[veltas]

The FreeBSD Code of Conduct mentions being welcoming to people regardless of religion, but by using imagery that explicitly comes from religious depictions of evil in their logo they're blatantly being unwelcoming to a lot of religious people. Would they react differently (albeit more politely) if someone complained today, now the Code of Conduct exists, especially as 'fixing' this would require a full rebrand?

I think the hotel guest was right to complain, and in my understanding of the Bible as a Christian I would say it is appropriate to refuse to do business with someone using such images, but also the image does not have any 'power'. That is, it is potentially immoral to associate with it, but the image shouldn't be 'scary' to any Christian, it's just a picture.

[troad]

The hotel guest was certainly not right to complain.

There are people - often religious - who have a funny definition of "welcoming" which comes perilously close to "either believe as I do, or at least have the decency to pretend that you do in public."

Shucks to that. The guest is demanding that others sacrifice their own integrity to stroke her ego, and placate her obviously fragile beliefs. It is not the job of everyone else in the world to suspend their beliefs to sustain yours. We have a word for such a demand. It's intolerance.

Of course, most religious people are nothing like this (shout out to you, the lovely ones!), and some irreligious people are exactly like this, but intolerance is a trait that does naturally correlate with all-encompassing systems of belief.

[veltas]

> It is not the job of everyone else in the world to suspend their beliefs to sustain yours.

If you have a business called "666 Flowers and Cakes" then a lot of Christians won't go there, and some might confront you about it. This isn't demanding or controlling thought, it's just freedom of association.

Nobody's forcing FreeBSD to do anything, but I'm pointing out the logo is at odds with their code of conduct.

The woman in story also seemed to go further and make claims about abuse, which is obviously nonsense and goes too far.

But no, you're not going to be welcoming to religious people by branding with things associated with evil in that religion.

[troad]

I'd respectfully submit that Christians "confronting" me over what I decide to call my business is a fantastic example of someone trying to control the conduct and speech of others.

There's a horrendous double standard around religion in our society, whereby religious people demanding things of others is always some beautiful instance of protected religious self expression, but any obligation on religious people to tolerate others is a grievous violation of their religious liberty.

It is infeasible to suggest that I must check with every fringe religious movement before I name things, or choose mascots. But worse, it's intolerant. I have the right to my own beliefs, and to act and speak in accordance with those beliefs. It is no one's business but mine if I decide to open a shop called "Lucifer's Lamps & Light Fixtures".

Tolerance does not consist in pretending to all think alike, it requires genuine acceptance that others believe and speak differently, and that that's OK.

[veltas]

Confronting you in good faith isn't forcing you. And you don't need to agree with someone's ethics systems to tolerate them.

[troad]

> Confronting you in good faith isn't forcing you.

Christians sure do seem to get an awful lot of leeway to 'confront' others, and it never seems to work the other way.

Not forcing, but certainly 'trying to control'.

> And you don't need to agree with someone's ethics systems to tolerate them.

Agreed!

[veltas]

> it requires genuine acceptance that others believe and speak differently, and that that's OK

That itself is a question of ethics, that I don't think you need to agree with to be able to be tolerant. You can tolerate people without thinking it's "OK" for people to believe things you think are wrong to believe.

[consteval]

> but I'm pointing out the logo is at odds with their code of conduct

Okay but it's not, because they are STILL welcoming to ALL religions and they're not telling you what to believe in.

This is the trouble with religion. Since they're predicated on a belief of mission and saviorship, a neutral or disregard position is interpreted as opposition. This is not the case! Simply using a logo which looks like a demon is not opposition to any religion - because you can still be that religion and use the software.

We see this time and time and time again. Not bending over backwards to one particular religion is not opposition. In the vast, vast majority of religion such a symbol is not seen as offensive. Often times with religion simply acknowledging secularism or other religions is interpreted as offense. This makes religious tolerance virtually impossible, because in order to make any arbitrary religion happy you have to explicitly make all other religions unhappy.

This is why the correct way to tolerate religion is to simply pretend it doesn't exist. Well, if Abrahamic religions do not exist then the logo cannot be offensive.

If you have doubts this is the most correct way to approach religious tolerance I recommend looking into some landmark Supreme Court cases about the establishment clause, particularly in schools. The justices are good at explaining why this is the approach often taken.

[veltas]

> a neutral or disregard position is interpreted as opposition

It's not really neutral though, it's specifically from the outset designed to depict something evil in the culture of the religion. The current more abstract logo could just as easily looks like traits of Satan as a random demon. And I don't believe this is an attack on Christianity or Christians, or designed to exclude Christians. I don't imagine it bothers most Christians.

But this is something certain Christians will be put off by, and find unwelcoming, for religious reasons. So hence this is at odds with the code of conduct in my opinion.

And really the whole thread has just confirmed this, I've been just short of accused of being an extremist, and had many complaints about my religion, just for pointing this out.

I think one solution is just not to have codes of conduct, it seems to breed this kind of discussion and vitriol. And apparently there's always favourite religions, ethnicities, etc.; different according to who you ask. And also maybe avoid using religious-themed art in your logo if you want to avoid potential for religious discussion. The people behind the logo probably considered and decided this doesn't matter a long time ago, and personally I respect their decision: but it does mean that it will exclude some people.

[consteval]

> it's specifically from the outset designed to depict something evil in the culture of the religion

No, you interpret it as such. But to the vast majority of religions, it's not viewed as evil, and to secular people it's not evil either. It's just a play on the term daemon.

