From: Chad Perrin Date: 2007-07-12T08:28:13+09:00 Subject: Re: God versus god (Was: Re: Religion (was: god 0.1.0 released)) On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 07:59:13AM +0900, MenTaLguY wrote: > On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:26:14 +0900, Chad Perrin wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 03:41:39AM +0900, MenTaLguY wrote: > >> On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:11:27 +0900, Chad Perrin > > wrote: > >> > On the other hand, "god" is a generic term for a deity. Some > >> > religions have many gods. I think the perspective of most monotheists is > >> > unnecessarily limited to the point that they often do not think of the > >> > fact that there are other, entirely valid, meanings to some of the > >> > words their religions have appropriated. > >> > >> "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". > > To be honest, I was more concerned with addressing the notion that the > idea of God was some sinister monotheist invention, which stems from > popular (but jaundiced) modern ideas about both Christianity and pagan > religions. I don't see anything sinister about monotheism, polytheism, atheism, or ferrotheism, or for that matter about any use of "god", "God", "gods", $DEITY, or whatever else you like. In that respect, then, I don't think we're disagreeing about anything in particular. > > If we can either end this thread, take it offlist somewhere, or convert > it back into a thread about the need to consider cultural factors when > selecting package names, that'd be great though. Okay. My thought, repeated: I would have more likely called it Deus, both to avoid unnecessary potential for offense and to make it sound smarter (everything sounds smarter in Latin, it seems). The fact it was called "god" instead, however, is no skin off my nose. If it was thusly named with full cognizance of the potential cultural response to it, so be it. If not, I think someone could stand to think a little more about cultural associations when naming things in the future. . . . and that really seems to be all there is to it, for me. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] awj @reddit: "The terms never and always are never always true."