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". . . and Steve Jobs was its high priest"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a...ory_1.html
. . . In a secular age, Apple has become a religion, and Steve Jobs was its high priest.
Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, and that same year, an Eastern Washington University sociologist, Pui-Yan Lam, published a paper titled “May the Force of the Operating System Be With You: Macintosh Devotion as Implicit Religion.” Lam’s research struck close to home, quite literally — her husband has a mini-museum of Apple products in the basement.
I call BS.
/Mr Lynn
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I enjoy and appreciate Apple. No plans to worship Apple or SJ. I have my one God and He is all I need.
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So if Apple is a religion...
What part of it are Hackintoshers?
Seriously, I do not worship Apple or Steve Jobs. I respect Steve for all that was accomplished under his direction. But he was just a man....a very, very smart man.
Religion demands blind faith. I know full well that Apple is not perfect. They have missteps from time to time and I do not agree with everything they do.
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I am surprised that none of these pundits idiots has latched onto the fact that Steve's biological father was Syrian. There must be some sociological hay to be made there, but that would require actually doing some research.
What information is available suggests that Steve was put up for adoption because his biological grandfather would not allow his biological mother to marry a Muslim.
What an all-American story...
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With Apple, I can see and use a product right in front of me.
With religion, I must believe in stories I am told, with little proof to back them up.
So yeah - nothing like religion. IMHO.
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MacArtist wrote:
So if Apple is a religion...
What part of it are Hackintoshers?
We lie somewhere between apostasy and the Devil's spawn. Lo, but we are great sinners who take the sacred words of the EULA in vain.
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I was at the Apple Store in SOHO yesterday. The outside of the building looked like a shrine. There were handwritten cards posted on the wall as high as people could reach. There was a collection of little offerings ( flowers,apples,etc) on the ground. Lots of people were reading the notes and making additions.
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I had posted--then removed-- that article, under "Celebrating Apple" (where it didn't belong) as an example of the 'contrary opinion' about Jobs, and Apple. We can expect to see more of this kind of stuff, now that a minimum number of days has passed since his demise, and the opinions of the unimpressed are included.
It's partly the "admiration fatigue" inside the media, hearing all this super great stuff about Steve Jobs, there's bound to be those who are scratching their heads, or have a grand theory they've been peddling (this "religion" theory about Apple is far from new) and at least this is a mild example of it. GAWKER published a positively nasty article about Apple, linked somewhere in the Drudge Report. Expect some of the dark stuff to emerge, this is just one example.
That said, the religion thing isn't completely untrue, but the same can be said for admirers of other special brands, like Harley Davidson. Motorcycle owners' brains are activated in ways identical to spiritual bliss, when they're shown photographs of their beloved machines.
A lot of things evoke this, in our secular consumer age. Apple is only one well-made product that inspires those who use it. It just happens to be the only computer (or music player, or phone) that evokes it. True?
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I've read of über fans, of fan boys and of devotees, but not implicit religion, as Pui-Yan Lam claimed. What I do believe is that media took an idea like Pui-Yan Lam's and ran with it, and then some of the über fans, fan boys and of devotees think they're part of an implicit religion due to misconception of its definition.
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pipiens wrote:
I was at the Apple Store in SOHO yesterday. The outside of the building looked like a shrine. There were handwritten cards posted on the wall as high as people could reach. There was a collection of little offerings ( flowers,apples,etc) on the ground. Lots of people were reading the notes and making additions.
The Princess Di effect, etc.
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