But stop trying to get me to use one. A computer is a hunk of electronics not a Tickle Me Elmo for grownups.
Free yourself. Let go of your idol. Gather around the bonfire and toss that white gleaming image into the flames and watch the fire envelope your digital demon. Apple is a cult. All the signs are there:
- Fierce loyalty to a “Book.”
- Constant proselytizing of unbelievers.
- It’s all you think about.
- When others make fun of you, you lash out excessively.
- When your image lets you down you blame yourself.
This site features a lot of satire. I’ve made fun of missionaries, evolutionists, feminists, cat owners, and KJV Only advocates, but never, I mean never, have I got the kind of hate-filled emails like when I make fun of Apple. Just today, a Facebook friend unfriended me (I’m not joking) because I made a rude comment about Mac. Ouch. Either I’m an insensitive jerk or somebody’s a little bit touchy.
Missionaries should not use Macs. They are luxury items for the rich. Missionaries should drive old cars and use Toshibas or Dells. A car is for getting you from A to Z. A Hummer is an idol. A computer is for getting work done. Here’s the honest truth. No Bible translation software runs on an Apple. All the software is for Windows. So if Apple owners want to be translators they have to spend still more money and buy software to make their computer act like a cheap computer that they could have bought off the shelf for the price of a 32GB iPod.
Maybe Mac owner=cat lover without a cat. That’s all I can guess. Does someone else have a better idea of why people gush over these things the way they do?
beautiful.
I would think a good set up would be a Dell machine running Ubuntu, and using WINE to run the various Windows programs needed. Or just dual booting as necessary.
Oi, go and do the meme I tagged you with instead of attacking my choice of hardware!
Being a missionary in exotic Africa not dangerous enough for you, David?
“Either I’m an insensitive jerk or somebody’s a little bit touchy.”
Shouldn’t that leave off the “either” and have an “and” in the middle?
Someone unfriended you over a computer? The only time I’ve been unfriended was by my daughter’s ex-bf. I mean, after all, he needed to break up with all of us.
Does that win in the game of one-upsmanship?
Maybe not.
Doug, you’re the only level-headed Apple user I’ve ever met.
Well said, David.
Apple is even a source of spam and Trojan Horse software. They send me weekly promotional e-mails although I have never signed up for them. Also in a moment of weakness I installed some of their software on my PC and now it regularly tries to update itself – and when it does so it grabs control, without warning, over all my music files from the program I installed to do that. This is a cult which propagates itself by dishonest means.
I use a cheap Dell because I’m a cheap missionary.
As a matter of fact I’m so cheap that I run Linux. I use Bibledit (www.bibledit.org) for my Bible translation editor. It will run on a Mac, but the install is a pain because it requires X11
http://www.nongnu.org/bibledit/33_osx10.4.html
We’ve ported it to Windows as well, just so the rest of the known world can use it.
That’s cool. I’m going to check it out.
Adapt-it is also a Mac program. Unless you don’t count that as a Bible translation program isnce it does most of the work for you!
How’s about “Missionaries should drive old camels and use itchity-scritchity quill pens on cowhide”?
Or maybe “Missionaries should remove the hippo from their own eye before trying to remove the Mac from that of their distant neighbour.”
If somebody takes criticism really really badly that is their problem. If you continue to criticise, that’s yours.
Well said, Jos. I resolve henceforth to be a nicer and better person.
Will be waiting for that…
Apple products can damage your health. This girl received burns and a perforated eardrum from her iPod, just down the road from me.
So? I keep getting electric shocks off a Toshiba laptop, and a friend got the same off an MP3 player too. As for mental health with Vista…
Truly awful and should serve as a warning to members of the Apple cult everywhere.
See, I switched to Mac a couple of years ago and I in no way see it as a luxury item. I see it as having a good tool, and maybe its because I grew up with my family in the construction business, but I’ve always been taught to buy a reliable tool and not a cheap one.
I think it is the same for anything else. I’ve had tons of PCs, but I’ve never had a computer that gets out of the way and lets me get work done as well as a Mac. It’s not a luxury item anymore than any computer is a luxury item – I’m buying a decent tool that I can rely on. I don’t need a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro but a good Macbook is very much comparable to a quality PC laptop (Windows adds currently being a big load of crap). If I add all the time/money I’ve spent fixing, updating, replacing, etc. PC’s it would have paid the ‘Apple Tax’ many times over.
Same goes with cars.. I don’t need/want a Hummer. But I would want something reliable and stable and that isn’t going to be the cheapest thing I can afford. To keep technology from becoming an idol, you have to work past it – it shouldn’t be something you have to concern yourself with. I don’t care if other people like Macs, or not – I get my work done better and that’s all that matters to me.
And I keep my eye on Linux… but it isn’t there yet. Maybe it will be someday.
Surely you’ve nothing to complain of then. You’re no more in the Apple cult than a farmer who keeps a rat-catcher is ensnared in Cat adulation.
But perhaps being so reasonable you could clarify something for me. Is the contest between the Macintosh computer and say a Toshiba, or between the Mac OS (X or otherwise) and Windows Vista, XP, etc.
That is, if I could somehow install Mac Os on a Toshiba, might I not gain exactly the same performace, stability, etc as on the original machine?
Dear David,
I’m behind on reading your posts. My apologies.
And as for this one, I’m not going to let you bait me.
Love,
Rick
You’re no fun to tease…
I’m behind on reading your blog as well. Although I’m enjoying Kathy’s love poems to the NLT.