> So hence this is at odds with the code of conduct in my opinion

No, because as soon as you make organization changes to appease Christians than the Muslims will say "Wait wait wait - you're appeasing Christians and not us? But we are the one true religion!" And so now, you no longer have tolerance.

That's why the only way to achieve true tolerance of religion is to pretend all religions don't exist. Even acknowledging one can be, and often is, interpreted as favoritism or endorsement. Every religion thinks they're the "One True" one.

But if religions don't exist then the daemon isn't offensive. So there you go, religious tolerance.

> religious-themed art

Frankly I don't think Christianity, or any religion, have sole proprietorship over a cute little daemon logo. I can arbitrarily relate many things to religion. For example, there's water in the Bible. Is therefore including water at your events an example of appealing to religion? No. You do not own demons and more so than the LGBT owns rainbows. There's a thing that exists in popular culture and they're secular, largely. Also asking religious people what is and is not secular is just a recipe for disaster overall. They have a very strong incentive to swallow up a ton of stuff.

[johannbergson]

FYI, FreeBSD did rename their "master" branch to "main" on GitHub.

[xenocratus]

> which comes perilously close to "either believe as I do, or at least have the decency to pretend that you do in public."

Pretty much everyone has those sort of rules, and they have changed and evolved over time. Societies converge on a set and then find anyone who has a different set grating, because "muh morals", but if you're self-aware enough you'd realise that whether those rules are predicated on spirituality or something else is irrelevant to how it ends up "working" in practice.

Actually, the fact that you're expressing this dissent is showcasing your own tendency to enforce such rules.

[oneeyedpigeon]

> The FreeBSD Code of Conduct mentions being welcoming to people regardless of religion, but by using imagery that explicitly comes from religious depictions of evil in their logo they're blatantly being unwelcoming to a lot of religious people.

When you use the term "religion" here, are you referring to an immutable set of 'official' religions? If so, which religions are in the set? If it's not immutable, how does a religion get added to the set? If it's not a closed set, would you be willing to cease using or promoting anything that has a logo on that offends my religion?

[veltas]

I'm just reading what they wrote, and making as few assumptions as possible about their intent. Do you have a specific disagreement about my interpretation?

[ulrikrasmussen]

You have a fair point in general, but in this particular case I think the guest is overreacting, and accommodating such people borders being tolerant to intolerance.

[veltas]

I agree that the guest shouldn't have said it was 'abuse' to put the logo up. There is no actual harm that can come from that picture.

[BSDobelix]

> blatantly being unwelcoming to a lot of religious people.

It's maybe a clever tactic to keep religious extremists away.

>as a Christian I would say it is appropriate to refuse to do business with someone using such images

Send from a Iphone ;)

[veltas]

> It's maybe a clever tactic to keep religious extremists away.

Or a clever tactic to reduce diversity, because many diverse countries of the world are full of people who would be uncomfortable or wouldn't want to associate with such images, because of their culture and religion.

> Send from a Iphone ;)

Sent from Android, but besides the point. I've used FreeBSD and have tried to make it work for me. Unfortunately because of the logo I can't actually use it in general. For instance I wouldn't be comfortable using it with the church website I help maintain. I'm sure this is all just superstitious nonsense to you, but in truth this is part of my religion. Believing in the supernatural and sin is not 'extreme', unless you think Christianity in general is extreme.

I'm not stopping you from being anti religious, or anti Christian. I don't it's good, but I think it would be wrong to force you to not be. But FreeBSD claims to abide by a code of welcoming all people regardless of religion, I'm pointing out the hypocrisy here.

[f30e3dfed1c9]

Re: "because of the logo I can't actually use it in general. For instance I wouldn't be comfortable using it with the church website I help maintain": I don't understand this. Why would the logo appear on the web site? Or do you mean that the mere existence of the logo, even if it is never seen by you or any user of the web site, means you can't use FreeBSD?

[oneeyedpigeon]

> Or a clever tactic to reduce diversity

This is a difficult one to judge because, while the logo may keep some extremists away which, I agree, would reduce diversity, a policy of kowtowing to such extremists may keep more open-minded people away instead.

[veltas]

Careful reading you'll see I'm not asking for diversity for extremists.

[BSDobelix]

>I'm not stopping you from being anti religious, or anti Christian.

I am a catholic, but thanks for the "anti Christian" label, you see that's what i mean with extremism ;)

[defrost]

As I recall, didn't Catholics cement themselves as anti-Christian religuous extremists with the Albigensian Crusade?

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius seems pretty extreme.

Apocryphal quotes aside there's a well documented long history of intolerance of core cannon heresy.

[BSDobelix]

Your are right, now i know that the whole time i was the extremist by birth.

>Apocryphal quotes aside there's a well documented long history of intolerance of core cannon heresy.

Like with every single religion right?

[defrost]

Pretty sure there's a modicum of diversity there .. Father Bob McGuire's no Christian Brother or Cardinal George Pell. You might be one of the good ones ... :)

> Like with every single religion right?

Eh, dunno about that, there's a lot of variation - off hand I don't think the Baháʼí engaged in many pograms or inquisitions .. other religions have notably dabbled in many such things.

[veltas]

I didn't say (or didn't mean to imply?) you were anti-Christian. But now it sounds like you're calling me an extremist, which actually is controlling/manipulative behaviour, is it not? And for no good reason.