I'm thinking about getting religion. I've always found the evidence for the Big Man in the Sky slightly less convincing than that for the Big Man in the Sleigh. To tell the truth, I've always had trouble telling those two guys apart. They seem redundant, if you know what I mean. Possibly you don't.
But what with the United States Congress embracing the Republican agenda for solving America's problems (pass a balanced-budget amendment and pray) and the President of the United States allowing as how he might be open to amending that pesky First Amendment's religious freedom language (more freedom for and less freedom from), I can see the handwriting on the wall.
The only question is, which religion? There are so many to choose from.
Right off, I have to eliminate the trendy heavy-armament and poisoned-Kool-Aid denominations. I'm just not cut out for violence. And Mormonism is out, because those people just can't make good Macintosh software.
I might be able to get behind the dominant American sect, Free-Market Economics, since I do believe that a free market would be a fine thing and that it's as likely as the Second Coming of Elvis. And I don't understand the language in which the services are conducted, a big plus. My only problem with economic religion is that its prophets all dress so well. As I see it, poor people live with the economy and rich people only play with it.
I guess I could worship Microsoft. It's big enough and it's scary enough and I gather that one's religious beliefs don't have to bear any relation to one's short-term purchase plans. The trouble with Microsoft worship is that I don't know where Microsoft will be two years from now. Naming Chicago "Windows 95" set a daunting precedent, and doesn't Microsoft now have to release a Windows 96 in 1996 or abandon it completely? Add to that Microsoft's completely missing the boat on the commercialization of the Internet, and this idol has feet of clay.
A lot of my friends used to adhere to the faith that Apple was god and IBM was the devil. Imagine how confused they are today. I don't think I'll convert to that sect.
What does that leave? Intel? In its favor, Intel has omnipotence. There is no problem that could possibly confront Intel that it can't solve by throwing enough money at it, and Intel has more money than Kuwait. But omnipotence is kind of boring.
Of course, when it's politically expedient, I profess the dominant programming religion, C, or its C++ sect. But I am a C-ist in the same politically correct sense that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. That fools nobody.
Maybe I'll worship the Internet. As it grows into the utterly ubiquitous environment in which we all work, play, socialize, and meditate, Internet worship would be rather like Nature worship, it seems to me, except totally unnatural.
Okay, flame off. If you're religious and have read this far, I admire your tolerance. I hope you realize that I'm just having some fun and don't mean to offend anyone. Despite being a godless heathen, I'm actually a pretty decent guy. My religious beliefs (or lack of them) have nothing to do with the sort of person I am.
Any more than yours do. (Oops. Flame on.)
editor-at-large
MikeSwaine@eworld.com
Copyright © 1995, Dr. Dobb's Journal