Apple Deals with Devil, Communists 965
rschroeder writes "I keep thinking that this article can't be real, but it looks like it. Among the juicier bits: 'The real operating system hiding under the newest version of the Macintosh operating system (Mac OS X) is called... Darwin! That's right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an 'Open Source' license, which is just another name for Communism.'" Yes, of course. And I am still waiting for Jesux to be released.
maybe a hoax, but ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks like a hoax, but still, not incredibly far off from stuff like Jack Chick and other people who want to do away with Halloween because it's the Devil's night or blah blah blah.
Just serves to remind you that Christian fundamentalists are just as scary as any other kind.
To be fair, they're right sortof (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't have a problem with this, but _they_ do. This isn't really that funny. It's a clash between the age of pisces and the age of aquarius, much like a similiar clash 2000 years ago, and one 2000 years before that...
Don't take them too seriously, but don't discard them as complete nuts, either. These people are holding views which were sacred to a much wider community in the past. 2000 years from now (if anyone's still around), this will happen again, and _our_ views will be the silly ones.
A related site (Score:4, Interesting)
Objective Landover Baptist Shutdown [truepath.com] aims to get religious parody (?) site Landover Baptist [landoverbaptist.org] shut down, removed from the internet, basically because they disagree with their message... very little to no legal ground to stand on. They're just trying to use tactics like contacting the hosting ISP and talking to WIPO to reach their goals. They apparently don't even pretend to grasp the first amendment.
What is he smoking (Score:2, Interesting)
This reminds me of the article for concerend parents that said linux is a hacking porgram.
Re:Theomathematics (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, it's a hoax, but it's funny (Score:2, Interesting)
I feel like I've arrived... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm off to chmod 666 some files and increase the minions of the dark side.
Re:maybe a hoax, but ... (Score:2, Interesting)
I had a crazy neighbour like this! (Score:2, Interesting)
I had a neighbor like this. We had a discussion of sorts when day when I found out that she wouldn't let her children use computers -- even at school. As she explained, the logical end for all computer progress is 'artificial intelligence' which is of course just another way of saying 'a living being not created by God' -- and therefore of the devil's minions. She further said that because of computers, the theory of evolution had been proven false, because it demonstrated that intelligent beings -- even soulless, simple ones -- must be created (i.e. evil men create computers, they didn't 'evolve' on their own). Thus, she said, the computers were the seed of the devils minions for armageddon, and smart cards, pet and child ID chips, etc. were the 'mark of satan' that is apparently spoken about somewhere in the bible. (?) The fact that computers were created by 'scientists' was also evidence to her, since it was 'scientists' who came up with what she called the 'lie of evolution' in the first place, presumably to put us all off the scent while they helped to build said devilish minions. 'Scientists' are, as she explained, fundamentally in the business of trying to trick people into believing that there is no God, so as to destroy their salvation and leave them no choice but to work for Satan in the final battle.
Apparently, it all made a kind of sense to her, and the long and short of it was that she had filed some sort of form at the public school which then excused her children from using the computers, Internet, etc. She had also arranged to have them excluded from discussions of biology and evolution, on grounds that it was all a scientists' lie to destroy salvation.
Poor kids. When they grow up, they'll be fit only to be one thing: a fanatic like their mother.
Early Christian Church was Communist.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Members of the early church gave all their belongings to the church, which was then used to support all the members of the church.
Check out Acts (don't have the exact reference with me). For those who may not know, Acts is the book of the bible that describes what happens to Christianity straight after Jesus Leaves the Diciples. It shows how the church grew and spread through the world.
For those who know no better....realise that this is a statement of fact by the author of Acts, and in no way does it promote nor demote Communisim.
Any "preacher" who claims that Christianity supports capitalism (or communism) has no idea what the bible says (or doesn't say).
Re:'Clearly' is a keyword to look for in propganda (Score:2, Interesting)
I honestly don't know it's that bad, I think a lot of the time it is just another emphasis word. But it's worth pointing out that spotting propaganda takes attention and diligence. Good propaganda is crafted down to the last word, and often the flaws are easily glossed over.
One trick is that propaganda makes an emotional impact without making a discernible point. I see this trick work far too often on the elderly. Some huckster calls up grandma, says "you won" this or that, and the emotional resonance never fades to the point where she can think clearly about what this person really wants.
