Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: new herd: theology

[Dominique Michel <dominique.michel@citycable.ch>]

Le Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:59:25 +0200,
Alexandre Buisse <nattfodd@gentoo.org> a écrit :

> On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 11:25:01 +0200, Duncan wrote:
> > > It's a very good question, it was posed at the time, it was never
> > > answered and at last we can now say it was almost completely ignored.
> > 
> > I (and I expect others who know) didn't answer this before, as it would 
> > have been too easy to start an OT subthread I didn't want to start, but I 
> > trust everyone minding the CoC will prevent that from occurring now.
> > 
> > Briefly (and intended to be neutrally), the Latter Day Saints, commonly 
> > known as the Mormons (maybe other groups as well??), have a religious 
> > interest in genealogy, so having it in the religion/theology herd would 
> > make sense to them.  That should answer the question, and give a place to 
> > start for those interested in looking it up.
> 
> And a sect from the remote regions of Lapland believes that haskell is
> a godsend and adore the ghc source code as their Holy Scripture, should
> we move the haskell herd to theology as well?
> 
>  
> > However, I agree the sciences or a general humanities herd will make more 
> > sense to most folks.  I don't feel strongly enough about it to be worth 
> > arguing a maintainer's choice of herd for their packages, however.  After 
> > all, they're the ones taking responsibility for it in the tree, 
> > regardless of the herd it's in, and if it's more convenient for them in a 
> > theology herd, why should it be a problem for those not interested in the 
> > package?  It might raise a few eyebrows here or there, but if it's being 
> > well maintained, there are more critical things to argue about.
> 
> Sure, there are more critical things out there, but why should people,
> on such a critical subject, chose to label packages that have nothing to
> do with religion with a "theology" stamp?

I fully agree, theology is the worst possible name if the herd will include
both religious and scientific softwares.

Human beings have the unique possibility to use their critical mind (at least
if they understand at we have this unique feature in the creation), and
all the theology are based on the assumption at they are true only if we give
away our critical mind (Introduction of all the religious book, they said at it
is true because it is true...). And they cannot be true otherwise.

Religion: the prophet prove the religion and the religion prove the prophet.
Science: the theory is true only if it is proved by practical and reproductible
experimentation.

Words have a meaning. The fact is at genealogy is a science as it is possible
to prove it by practical experimentation, and it doesn't matter if the father
is a Mormon or the currier, an ADN prove will tell us. And for that it have
nothing to do with religious ideology. Theology is about religious study and
cannot be proved by practical and reproductible experimentation. For that, it
have nothing to do with science.

Otherwise: I think at it is a good idea to have that kind of softwares, but I
also think at the name of the herd is one of the worst the worst possible.
Please, don't call it with a name that is a direct reference to religious
ideology if you want to mix those different kind of softwares. I think at
at the best solution will be to make 2 herds, one for the religious ideology,
one for human-sciences, so at we can know what we are talking about.

It was my 2c. contribution on that matter.

Ciao,
Dominique
> 
> /Alexandre
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