The strength of free software

"And like Christians and Jews, the more you oppress free software, the more it multiplies."

The same can be said of Muslim, Hindu, Buddist, or even cults like White Lotus (in China, a cult that had victimized dynasties and today's communists). Free Software has nothing to do with Judaism or Christianity so please do not make such comparisons.

This article contains a strong Christian tone. Free Software is not Christianity, that should be very clear.

Some BSDers call GNU a religion. If it is a religion, it is a different one.

There are people of the Free Software community in Asia, Africa, Europe and Americas. They have all kinds of religious backgrounds. Please respect that.

If software were really eternal, then I shouldn't be sitting here worrying about whether I should get out of the programming field (which I am...).

Algorithms can be eternal. Euclid discovered his GCD algorithm thousands of years ago, and we're still using it, and it'll likely still be useful thousands of years later.

Programs are not eternal in this sense -- while they may remain `there', they become irrelevant quickly. The CP/M operating system for the 8080 processor is now available under a liberal license. How many people use it for anything other than nostalgia's sake?

Can Free Software point the way to God?

I think observation of the Free Software community itself does point the way to God. The community is like a huge jungle. The more I explore this jungle, the more I'm convinced of the greatness of nature. Every project release, project rewrite, flame war, project fork, political bickering, ... says something about the workings of the natural world, and the workings of God.

I think this is quite funny. Now that everybody's used to hearing Free Software called a "religion", though only as a joke, to hear people glorifying it and praising it is a nice reminder of the direction in which we should not take our beliefs...

No. Jesus is. :-)

This article contains a strong Christian tone.

Not really. Christianity is about a relationship with God. This article appears to be about a relationship with a large joint ;-)

Gerv

I think that FS is much like the evolution of the world. You have both microevolution (small fixes) and macroevolution (forks, dead projects, new projects) that take place at the same time. And there was no God that just like that created all the software, 40 years ago, it all started from some simple little embryo (machine code on the ancient computers).

Ok, this is not meant to be taken too seriously. But science and politics should never be mixed with religion. Therein lies much evil.

You speak as if life is some sort of casserole.

If you put your trust, as I happen to do, in Jesus as your Saviour, then this fact affects your whole life - your world view, your opinions and your actions are all moulded by a desire to follow Him.

Unless you think I should be banned from stating my scientific or political views, or campaigning for what I think is right, then saying "Don't mix religion with science or politics" is like saying "Don't mix religion with breathing." It's impossible.

Gerv

Science is also a place where I think religion should be kept out of. There are sects that don'l allow their children to be treated with medicine, and thus die, just because they don't believe that science/medicine is Right. People are not allowed to practice science if it doesn't follow what the religion thinks. A good example here is the Christian church from the middle ages when witches were burnt and the earth was flat. The one who dared say the world was round was in for a rough ride/burn. You may think that is a far fetched example from ancient times? Yes, it is, but similar things happen today too. See the Taliban for instance, or the American fundamentalistic Christian church that doesn't want people to do research on evolution. "The earth was created by God, end of story." And the Mormons, whose Holy Book is openly racist. Nice.

Here in Finland there has recently been hard debates wether homosexual couples should be allowed to be officially registered as couples (they are allowed, a nice law was passed the allows that). Guess who was the hardest opponent? Yes, the Christian church. It preaches hate when engaged in politics, although the offical codec of Chistianity should be to love thy neighbour and forgive him/her.

Religion is a great thing and a big comfort for many people, but it should be kept as a personal thing. Churches/mosques (spelling?) and public religious ceremonies are nice and even cute, but politics and science should not be mixed into it. Religion deals with beliefs, science and politics with hard facts and human lives.

Hmm, sorry for the rant, please delete this post if it is inappropriate.

The problem with religion comes when it ceases to be a personal thing, but instead used in politics and science. So much evil in this world is done in the name of The One (Or Many) True God(s).

