At 01:37 PM 3/08/2004 +0200, Jonathan Neve wrote:

> >Ach, I spent a recent weekend repairing a database that got corrupted when
> >a thunderstorm outage fzappt-ed a chunk of hard disk where a couple of
> >pages of the company's database pages happened to be. Thunderstorms sans
> >rain, natch, in a place that's locked in a three-year drought...company
> >does backups in wet years...the Lord doth work in mysterious ways, his
> >wonders to perform...
> >
> >
>Please Helen! This sort of religious talk

This is *religious* talk?

>is at least off-topic here,
>and could be downright offensive to any who do not share your religious
>views...

What complete nonsense. I defy anyone to determine WHAT my religious views
are, from my quoting perhaps the most-often quoted line from any hymn in
the English tradition!!

>If I were to post something on a religious topic in this list, everyone
>would tell me I'm off-topic -- and rightly so.

FYI, this was and still is NOT a religious topic. And, FYI, in the English
legal tradition an Act of God is not a religious topic, it is a
legally-recognised phenomenon. A drought is an Act of God. A thunderstorm
is an Act of God.

>I therefore never post anything on this list that is of a non-technical
>(religious) nature.
>I think others should use the same self restraint. Poking fun at and
>joking about God are both dangerous for yourself and offensive to
>others, as well as very childish.

But it's OK for you to post pretentious, irrelevant and irrational
back-chat, right?

/heLen