From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-07-12T08:24:28+09:00
Subject: Re: God versus god (Was: Re: Religion (was: god 0.1.0 released))

On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 07:07:00AM +0900, MenTaLguY wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:26:14 +0900, Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote:
> >> "God" (a proper name) and "god" (an ordinary noun) are distinct terms in
> >> English: the former refers to the Ultimate Being; only the latter is the
> >> generic term for deity.
> > 
> > Take note of the fact that the particular piece of software we're
> > discussing was announced as "god", not "God".
> 
> Nonetheless, he's using it unmodified as a proper noun.  Unless Tom cares
> to be more explicit, the intent of the analogy is ambiguous.

In the fact of ambiguity, I prefer to assume good faith.

. . . and, anyway, meaning in a case like this is in the eye of the
beholder.  If you want to think of it as God, that's your choice.  If I
want to think of it as god, that's mine.  Ultimately, it's just something
like a thirty-seventh-hand translation of a term whose origins are quite
ambiguous themselves.

It's the concept that really matters, not the collection of phonemes that
we use to refer to it.

Maybe that's just me, though.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
MacUser, Nov. 1990: "There comes a time in the history of any project when
it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production."