> “If this is your God, he’s not very impressive. He has so many psychological problems; he’s so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He’s a pretty poor excuse for a Supreme Being.” — Spock, The God Thing, by Gene Roddenberry
This quote was recently making the rounds on Facebook. It’s taken from a newly discovered script, what The Complete Star Trek Library is calling “Gene Roddenberry’s Last Star Trek Novel.” Roddenberry was an ardent atheist and it appears he was constantly working his critique of religion into the series. The God Thing is a testimony to Roddenberry’s atheistic aims.
http://mikeduran.com/2012/08/star-treks-loopy-deity/
> “We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”
> It's like when atheists are dumb enough to treat all Christians alike, or Muslims,
No it's not like that at all.
When you join an organization that espouses certain values, then you must agree with those values. Otherwise why would you join?
For example, if somebody joins the KKK, it would hardly be wrong to think that person is a racist. And if somebody joined NAMBLA, then it is fair to believe that person believes it is okay to molest children.
Atheists have no set ideology. For that matter, theists may not either - unless they belong to some organization that has some specified sort of ideology.
But if you are Christian, Muslim, whatever; then you are claiming that you ascribe to those values.
> And of course the excesses of the church pale into insignificance compared with the horrors of Stalin and Mao
Which is "the church?" All religions? Christianity? Catholicism?
Let's remember the Nazis were very Christian, and the holocaust would not have happened without Christianity.
Christianity was also used to justify slavery, and witch burning, among other things.
I have read that throughout Islamic history, about 270 million people were killed for the cause of Islam.
Furthermore, Stalin, and Mao; were not motivated by any sort atheist ideology. If there is such a thing as "atheist ideology."
> The problem is even atheists still feel a need to believe in *something*
Nope.
> with varying details of what they consider "good".
By that you mean: bigotry, misogyny, blood sacrifice, slavery, and war. Also severe punishment for free speech, not worshiping as told. And of course, must give loads of money to those humans who claim to have a direct connection to "god." Finally, do not use reason, do not think critically, just accept everything on faith - that is the ultimate good.
From the article:
> "To which one might reply: Science is all those things. Between holocausts!"
My understanding is: without religion, there would have been no holocaust.
German Christians hated Jews. Hitler was a product of his strongly Christian upbringing. At the time, in Germany, Jew hatred was taught in public schools.
Why on earth would you blame science, and not religion, for the holocaust?
Diesel generators?
Somebody creates some MS-Access app that the company comes to rely on, then that person leaves.
Nobody knows the code, or even the password. When you have to upgrade that desktop, you may find yourself in a difficult situation.
You are going to have issues with setting up access rights, and many other problems.
IMO: put databases on the server, where they belong.
That said: it's true, MS-Access is a much better desktop database than anything offered in Linux.
I would think it would be easier to move to Slackware. At least Slackware is still Linux.
Maybe somebody should make a commercial version of Slackware?
> The main issue we get reported is the loooooong boot process compared to Windows
Not my experience at all. Far *far* from it in fact.
In my experience, CentOS 6.5 is up and running long before Windows 7. And that is even before Windows 7 begins to bog down, which usually only takes a few days.
Which version of Windows are you using?
IMO: Linux desktop blows away everything since XP.
Except for one, possible, important thing: Windows runs more apps.
Kleeneness is next to Godelness.