These tricks can be defeated if you understand how easy they really are. But none of them are obvious, which is why those of us who understand propaganda tactics should make an effort to educate people and spread the word.
Here on Slashdot it's not so much of a big deal if people get hoaxed from time to time. But when you're talking about public policy, media standards, or elected leadership, the ability to cut through the hype becomes crucial for the functioning of a democratic society.
Re:the apple logo (Score:3, Interesting)
His Site Runs Communist Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Coming soon to fundamentalists near you (Score:3, Interesting)
So many people believed the Onion story was true that Snopes [snopes2.com] had to debunk it!
Re:From the article... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is that for real? (Score:2, Interesting)
(a) A person who knowingly or intentionally, in a public place:
(3) appears in a state of nudity; or
(c) "Nudity" means the showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area, or buttocks with less than a fully opaque covering, the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple, or the showing of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state.
damn state...
WTF I submitted this same thing 18 hours ago and.. (Score:2, Interesting)
2002-04-22 08:45:25 Evolutionists spread "false" theories via MAC OS X (articles,humor) (rejected)
Burn my karma.. i dunt care.. thats way fucking lame of you editors... sheesh...
Maybe i should be supporting the lame slashdot blackout!
Re:not bullshit. (Score:3, Interesting)
Shared intellectual property between indivuals may offend the sensibilities of some business, but they need it to survive in their current form (otherwise they would be unable to get trained staff). Linux has spread and developed the way USENET was supposed to spread scientific knowledge .
Re:An Evil Parody (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Bible belt evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
A lot of the abuse of creationists from evolutionists (and most definately the other way around too) is a lack of understanding of the arguments of the other side. Creationists ackonwledge that creatures will adapt to the environment through natural selection. The main difference between C&E is very important:
Creationists teach that the adaptation is done by already present genetic information. Eg, a bear has the genetic code for white fur and black fur. It has children, one with white fur, two with black fur. Since they are living in the snow, the one with the white fur survives, so the two with black die out quicker. The white one's genes get passed on more, and eventually only the genetic information for white fur remains among bears in that part of the world.
Evolution teaches that the genetic variety came through mutations, and that the code for white and black fur came through this process. Therefore, an isolated group could theoretically develop new, previously unexistant genetic code, such as purple hair, making them more or less likely to survive.
Creationists reject this view for a few reaons, some of which are:
1. Genetic mutations are almost always harmful/harmless, never beneficial (in the sense of different fur). The ratio of harmful mutations is much, much higher than neutral ones. I'm not sure if any beneficial mutations have been observed, but I could be wrong.
2. We find the genetic code for the variety of species is present in the parent. With current data we are quite clearly dealing with genetic code that already existed, not through fresh mutations.
Creationists also have problems with dating methods that show the earth to be millions of years old. This is not just religious dogma. Eg, samples taken from rocks formed from a volcano in New Zealand were said to be millions of years old in some cases, when it was known the exact day and year that the flows were created. This is not an isolated example. The Creationists believe there was a worldwide flood. Many dating methods are based on assumptions that would be destroyed if the worldwide flood was true. Anyway, this is just a brief introduction to show you some of the issues that Creationists have with macro-evolution and geological dating. There is much more depth and many more examples.
As for my unanswerable arguments - I'm not certain there is no answer, I just haven't got one. It deals with inheritance, recessive genes. I have presented it once before on slashdot. Received a lot of replies, and no substance.
Just briefly (since I don't have much time now):
Fact: there are beneficial recessive genes
Fact: harmful mutations occur at a much higher rate than neutral/beneficial mutations
Fact: marriage between relatives causes much more complications in offspring than benefits. Royal family is a good example
Fact: both parents must possess a recessive gene in order for it to become dominant
Given the above facts, evolution has to explain how recessive genes were created. For natural selection to work, a gene must be dominant. Dormant abilities are not subject to natural selection (for very obvious reasons). Here is the problem: two people who possess the same beneficial recessive gene will also posess in common a much greater number of recessive harmful genes which will have opportunity to express themselves. A term for this is genetic load - the cumulitive negative genetic traits outweigh the beneficial. This is what happens in real life, and as far as I can see can't be explained in a macro-evolution framework. I could be wrong though. This problem is perfectly consistent with Creation theory though, that in the beginning each kind was created perfect with all genetic diversity for everyone alive today, but since then (or since the great flood), genetic mutations have become common, and all races are in decline from our former glory.