Evil is done in the name of many things, including atheism (see Communist Russia and current China for examples.) The question to ask is whether their claim to be "doing God's will" is justified based on their own faith. Jesus said "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you". There is no justification in his words for the Crusades (your example), which were basically caused by the kings of England playing power politics.

Science is also a place where I think religion should be kept out of. There are sects that don'l allow their children to be treated with medicine, and thus die, just because they don't believe that science/medicine is Right... [other examples]

Lumping all religions together and implying that a criticism of one is a criticism of all (and therefore the very concept of God) is a fallacy. Obviously the Taliban's regime was evil and oppressive - but you can't use that fact to either deny the existence of God, or criticise Christianity. If you read the Qu'ran and you think that the Taliban's actions are based on what it says, _then_ you would have grounds for criticising Islam. And Islam only.

Here in Finland there has recently been hard debates wether homosexual couples should be allowed to be officially registered as couples (they are allowed, a nice law was passed the allows that). Guess who was the hardest opponent? Yes, the Christian church. It preaches hate when engaged in politics, although the offical codec of Chistianity should be to love thy neighbour and forgive him/her.

It's perfectly possible to love someone while disagreeing with their opinions, attitudes or actions. The Bible teaches that a family consisting of a man and a woman is the best environment in which to bring up children (even taking into account man's fallen nature, which makes it less than perfect) and homosexuality is a sin (along with adultery, jealousy, greed, and anger.) I have at least one good friend who is gay, and I care about her deeply - but that doesn't mean I believe that what she does is what God wants.

Religion is a great thing and a big comfort for many people, but it should be kept as a personal thing.

This very sentence presupposes that a) all religions are equivalent. b), following that, they are all equally valid or invalid, and c) the purpose of believing in God is for personal comfort only. None of these things are true.

Gerv

If you will permit me to respond though we are greatly offtopic, in American political history, the Declaration of Independence reads "endowed by the Creator" and George Washington was known to often pray to God for assistance, and Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves according to principles he had learned in scripture and made sure to mention God Almighty in his proclamation, and in science, Newton, Goethe, Descartes, and Einstein quite sincerely meant "God" when they referred to God, and Gandhi liberated millions from oppression by following scripture, and the dollar bill reads "In God We Trust," so let's reason together and see that what you really mean is "bad religion" shouldn't be mixed with politics. Good religion liberates people. And with that I'll agree.

So much evil in this world is done in the name of The One (Or Many) True God(s).

Yes, and so much good also. When I was homeless and unable to buy food, who fed me? Scientists? No. Christians, thank God. I seek to dwell on the GOOD that happens in the world, not the bad. By blaming all the bad in the world on religion, you miss all the good in the world that happens. Thus what you said is true, but you carry it to no great depth. I urge you to refine your position to a greater depth, so that you aren't throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Free Software

Now returning to the original topic, which was an amazingly overlooked aspect of free software: that its strength is that it will always exist. Can you imagine a world purely dominated by proprietary software? It can only be imagined, for always, somewhere, someone will be able to create "free software." Thus it is eternal in nature, even though software projects may be temporal. Even proprietary vendors will rely on someone somewhere in their organization creating free software from time to time. This is a strength. (Of course you can say the same about proprietary software, but did anyone raise that point yet? No, they became concerned with the strong Christian tone of the original article, and missed the real issue, which was free software advocacy.)

So, speaking for those whom I had hoped would respond to this facet of freedom, let me pick up the conversation and carry on:

The virtue of free software is that it liberates people who use it, giving them power over their own destiny in a way not possible with proprietary software. Now, this virtue being coupled with the eternal nature of free software, becomes something very compelling. The act of advocating free software is itself a moral "good" thing because it liberates anyone who wants liberty, not just a select few.

By blaming all the bad in the world on religion, you miss all the good in the world that happens.

From what I can see: `Good' religion isn't a result of `following' a scripture, it's a result of interpreting the scriptures in a certain way. And `bad' religion results from interpreting the same scriptures in another way. Of course, each side asserts that the other side's interpretation is "wrong".

