Is Google God?
There is a case to be made for it. And unlike most religion, it’s not a matter of faith, but evidence.
Now maybe if we see an image of Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a cloud, torilla, oil stain, or fire, then we’ll know for sure.
Tip o’ the yarmulke to the BABloggee who sent me an email about this which I accidentally deleted so I don’t know who it is. BAbloggee Philippe Chayer.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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October 17th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Another great church!
…woah. Hate mail? They received hate mail? Some people sure are touchy
October 17th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
haha, the hate mail they get is absolutely hilarious. Satire is just lost on some people.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
You’re telling me? Check out the comments on my YouTube post where I call out Stephen Colbert. I’d guess that well over half the YouTube and Digg commenters have no clue about satire… making them self-satized. Painful.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
“Is Google God?”
No, but they do have his money.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Well as Satan exclaimed to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, “You shall be as gods!” Possibly one of the few Biblical prophecies that is right on (because it wasn’t a prophecy, it was revisionist history!).
October 17th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
I think Voltaire’s position applies quite aptly here. It doesn’t, so She did. I love it!
October 17th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
It was nice till I saw the Ten Commandments of Google, and we see yet again a bunch of humans putting words into the mouth of their god. It’s just like all religions, it’s humans pretending to speak for a god.
On the bright side, at least this god exists. Unfortunately, that didn’t prohibit it from gaining false prophets. Still, I welcome it into the pantheon.
October 17th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
@Bad Astronomer: Sweet jeezer. Just went to glance at the said youtube comments. One of ‘em even calls you “Baldy”. Well, he calls you moron too, but baldy? That must just plain hurt!
Of course, video responses are moon hoaxer videos.
Ignorants paranoiacs make me laugh.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:35 am
Oh DR. BA, if you use webmail, you are in trouble, but if you use the program “Mailâ€, you can recover your lost message. As a safetynet, when one deletes a message in Mail, Mail sends it into the folder “Trashâ€. It will sit there for a week. If you do not change your mind in a week, Mail will then delete it.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:12 am
Are Larry Paige and Sergey Brin her prophets?
October 18th, 2007 at 4:19 am
OOoohh! I love this prayer (with minor edits)
Our Google, who art in GooglePlex,
Hallowed be thy search,
Thy GoogleBots come,
The search will be done,
At school, as it is at home.
Give us this day our daily search,
and forgive us our plagiarism,
as we forgive those who plagiarize against us.
And lead us not into Yahoo,
But deliver us from Microsoft.
For thine is the web, the mail, and the desktop, for ever and ever. Amen
October 18th, 2007 at 5:47 am
That has got to be the funniest I’ve seen for a long time, just capped off by the hate mail. Thanks for the post.
October 18th, 2007 at 6:02 am
As Italian, I still prefer His Noodliness the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may His Noodly Appendances fill the Universe of His Holy Sauce)
October 18th, 2007 at 6:51 am
From the Hate Mail section:
“You’re not god, your not even god spelt backwards – dog – because that is lycos.”
Thanks BA!
October 18th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Well aside form the non-existence of Hell – which is a crater on the Moon*
& the use of blue colour for three things in the one graph (gooogle, Busdhhism & Judaism) I’ve got nothing ad tosay about that parody site!
In fact, I’ve just joined up… Now I’ve got three co-existing religious faiths :
1) Jedi,
2) Cricket &
3) Church of Google
to put on my census form .. & come to think of it I don’t mind the Pastafareans (God = the Flying Sphaghetti Monster) either.
Not bad for an atheist really even if the Aussie census bureau may be bemused and infuriated by it!
(For those that don’t know there was a big ruckus over people putting “Jedi” down on their forms last time ..or time before that ..?)
Anyway great site, worth a look and laugh! Thanks BA.
——————————————————————-
* Hell is found on the South West / 3rd Quadrant, below the Mare Nubium or Sea of Clouds; lat 32 S, long. 8 W if you’re curious. It’s named for Father Maximilan hell -I’m pretty sure ..
Source : Atlas of the Universe, Patrick Moore, 1994.
Incidentally, there’s also Utopia on Mars & Valhalla on a Jovian moon -Callisto I think ..
October 18th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Expletives spoken not typed typios!
What I meant was write was :
“Well aside form the non-existence of Hell – which is a crater on the Moon
& the use of blue colour for three things in the one graph (google, Buddhism & Judaism) I’ve got nothing bad to say about that parody site!”
NOT
Google with three ‘o’s . Hmmn.. just joined & I’m a sinner already!
Or “Busdhhism” for Buddhism – ‘Bus-dhhism’ being Iguess the cult of Tibetan bus drivers (What comes around goes around especially when youdon’t get off at the terminus my son!”)
Hmmn .. think I might just have created another one!
October 18th, 2007 at 10:11 am
LOL!!!1! People of faith are stupid!!!1!111!!eleven
October 18th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Ah, more parody of religion. I’ve got no problem with that.
I do, however, take issue with this statement: “Google can “do no evil” (Omnibenevolent). Part of Google’s corporate philosophy is the belief that a company can make money without being evil.” I’m pretty sure that dissident movements in the People’s Republic of China could put down some viable counterarguments concerning Google’s relationship with the Great Firewall.
Of course, this can be counterargued with a redefinition of “evil,” which is as has been said time and again a subjective value statement and therefore inappropriate in terms of proving (in a scientific fashion) much of anything. That logic, combined with a tendency to non sequitur conclusions from support, sort of ruins the ‘proof’ section.
For shame, Doctor. Your standards for “evidence” have gone down… then again, one’s always willing to cut ideological kin a little slack, neh?
>> Incidentally, there’s also Utopia on Mars & Valhalla on a Jovian moon -Callisto I think ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_Planitia
October 18th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Would this imply a tax-exempt status for the Internet?
Also, can one now claim sanctuary on the hallowed ground of Internet cafes? School computer labs? My office desk?
October 19th, 2007 at 2:52 am
We have always created our own gods, and thanks to technology we appear to be getting better at it. Theres a serious joke in there somewhere.
October 19th, 2007 at 4:31 am
Since they claim that putting yourself on the Internet grants you eternal life through Google’s cache, I sent them an e-mail asking if that would make Myspace a tool of God. I hope I get a reply.
October 19th, 2007 at 9:12 am
>> I sent them an e-mail asking if that would make Myspace a tool of God.
The works of Satan often manifest themselves as seeming tools of God–the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Any wahoo can tell you that.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 pm
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