There is an excellent article [icr.org] about this by the Institute for Creation Research [icr.org].
One thing I have tried to explain before is that both evolution and creation theory are not science. They are philosophy. This does not make them any less worth discussing, but it changes the way in which we should present them, and discuss them.
A message to all who might read this, not to the author I reply to:
For thousands of years most men have presumed that God/gods exist. Atheists have been and always will be a minority. People should not reject belief in God as a fairy tale - many of us dedicate our time to understand the deeper mysteries, and many of us try to be critical, able to give reason for the hope we have. The men of ancient times, and today, don't believe in the unseen without evidence. For a great challenge, I ask any that believe the Bible to be a fairy tale to explain it's accuracy in prophecies concerning the Messiah Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. It predicted the exact year He would be born, where, the feelings He would have at the time of His death, His purpose, and much more. Any who say that it was written after the event are ignorant - the prophecies were written in the Septuagint also, a translation of the Scriptures from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek, before Jesus was born - this translation we know existed before the Messiah's birth.
Re:It's a hoax (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been a conservative Christian in the South (churches on every street corner) all my life, and I don't know any Christians who think like that. To be sure, there are crackpots in every niche of humanity, though.
This web site is embarrassing whether it's a hoax or not, because it fits with one of the stereotypes that non-believers have of Christians. The media loves to report quotes, dutifully taken out of context, that have been spouted by some knee-jerk, shoot-from-the-hip, camera-happy televangelist.
What if the media consistently (or even once) projected Dr. "Death" Kevorkian as a typical doctor in the medical community, or v1urU$ h4X0r$ as typical IT professionals? You'd never see that, because they are not widely respected among their peers. (This is why "peer review" is so important in the scientific community; it helps to weed out crackpots.)
But for believers in "Jeebus" -- they're fair game for mockery and wild distortions (actually, the Simpsons is pretty fair in this respect). Unfortunately, you'll never see prominent articles in the mainstream/secular news media quoting truly great pastors and evangelists who are widely respected in the Christian community, such as Ravi Zacharias [gospelcom.net], Adrian Rogers [lwf.org], Charles Stanley [intouch.org], James Dobson [family.org], and Ken Ham [answersingenesis.org].
Re:Yes, it's a hoax, but it's funny (Score:3, Interesting)
Author's biography, from the site
What a superb parody site! (Score:2, Interesting)
The fictitious university,
The glaring errors in the Game Theory section,
The sheer stupidity of the opinions. This has to be deliberate, as actual stupid people are not that literate.
I only respect the opinions of others if I think they are right. Clue, not you God Squad.
It's definetly a hoax (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is the member list, it looks pretty satirical: http://members.truepath.com/objective/members.htm
For me the funniest part is that whoever is perpertrating this satire has the balls to get the site hosted by a Christian web host!
Some more Google-ing... (Score:2, Interesting)
* The web service provider www.truepath.com/ [truepath.com] has been online since September 1997. They are definitely for real and serves many, many other cristian sites. Let's not scan or bomb them. They are doing a great job handling the slashdot effect - we have seen many other sites choke immediately.
It all looks very, very much like a real site. Some glitches point in the hoax-direction however:
* On the member page [truepath.com], it is very hard to find any evidence of any pastors or doctors on the web. However, searching for '"Tim Allmon" baptist [google.com]' on Google returns two hits.
-The Digital Missourian [digmo.com]: Citing
"Tim Allmon, 22, plans to vote for Bush. But the Southern Methodist University student says he is tired of candidates "putting on the fake happy face, shaking hands and kissing babies.""
There is acutally a guy called Tim Allmon, about the age (24) of the portrait on the member page, studying at the Southern Methodist University. Sounds OK to study at the Methodist Univeristy if you are ultra christian, but I guess there are 10.000 other students there that are not, on the other hand...
The second link is not about our guy anyway.
* The bible verses they have chosen are good reading.
Tim Allmon, the treasurer, chose Mattew 22:17-22... (bible citations from bible.gospelcom.net [gospelcom.net])
"Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away."
