I am rather upset by the inclusion this program called Evolution in Ubuntu CE. I am unfamiliar with what this program does, but I find the word to be offensive to myself and other Christians. Would it be possible to rename Evolution or not include it as a default package? I do my best to raise my children in a household that preaches the word of God, and I find it rather dubious that Ubuntu CE should include a program that so directly contradicts the word of God.
Why is there a program called Evolution in CE?
Archived thread 1089782 from Ubuntu Christian Edition. Markdown source: Ubuntu_Christian_Edition/thread_1089782_Why_is_there_a_program_called_Evolution_in_CE.md
Uh....Evolution is the Ubuntu default Personal Information Manager. It does email, calendaring, todo lists, and contacts. Ubuntu CE had nothing to do with the name. It was named such by the developers.
I too believe in a literal 7-day creation of the world, but the word evolution is not an offense to me.
Don't worry, it doesn't mean "evolution" in terms put down by darwinists. "Evolution" is a word that means progress and development so I think developers had this in mind when were naming it. As noted, it's a very good mail client and organizer (PIM) and have nothing to do with darwinism.
So I did a bit more research and it turns out that Evolution's mascot is a monkey giving further credence to the fact that the developers of Evolution are Darwinists. I don't know about you but I wasn't born from a monkey, and I don't want any monkeys on my desktop to further the Darwinist agenda. How am I going to explain to the children why there is a program in Ubuntu CE called Evolution which has a leering monkey as a mascot? Please remove Evolution from our god-loving desktops.
Evolution is the default Gnome mail client. It comes as a dependency to ubuntu-desktop, bundled in the Ubuntu distribution. It does not bear any relation to any religious meaning.
If you're in doubt, maybe you should post a question/send an email to the team behind it requesting an explanation.
BTW, I've been using Evolution as a primary email client and for these 3-4 year I never saw that monkey you mentioned. I tried to find a clue of it in the application itself, but no trace. No trace in docs and app's interface too. Only on their website there is a monkey as a mascott. Don't think it has any ideological meaning though.
malv83 said: I am rather upset by the inclusion this program called Evolution in Ubuntu CE. I am unfamiliar with what this program does, but I find the word to be offensive to myself and other Christians. Would it be possible to rename Evolution or not include it as a default package? I do my best to raise my children in a household that preaches the word of God, and I find it rather dubious that Ubuntu CE should include a program that so directly contradicts the word of God.
don't get too typical and forget the real teachings of Christ, He doesn't care about your mail sender, He cares about your actions in life, the love you show to those around you
malv83 said: I am rather upset by the inclusion this program called Evolution in Ubuntu CE. I am unfamiliar with what this program does, but I find the word to be offensive to myself and other Christians. Would it be possible to rename Evolution or not include it as a default package? I do my best to raise my children in a household that preaches the word of God, and I find it rather dubious that Ubuntu CE should include a program that so directly contradicts the word of God.
Malv83,
I can sympathize with the way you felt. I'm a staunch young-earth creationist and it bothered me a bit that I might use an email client like "Evolution." So for the first two years or so that I used Linux, I used Thunderbird. Recently, I noticed that the email search is a lot faster on Evolution (I have >14,000 emails to search). So I made the switch to Evolution.
I do wish there was a way to name the application differently (in the title bar). But like the previous poster said, we got other things to worry about (~5 billion souls on their way to hell).
Tak
Somebody should create a transition package for evolution named intelligent-design. But Linus Torvalds seems to be an atheist ...
what would the religious beliefs of mr.Torvalds have to do with the name of the application?
anyway, don't you all think this went on too much? it's an application, i have never read in any sacred book that it is against His will to use an app called evolution :P
(edit) Good point.
malv83 said: So I did a bit more research and it turns out that Evolution's mascot is a monkey giving further credence to the fact that the developers of Evolution are Darwinists. I don't know about you but I wasn't born from a monkey, and I don't want any monkeys on my desktop to further the Darwinist agenda. How am I going to explain to the children why there is a program in Ubuntu CE called Evolution which has a leering monkey as a mascot? Please remove Evolution from our god-loving desktops.
