[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.

[troad]

Well, now that's a meatier point. I'd say there are natural limits to tolerance.

One is under no obligation to tolerate racism, for example. One may choose to be a friend to a racist in the hopes of being a positive influence, but this may be difficult for a person to manage without sacrificing their integrity. It must not be expected or mandatory. (And certainly not for members of the race being vilified.)

Similarly, a gay man may choose to be a friend to bigoted religious person in the hopes of opening their eyes to love, but this requires self-abasement of a kind that must not be expected and mandatory.

It's hard to figure out a system of tolerance for the intolerant, and it's not at all clear why they should get the privilege of being intolerant of others, and demand tolerance of themselves. This is effectively what we end up with in practice around religion, though.

[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.