Too good to be true? You judge. But the femnine looking Peggy Miller's choice is Luke 11:21:
""When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe."
Pastor Jose Rosas is also surprising. Claiming to work in "the ecumenical Catholic Outreach Baptist Ministries" is exceedingly hard to believe for me. If the catholic and baptist acutally had any collaborations, we would find it on Google... Wouldn't we? Again, we are directed to Objective as the first link...
Corinthians 8:1-13 [gospelcom.net] is not that obvious either...
Kyle Goodman then. His story is almost too good to be true... We can read in the Google cache (to save his Geocities accound from flooding) that he was salvaged by Jim Carlson of the Objective site. He first was a "bad guy" with a webpage against Jim Carlson and pro Landover. Now he has changed and is against Landover. It is hard to know if he is serious. Would anybody changing mind so drastically still keep their old web page that insulted what you now believe in? (His pages are still up on Geocities [geocities.com], but they are often overloaded so use the Google cache instead [google.com].
There is some really good reading in Kyles guestbook [geocities.com]. I especially like a comment (KirthGersen - 11/22/00 06:05:12):
"Taking parody to the razor's edge... The fact that you left your old site up shows you are faking your conversion. The fact that those idiots at Shutdown Landover believe you shows that they are really, really dumb. Congrats on your parody - it's quite convincing. Can't wait till you suddenly fall from grace - should be hilarious!"
Furthermore, Kyle Goldman is a very uncommon name in Google [google.com]. Most hits points into golf result tables. Some link actually points to the Faith Presbyterian Church [presby.org] in Huntsville, Alabama, were they have posted the participants in the cermon (how about that privacy?). Actually Melissa Goldman also participated. This seem strange as Kyle have chocked his jewish parents when converting as the Objective site says. Maybe this Kyle Goldman is not the one we are looking for...
One of the links [216.239.39.100] points to a sermon that was held the 15th of October 2000, which is only two days after Kyle's last note on his Geocities webpage. It seems normal to me that a young newcomer in a presbyterian congregation would be asked to lead the prayers.
The golf-playing Kyle was a freshman in Temple Highschool in Bell County, Texas in 1997 (See this link [brc.tamus.edu], and this directory listing [brc.tamus.edu]). Is he the same Kyle Goldman? There also seems to be a horse-riding and -judging Kyle Goldman that originates from Washington in Wilkes county, Georgia. Btw, his horse is named Cookie.
Aaaarghhh. I want to know the truth!
Conclusion
It is harder for me to believe that someone spends the enormous amount of work on a site likeObjective [truepath.com] for fun rather than if they do believe in it. (On the other hand it may be hard for people to believe that someone spent the time to write this
This has largely turned out to be a study if the people named above really exist. It is hard to determine that using only the Internet, and it gets even harder when the persons are not supposed to use the 'net because of its low moral. It is next to impossible as the pages in discussion lack real-world adresses. Even if that is a sign of a hoax, nobody that tried leaving their mail adress on a page like that would do it again. They may be misinformed, but they are not stupid...
So, I choose to believe that there acutally are people different enough and determined to set up a site like Objective because they do believe in it for real. If anybody have hard evidence of the opposite, I welcome it.
It's not a hoax. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not a hoax at all. It's terribly sad, but true, that there are people claiming to be Christians out there who are really so paranoid. Print doesn't do it justice. Until you have heard this sort of pablum expressed vocally, you just don't grasp that these guys are dead serious.
To quote one of their own, however, they're almost there--they can almost see the ridiculousness of their position. In the text, it talks about simulations of evolution on a created machine. Why can't evolution take place in a created universe? Wny are evolution and creationism mutually exclusive? It strikes me as though one answers the question "What happened?" and the other answers the question "How did it happen?"
Idiocy like this is part of the reason why I am no longer a Christian. I grant that these guys are fringers, but questioning them led to me questioning the whole shooting match, and drawing the conclusion that none of them know what they are talking about, regardless whether or not they are this paranoid.
This is, of course, my opinion as an agnostic (not to be confused with an atheist). I mean no disrespect to Christians. I subscribe to the Ghandian principle of equality of religion, based on the belief that no mortal can know all about God.