For example, Gandhi accomplished his feat, partly by following the Vedic scriptures, and partly by blatantly ignoring a major component of the Hindu religion -- the caste system. His assassins would however dispute his intepretation of the scriptures.

I think what this amounts to is that religion is a double-edged sword: it can be harnessed to help, or it can be harnessed to harm.

As to why we don't see scientists helping people, that may have to do with social skills...

The act of advocating free software is itself a moral "good" thing because it liberates anyone who wants liberty, not just a select few.

I think few people would disagree with this (perhaps Microserfs...), but I'm not sure where it can lead us. For "liberation" shouldn't mean to free someone from the shackles of a person/belief, just so that he can chain himself to another person/belief. And that's even if the latter happens to be the Free Software ideology itself.

Thank you for your interesting reply.

It's fairly interesting to see that the US is so heavily tied to one single religion, and that it really is rooted so deeply in the US society and politics. For me it is really foreign to see politicians refer to some God in every other sentence, especielly as we have "freedom of religion" (ie. choose whatever religion you want) over here. This means that it is pretty silly to have a president praise Jesus if a significant minority is, say, muslims, jews, hindus, buddhists or atheists. And then we can of course ask ourselves why the fact that US politics is so heavily influenced by religion would make religion in politics a good thing? Looking at history. In my books that's really no proof of it being good. If religion (any religion) in politics becomes too powerful it can do things like influence/dictate laws, veto useful laws etc.

• lobbyists in the US trying to ban abortion and abortion clinics. This is a pretty silly thing to do. I've even heard to True Believers go to such extremes as attacking clinics and doctors. Barbaric behaviour.

• Sharia in muslim countries has proved to be a bad idea too. Usually the laws have very little to do with the Koran (spelling?), and are often extremely unfair, especially for women.

• some Christians try to ban contraception. In some countries (notably a few European and in the US) this movement has a strong political backing, and it leads to overpopulation, kids having children in a too young age, veneral diseases will spread rapidly etc.

Note that few religions are inherently evil. If you read the specifications for various religions (Koran, Bhagavadgita, Bible) you will have a hard time finding any justification there to all the evils that the practitioners do (well, Mormon's Book openly preaches hatred). There is nothing in the Koran that preaches Holy War or that would justify the acts of the Taliban, it's all how humans have interpreted things to suit them and their causes. The KKK in the US uses religion as a justification for their acts, the various Palestinian groups use religion as a cover for their actions and so on. The Koran preaches peace and good rules of living, the interpretation done by humans is "interesting" to say the least.

The Bible is in this respect an interesting piece of work. Lets disregard the fact that most of the stuff was written down often hundreds of years after it happened, so that historical facts can be sketchy to say the least. In the Bible you can find justifications for many acts of evil. You can even have a debate between two Christians where both can argue over something (say homosexuality) using quotes from the Bible. You find justifications there for killing women that have been raped and other goodies. It also contains many rules for living a peaceful life of love and tolerance. It's scary that so many Christians choose to find the intolerant parts of the Bible and use these for their crusades against something (abortion, evolution, science etc). This site contains a lot of the funny, scary and outright horrible things that you can find in the holy book of one of the larger religions in the world.

The Christian church has been an oppressive force in the western society for over a thousand years. Not too long ago you got burned, drowned or just mutilated for having the wrong scientifical ideas. 500 years ago it was not smart to openly say that the world was round, the church would put a swift end to those ideas. Today we have fairly well proved that the earth is round. It took "a few" years for the church to admit it was wrong, Darwin was not well received for his ideas about evolution, as they according to some religions "scientists" and the church somehow were against some god. His ideas have by now been fairly well proved, but I don't know if all churches still accept them.

