Ad Terras Per Aspera

“Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either . . .; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern …”

– Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

– Thomas Jefferson, 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association

Today I found out about a little Ubuntu fork called Christian Ubuntu. As far as I can tell, it exists with the full knowledge of not only Mark Shuttleworth, but with his and many of the developer’s blessing. As such, Ubuntu inadvertantly promotes Christianity.

And I find this offensive.

I messaged the Ubuntu-devel mailing list over my concerns over the existance of Christian Ubuntu, and at the time, I did not know that Ubuntu apparently supports their efforts. For my attempt to warn the Ubuntu developers of this gross misuse of the Ubuntu name, logo, and trademark, I was called a troll because I found Christian Ubuntu offensive.

Yeah, you heard me; apparently finding Christian Ubuntu offensive and alerting Ubuntu about the existance of the distro, I am trolling. According to this logic, Thomas Jefferson is trolling because he believes in a seperation of church and state.

To paraphrase Jefferson: to compel a man to furnish contributions of code and development resources for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical. I contemplate with the sovereign reverence that act of the whole Linux development community which declaired that their code be used to help all of mankind no matter race, religion, or class, that their licensing should, “make no rule respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of seperation between church and Linux.