Computer Geeks For Christ

Home Email a FriendPrint Article
A Geek at the Cross

Geeks are a proud people. Our intelligence quotas represent the upper 15% of the population. We are legendary in our ability to recognize patterns and sequences and to arrange and process them according to algorithms. The psychologist tell us that these abilities extend not only to computers but also into the arenas of music, cryptography, mathematics, chess, puzzles, and anything else that involves recognizing and manipulating patterns and sequences. We are a people of obsessions. The number of these obsessions include trains, dinosaurs, Star Trek, and of course our favorite technology (Yes I still fire up my old 8bit CoCo III Long live the Motorola 6809 Series Chip). The doctors expect that most geeks are actually victims of Asperger's Syndrome. Asperger's Syndrome is a mild form of autism that may be responsible for all of the obsessions that Geeks experience.

Geeks are a caring people but a misunderstood people. They do not function well in crowds and their highly introverted personalities make confrontation difficult. The Geek prefers the one on one intimacy of close relationships and friendships but his difficulty in expressing emotion and highly concrete way of perceiving reality as a set of absolutes causes him to be misunderstood as being cold and judgmental. This is not the case in reality geeks care very deeply for people but cannot express it in terms that are easily understood by non-geeks. The language of Geeks is very specific and precise. Geeks understand the difference between the statements, “Do you want to take out the trash?” and “Will you take out the trash?”. Geeks will readily answer them differently, not because they are being “smart” but because they are being earnest and precise.

Geeks have a deep rooted morality and sense of loyalty that is a subset of the mainstream. Geeks value knowledge and ideas. Geeks do not view intellectual property rights in the same way as the mainstream. To a Geek they are seen more as a way of protecting the free flow of information from the evil corporate empires. Music, thoughts, ideas, writings, and stories are all free for the public good and edification. They cannot be owned by anyone because they don’t originate with anyone instead they are traded and improved and traded again. Ultimately they approach perfection. The process of writing and re-writing and coding and re-coding is more important than the finished result. Like an artist a Geek's work is never complete. No one can own an idea. If everyone shared the ethics of the Geeks then everyone could know everyone else’s bank account number and every door could be unlocked and nothing would ever be taken.

Geeks are not strangers to persecution. As children we have been bullied and beaten. In the media our name is smeared and distorted. The innocent terms of hacker and geek are equated to the criminal titles of cracker or electronic-pirate but anyone who understands our ethics knows that they are not the same. In retaliation we lord our intellect over all that we come into contact. At the end of the day we are still persecuted and misunderstood and still longing to fit in.

Yet there is a wonderful place where Geeks do fit in. There is a place where everyone is equal. Don't be put off by the Cross. You have seen the patterns in nature and interwoven into the fabric of space time. You have stood in awe of them and worshipped them at times. You have modeled them and programmed them and counted them. You have recognized that ideas are inspired and inbreathed. You have seen that no one owns thoughts but they are larger than we are. That they are from some great beyond. Is it too great of a leap to accept that the abstract god of Einstein is a personal deity? Is it too great of a leap to accept that He is Jesus Christ?