Theories about how and when the world was created is something that right now upsets many hardcore believers. I find the theory of Big Bang pretty pretty hard to grasp, but I'm no physicist nor astronomer, so I don't understand what exactly happened during the first few hundred million years of the existence of the universe. It's interesting to see scientists come up with new ideas, refined theories for things we do not yet understand, as that's the way science works. I do find the religions theories of creation pretty silly, but everyone has the right to believe what they want. Debating that aspect here is just a waste of time, there are sites out there dedicated to this futile debate. Many fundamentalistic Christians try to stop schools from teachin evolution and instead just teach creation, others try to stop researchers that study evolution/big bang etc from getting research grants.

Are they afraid of being proved wrong? Is the whole Christian anti-science thing just a fear of having someone prove that what they belive in is wrong? Is Christianity (and other reilgions too) too old, bulky and narrow minded to admit that they are wrong and science is right?

Religion is a good thing when the gory details are kept private. It is a good thing if it tries to teach people to be nice to each other. It should not try to force some kind of twisted version of morale upon people. Religion should never try to affect the life of others if they don't ask for it. This means that religion in politics is a bad thing. Religion should be a volunteer thing. If churches give out food and try to help people in need this is a good thing, nobody is forced to accept the help. If religion tries to change schools, affect science or politcal decisions (such as wars), it does get forced upon people that don't want to have anything with it to do.

Well, for my part I'll conclude this discussion here. Nothing that was said in defense of religion has even defended the acts of religions people in any way.

> and the dollar bill reads "In God We Trust,"

I understand this is a fairly recent addition. And many non american people (like me) find this quite disturbing, especially in these days.

BTW, during WWII the German soldiers had "Gott mit uns" (God with us) written on their belt buckle.

chakie:

> 500 years ago it was not smart to openly say that the world was round

No. That the earth would revolve around the sun.

This means that it is pretty silly to have a president praise Jesus if a significant minority is, say, muslims, jews, hindus, buddhists or atheists.

So everyone can have freedom of religion except the President?

lobbyists in the US trying to ban abortion and abortion clinics. This is a pretty silly thing to do.

You might think so; but you must accept that some other people (of all religions and none) feel it's a good idea, and that there are arguments on both sides. You can't state that something as controversial as that is self-evidently silly, because it plainly isn't.

The Bible is in this respect an interesting piece of work. Lets disregard the fact that most of the stuff was written down often hundreds of years after it happened, so that historical facts can be sketchy to say the least.

That assertion is not accepted by the vast majority of Biblical scholars today - at least in respect of the New Testament. The generally agreed date for the last book to be written, Revelation, is around 90AD. And it was written by someone who knew Jesus personally.

In the Bible you can find justifications for many acts of evil.

That's simply not true, either (although if your definition of evil includes attempting to make abortion illegal, then perhaps it's true under your definition.) It's possible to produce a "justification" for many things by quoting out of context, but that doesn't make the justification a valid one.

It's scary that so many Christians choose to find the intolerant parts of the Bible and use these for their crusades against something (abortion, evolution, science etc).

So you are tolerant of everything except, er, people who disagree with you?

Is the whole Christian anti-science thing just a fear of having someone prove that what they belive in is wrong? Is Christianity (and other reilgions too) too old, bulky and narrow minded to admit that they are wrong and science is right?

This question is like asking "Are you still beating your wife?" - whatever anyone answers makes them say something they don't believe. If you say Yes, you are admitting that you beat your wife, or that your religion is narrow-minded. If you say No, you are admitting that you used to beat your wife, or that you are happy to admit that your religion is wrong.

I believe the correct answer to such a question is the Chinese work "mu", which means "Your question cannot be answered with either Yes or No."

Religion is a good thing when the gory details are kept private. It is a good thing if it tries to teach people to be nice to each other.

This may come as a shock, but being nice to people is not the _point_ of Christianity. Having a relationship with God is. Being nice to people is something that Christians do because they want to obey Jesus, but it's not the _point_ of the whole thing. You can be nice to people without being a Christian, and it's theoretically possible to a Christian without being nice to people (for example, if you are marooned on a desert island.)

Gerv

You might want to read some stuff by René Girard (unless you have already ?).