mityugov [mailto:dmitry.mityugov at gmail.com]
>Sent: Monday, July 04, 2005 2:17 AM
>To: Ted Mittelstaedt
>Cc: Lane; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>Subject: Re: Linux move to FreeBSD
>
>
>On 7/4/05, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at toybox.placo.com> wrote:
>...
>> >-----Original Message-----
>> >From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>> >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of
>Dmitry Mityugov
>...
>> >I am, personally, currently helping my friend to buy and configure a
>> >computer for him and his family. Although I know FreeBSD better than
>> >Linux (and this does not mean I am a FreeBSD guru), I'll be
>installing
>> >something like Ubuntu on that machine, not FreeBSD, because my friend
>> >and his family are religious men.
>>
>> Then you sir are doing your friend a disservice.  Once this system is
>> setup they will be going to you for help, and your
>deliberately setting
>> them up with a system you don't know as well - thus you will be less
>> able to help them.
>
>This may also mean that over time, I'll know Ubuntu better than
>FreeBSD - we all can study and gather experience, can't we.
>

Yes, but your original post wasn't to tell the poster to give
up on FreeBSD and go back to Linux so he can study and gain
experience.  It was, in fact, a post giving an example in support of
the anti-Beastie feeling of the original poster.  In other words you
were trying to say the original poster actually has a point about
Beastie frightening away some people.

In short, you were lending credibility to the absolutely rediculous
proposition that the FreeBSD community should pay one whit of
attention to the anti-Beastie arguments.

And now, when I brought up how this is a bad thing for a perfectly
legitimate technical reason that you cannot argue against - you
are now trying to twist around your original post so that instead
of it being about supporting the O.P.s rediculous point, now it's
all about cross-training on a different OS.

I don't think so.

>> My church, First Presbyterian Church of Portland, OR uses
>several FreeBSD
>> servers for their web/mail/fileserving needs.  They also use
>Macs running
>> MacOS X almost exclusively, and MacOS X was based partly on
>FreeBSD.  And
>> they also have a Win2K server in the mix which comes from
>Microsoft, who
>> cheated their way into the market, and is a far less honorable
>> organization
>> than any organization which has helped to create FreeBSD.
>>
>> I suppose that in your view, my church (http://www.fpcpdx.org) is less
>> religious than you are.  I feel that you have completely missed
>> the entire thrust of Jesus's message.
>
>No, no, not at all. I am an atheist trying to help a group of
>religious men.

Why do you keep saying religious men?  If they have a religion that
they are identifying that strongly with, you are disrespecting them
by not referring to them by the proper name of the religion.  Why
can't you say "Fundamentalist Christians" or "Moslems" or some such?
Do they refer to themselves as "religious men" when people ask them
what faith they are?

Hmm, haa - maybe I should refer to you as an 'unreligious man' instead
of an Atheist? ;-)  It is capitalized, by the way.

>I don't want to discuss with them how exactly their
>devil should look, does it have red skin, horns, pointy tails etc or
>not (perhaps for the same reason why I don't discuss with them or
>anybody else, including readers of this thread, that there is actually
>no God or ethernal soul at all).

No one is asking you to do so here.

>I just want to help them find an
>inexpensive configuration for their first computer.

you already have one.  FreeBSD.

>They (a) don't
>know English enough to understand the difference between "demon" and
>"daemon" and (b) do feel that the picture of FreeBSD mascot is related
>to their religion. This makes it impossible to install FreeBSD on
>their machine.
>

Well, I think your dancing around the issue.  Why don't you simply
tell them "I know FreeBSD and I don't know Linux, and FreeBSD
is what I install - take it or leave it."  Certainly you couldn't
possibly care what their religious opinion of you is - your an Atheist,
remember.

Well, you can install what you want, but in addressing the point you
were originally supporting with your first post (rather than this
clumsy attempt at remaking this thread into a cross-training on Ubuntu
is gaining experience, which was never the original point from you
or the O.P.)  I will leave you with this to think about.

I attend the Presbyterian church most Sundays, and
contribute a good deal of money and time to it - yet I don't particularly
consider myself a Christian, at least not the way that most people
in that church would probably define one.  There's large chunks of
the doctorine I frankly consider to be total bunk.  For example, the
concept of the virgin birth is rediculous - based on the time and
social mores of when it allegedly happened, an unmarried woman
would be murdered if found pregnant - quite obviously unmarried
woman would do and say anything to explain away a pregnancy.

However, I do feel that my own convictions align closer to the central
message of Christianity than any other organized religion, that
is why I attend.  And also, I have found over the years that most
Presbyterians are thinkers and most of them don't blindly buy off
on every single item of doctorine either.

But the most important thing I have found with the churchgoers is
that they have personal convictions, and the best ones won't do anything
in their private life that violates those.  Sure, I think that a
fundy Christian that literally interprets the virgin birth concept
doesen't get it - but even that person has more personal conviction
than you do.

You, my friend, profess Atheism, yet when put in a situation where you
are asked to bend as a result of some religious belief - a belief
that by definition you must consider quite void - you do so.

Even a Fundy Christian is better off than you are.  If that person was
put in a situation where they were asked to install a completely
Godless operating system on some Atheists computer, they would
probably say Go to Hell.  Because, they have convictions, and they
hold to them in their personal life.  Even though those convictions
may be quite idiotic, they have them and follow them.  And I respect
that even though I'll vote against them and tell them to their face
they are completely wrong, and do everything I can to keep them from
educating my children that Darwin is evil.  But, I would never say
they had no honor unless they started violating their own convictions.
(such as, being pro states-rights until the Marijuana initatives
come along, and things like that, we all know who those honor-less
fundies are)

You label yourself an Atheist, don't you know what one is?  If you
really are one, then start following your beliefs.  Right now you
aren't following through on them in your personal life.  If you had
any convictions on Atheism when these so-called "religious men"
told you they couldn't run FreeBSD because it has a devil on it,
you would have told them "I'm sorry but this is a machine, and
I believe that machines are nothing other than tools, and cannot be good
nor
evil, only Man can be good or evil.  I do not believe or support the
idea that images have any power over anything, that is my conviction,
and I cannot help you if you tell me to go against my convictions,
any more than you can run FreeBSD if it's imagery goes against your
convictions"

Then you should are turned on your heel and walked out.

And one last comment - if these religious men happen to believe in
the Old Testament and the Ten Commandments, I will point out the
following Commandment #4 & #5 against worship of graven images.
According to this God says people must not worship images - this
means they must not make images then endow them with supernatural
powers.  If a religious person sees an image of a devil, and
attributes any SCRAP of power to it - if that image becomes more
than simple lines and colors to that person - they have then
broken those commandments. They may not be worshiping them but
they are still attributing them with power.

Ted