Cyril Maithily Gupta's Blog

Here I am reading a book that’s titled ‘So What’s The Difference’. It’s written by a nitwit named Fritz Ridenour, and supposedly ‘attempts to avoid a spirit of criticism or ill will in dealing honestly with the differences and points of disagreements between Orthodox Christianity and other viewpoints.’

On the cover the major religions of the world including Buddhism, Mormonism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Roman Catholicism, Jehovah’s witness, Judaism, Islam are mentioned. So I thought it would be a good comparative read which would give me a frame of reference about the major religions.

Apparently all that bullshit about not having ‘ill-will’ or dealing ‘honestly’ are lies. The author is against ALL the other religions, cults, churches and beliefs (Atheism doesn’t even count), except his own. And he uses cleverly worded sentences to mock at the ideas his little, pea-sized brain can’t accept.

He starts the book by discussing Roman catholicism and then talking about the various inconsistencies and disagreements. Though he’s taken care to word politely cause he’s still talking about christians! All through the while he’s glorifying protestants, and even recommends that Protestants do NOT marry Catholics (I wonder if he goes red when he sees protestants marry people of other religions).

Then he moves on to Judaism, and proceeds at length on how ridiculous is the Jew’s insistence to go on believing that Jesus was not the Messiah in spite of all that evidence in the bible, (all that EVIDENCE in the bible?). But Jews have Moses, so mark it, the cartoons are still not rolling their eyeballs heavenward!

Now it’s Islam’s turn, and Fritz Ridenour says that Mohammed ‘edited’ the Bible, then that Koran ‘contradicts’ the bible (and contradicting the bible is a BIG SIN as it sounds from the book). Then he makes fun of how Muslims believe that Judas died at the cross instead of Christ even though it was quite clear that it was really Christ. We also learn that Mohammed was ‘uneducated’, and that Koran is ‘confused’ and that it was copied on ‘parchment’ and ‘dried camel ribs’ by Mohammed’s followers.

So ill-will has started flowing in finally . I wonder what Moslems say to all these ‘claims’ that Fritz Ridenour has made.

But wait, if you think that’s only as insulting as it gets, there’s more. Fritz hasn’t begun to express his views on Hinduism yet.

He says that Western thought believes that the universe has a plan and a purpose (which is of course, amply explained in the Bible), and that’s how western man ‘became scientific’. Eastern men (Hindus and Chinese)  are living in ‘denial’ of the world, and it is very ‘difficult’ for ‘real science’ to emerge out of this denial. And that whatever scientific progress we’ve had, is by adopting the ‘western outlook’.

He’s got some interesting information too. For example, the Brahmans became the highest social class in Hindus, and added a set of new teachings they called the ‘Brahamanas’, which described ‘elaborate sacrificial rituals’. Oh, where are the BRAHAMANAS? Anywhere near the BAHAMAS? What a pack of bull-crap.

And yeah, according to Fritz Ridenour, ‘Girls are not even worth mentioning as per this system (Hinduism).’

He also says that a new class of Hinduism appeared in 1000 AD when the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were written after, repeat after the time of Gautam Buddha. Umm… Where does Ridenour get his facts?

Here’s another piece of enlightening knowledge from the book, “other millions worship, the god of fertility Shiva, whose rituals are as evil as those of the Caananites whom God commanded the children of Israel to destroy.’ Oh Mr. Ridenour, we shake in fear and anticipation of who God will command to destroy ‘evil’ Hindus.

Oh yes, Hindu saviors didn’t give ‘proof’ that they were God, unlike Christ who HIMSELF said he was Son of God. And of course ‘Hindu gods are too small’, says Fritz Ridneur.

And Buddhism, he sees as an offshoot of Hinduism that says all must suffer and asks people not to want, and to follow the eight doctrines that will lead to Nirvana. So far so good, unfortunately ‘unlike the bible’ it does not give a reason for the suffering. The reason according to Ridneur is the original sin committed by Adam that ‘infected the entire bloodstream’.

And you know what, he says that Christ gives people freedom to live the way they want while Buddhism forces them to live by the eight doctrines, which no matter how noble they sound may not be right because ‘Buddha has no real authority for saying these eight steps are right.’ Apparently in the small little world inside Ridneur’s head, all the authority is with Jesus Christ and his protestant church.

One more intersting revelation from Ridneur, ‘When christians accept Christ only as a savior, and fail to obey Him as Lord, they shortchange themselves and are no better off than the Buddhist,” What a bigotish piece of turd this Ridneur chap is?

There’s more drivel about Unitarianism, Jehovah’s witnesses, Mormons… You name it !

Sick book.

Save yourself. Don’t read it.

 No matter what the newscasters say, and no matter what the governments claim, I don’t see a quick end to this depression, and neither does the corporate world. You shouldn’t take it lightly when the Microsoft chief says he doesn’t see a ‘glimmer on the horizon’ or words to that effect.

Is it finally happening? Is the Intellectual Property business finally slipping out of the hands of the big corporations? The change that is inevitable with the organic growth of the Internet and associated communication mediums.

I could be wrong here, but I feel that many of the experts who earlier opted to work for big companies to forward their careers would rather have a small startup of their own now. Or is this a maturing of their careers, when they’re finally ambitious enough to try and stake it out on their own instead of a reversing market trend.

Although there are some pretty strong reasons why the market should slip out of the hands of the big corporations and into the hands of numerous smaller but skilled players.

– Open Source. Open source right now is actually working only for the techies. There’s hardly a techie who doesn’t swear by Firefox and use many other open source solutions/code in his own products. These are the guys who are contributing and getting the most out of open source, not users.

Open source reduces the cost of development and that’s a big opportunity for smaller developers, because now they can get the job done for a lesser investment.

In fact open source works in more ways than that. Because of open source, big corporations like Microsoft have had to give free access to tools like Visual Studio and SQL server in the production environment. They’ve also created better learning resources and community support in an effort to beat the open source guys at their own game. That’s a big boost to the developers who earlier had to pay to get their questions answered.

– So is everyone going to be more skilled? Actually, YES. Since there’s better documentation, faster Internet, and better learning resources available to anyone who cares enough, more people will be able to learn technical black arts and create formidable solutions.

These people will be competing directly with the solutions from the bigger companies, and in many cases, they will give the bigger companies a run for their money.

– And will they get the contracts? Have you heard of the story of Delhi MCD paying crores to get their website developed by Infosys. A job that could have been done in lakhs by a smaller player, and probably done better. So yes, it might take some time, and it might be a little while before stupid government officials or cash-rich corporate honchos realize they’re paying more than what they should, but they will (specially now in the depression when there’s a cash crunch), and the focus will be finding better solutions for less.

– The future belongs then, to the independent IT solution providers. The future of IT my friend, is in the individual. Are you ready for it?