dont use it then
install kubuntu, which comes with konqueror.. teach your children to be warmongers
geez
The monkey was so small on the website...oh well, it's still a good program.
eldragon said: dont use it then
install kubuntu, which comes with konqueror.. teach your children to be warmongers
geez
lol... There's even "Krusader" :D What about that? :D
If you're really worried that seeing the NAME of a MAIL PROGRAM in a MENU (gasp!) will prevent you from effectively brainwashing your children, you can uninstall Evolution and install something else. Good job cathing the efforts of the Evil Satanist Conspiracy to infiltrate your home and teach your children questionable doctrines.
Maintaining your computer is your job, not the job of the developers. Judging by the responses of your coreligionists, even people in ideological agreement with you rarely object to the simple presence of the program, but if it bothers you, you should remove it. Nowhere does the Ubuntu site promise that Ubuntu is a Magic Friendly Jesus Happy Fuzzy Bunny operating system.
Some people find your insistance that the default settings for an operating system match your ideological beliefs to be just as offensive as you find the name of Evolution.
meho_r said: lol... There's even "Krusader" :D What about that? :D
rofl, nice one.
But it isn't an email client. Is it ?
howefield said: rofl, nice one.
But it isn't an email client. Is it ?
Nope. But OP, feel free to remove Evolution if you feel that it could actually have any long term effects on the education of your children, however note that this will remove ubuntu-desktop which could damage future updates/upgrades.
edited
chrissharp123 said: Sorry - feeling the need to quote forum policy here:
Yep, point 10 of section one is especially interesting.
eldragon said: dont use it then
install kubuntu, which comes with konqueror.. teach your children to be warmongers
geez
this made me laugh so hard. (almost) brilliant retort madam/sir :D
In the interests of fairness, Ubuntu can't choose the name of the programs. Developers do that.
Evolution has more than one meaning, and the monkey can be a pun on words.
I kinda hope this was a bad joke... if not, don't Christian's have somewhat larger issues to deal with.
I honestly think this person is being a troll. Firstly the mail client's logo comes from the old company that used to manage the project (Ximian). In fact I believe at one point Evolution was even called Ximian. The Novell bought out Ximian and several related projects like Mono (which also has a monkey logo) and kept the logo because it goes with the whole monkey theme. The actual name of the mail client is a coincidence and it wasn't meant to be a pun or suggestion. It was just a really bad coincidence.
I honestly don't care what a program is named as long as it is nothing excessively crude. I'd use Firefox regardless if they took a vote and decided to rename it "Genocide" and change their motto to "we kill the competition." It doesn't mean that i support the act of genocide.
The original poster is really looking for something that isn't their. No one is trying to force their views on anyone.
I have lost several units of faith in humanity by reading this thread.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=evolve
The word "evolve" has existed since the 1600s. Science doesn't have a monopoly on the word.
The name of the application is up to the developers, and that's just the way it is. Similarly, the chosen mascot of the application is up to the developers. Asking them to change either because of your personal beliefs is just silly.
After all, look at FreeBSD logo: [IMG]http://www.freebsd.org/logo/logo-full.png[/IMG] it's a demon. Does that mean FreeBSD is a satanic operating system? No!
Or another example-- Mandriva's logo: [IMG]http://www.benidiktus.info/images/mandriva-logo_0.png[/IMG] It's a five-pointed star, which is symbolically descended from the pentagram. But that doesn't make Mandriva a pagan Linux distro.
pmooney78 said: If you're really worried that seeing the NAME of a MAIL PROGRAM in a MENU (gasp!) will prevent you from effectively brainwashing your children, you can uninstall Evolution and install something else.Actually, GNOME breaks if you remove Evolution, I've done it before. (And yes, I agree that it's a really dumb dependency, they should move all those components to a seperate library and have both Evolution and GNOME depend on that.)
This thread has run its course, the OP's question has been answered, and is now degrading into a religious debate. I will close it now.