Caveat: Ook!

"Ook!" is what is known as an "esoteric programming language."  I've developed a certain passing fascination for these constructs, which I've pursued in my wikipediasurfing.  There are various kinds, but what they share is a certain in-jokey relationship to the practices of theoretical computer science.

Another esoteric language I particularly like is "whitespace" – a programming language that allows you to write code using nothing but ASCII whitespace characters, such as tab, space, and linefeed.  It then treats all other characters as its own  whitespace, thus allowing you to, in theory, embed a secret whitespace program into the code of some other (slightly) more conventional programming language – perhaps "Ook!" 

Meanwhile, I've also been pursuing research into xenotheology – the study of alien belief systems, I guess.  Obviously, since we don't know anything about aliens (yet), this is a strictly hypothetical-based pursuit.  But fascinating.  What do aliens believe?  Or rather, what would they believe, if they existed?  How will what aliens believe interact with what humans believe, in a potential first-contact situation?  Will we be evangelized?  Will they be?  Would human religions as currently structured survive a first contact with an equally (but differently) religious but alien civilization?  I suspect some religions would cope better with aliens than others – especially those currently "fringe" religions that have a belief in aliens (or other worlds/planets), etc., already embedded in their dogmas:  e.g. scientology or, most notably, mormonism.   All of which is to say, which president would you rather have handling a sticky alien first-contact situation:  President Romney or President Huckabee?

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