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Religious Tolerance in America

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
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Jan 9, 2003
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God Bless the USA! :usa:
dear-articles-2.jpg
 
Given that letter and the first line of the one below it, their readership area must be a scary place.
 
quixotecoyote said:
Given that letter and the first line of the one below it, their readership area must be a scary place.
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Hmm. Not sure what the second one goes on to say, but it does look a little ominous. (Until all the fish are gone? Somehow I doubt that's fishermen would really want. Maybe it was meant sarcastically.)
 
Puppycow said:
Hmm. Not sure what the second one goes on to say, but it does look a little ominous. (Until all the fish are gone? Somehow I doubt that's fishermen would really want. Maybe it was meant sarcastically.)
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The mental image I get of a community of atheist killers is not really that of eco-friendly tree huggers.

But that's just my prejudice I suppose.
 
Deleted because it's a spoof.

<Beats self for not checking as Fran did>

.
 
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These types of letters are always guaranteed to get a comment or two for the newspaper, and increase the readership in the process.
 
I find that if you replace "atheist" with "Jew" and "God" with "Jesus" it still comes off about the same. It's hate speech resulting from stupidity. I was born here. This is my country too and Alice Shannon of Soldotna can bite me.

What paper was this in BTW? If it had been a rant against Jews or African Americans or Latinos would the paper in question have printed it?

ETA: Spoof eh? Should have read further. This one may be a spoof but I can assure you that this sort of sentiment is all too common in my experience.
 
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Foster Zygote said:
ETA: Spoof eh? Should have read further. This one may be a spoof but I can assure you that this sort of sentiment is all too common in my experience.
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Yeah, Snopes said much the same thing. It might as well have been real, I guess, for all of the people who really do have these opinions.
 
-Fran- said:
Yeah, Snopes said much the same thing. It might as well have been real, I guess, for all of the people who really do have these opinions.
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I had what started out as a friendly conversation with a woman while I was waiting to pay for a set of guitar strings in a music shop near Bob Jones University. It was pretty casual, centering around how long we'd lived in the area for the most part. Then she asked "What church do you go to?".
I answered "I don't".
"Why not?"
"Well I'm an atheist."
Her expression hardened rather suddenly and, taking her merchandise, she said "You people should all be locked up" and left. I was stunned. After I paid for the strings the lady behind the counter said "Well I'm a Baptist and I think what she just said to you was appalling. I think you are a nice young man and you are welcome back here anytime". I thanked her for her kind words and assured her that I would gladly return with my business in the future.
 
quixotecoyote said:
Given that letter and the first line of the one below it, their readership area must be a scary place.
Click to expand...

Soldotna is just one of many quaint Alaskan drinking villages with serious fishing problems (according to the bumper stickers). Probably due to the long winters and rampant alcoholism, practical joking is a major pastime. Probably for the same reason, there are more than a few rabid drooling fundies on the loose in these same areas.
 
Foster Zygote said:
I had what started out as a friendly conversation with a woman while I was waiting to pay for a set of guitar strings in a music shop near Bob Jones University. It was pretty casual, centering around how long we'd lived in the area for the most part. Then she asked "What church do you go to?".
I answered "I don't".
"Why not?"
"Well I'm an atheist."
Her expression hardened rather suddenly and, taking her merchandise, she said "You people should all be locked up" and left. I was stunned. After I paid for the strings the lady behind the counter said "Well I'm a Baptist and I think what she just said to you was appalling. I think you are a nice young man and you are welcome back here anytime". I thanked her for her kind words and assured her that I would gladly return with my business in the future.
Click to expand...

Two good examples. One of a fundie idiot, who thinks that just because she thinks she is right she can be rude to people. And one of a person who can be a believer and still be tolerant of other people who's not.

-----o0o-----​

More than ten years ago I met a man from USA being in Sweden for a shorter period to work. That was my first, and so far only, meeting with a real fundamental Christian nut, creationist, bigotted, intolerant idiot. I seriously believed he was mentally ill. He talked about evolution being a conspiracy, dinosaur bones being planted, me celebrating death and evilness becuase of my tattoo depicting a bird skeleton, him being saved by god to a new moral and rigtheous life while he got drunk and tried to get my friend into bed (he was married), and how he personally would enjoy putting all lesbians and gays on a boat and exile them from America... and so on, and so on... Sure I had met religious nuts and gay-bashing idiots before, but I had not run into quite this combination of fundamental Christianity, hatemonger and total ignorance before.

A few years later I got a PC, got on-line and went. "What? There are more of them??"
 
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Foster Zygote said:
I had what started out as a friendly conversation with a woman while I was waiting to pay for a set of guitar strings in a music shop near Bob Jones University. It was pretty casual, centering around how long we'd lived in the area for the most part. Then she asked "What church do you go to?".
I answered "I don't".
"Why not?"
"Well I'm an atheist."
Her expression hardened rather suddenly and, taking her merchandise, she said "You people should all be locked up" and left. I was stunned. After I paid for the strings the lady behind the counter said "Well I'm a Baptist and I think what she just said to you was appalling. I think you are a nice young man and you are welcome back here anytime". I thanked her for her kind words and assured her that I would gladly return with my business in the future.
Click to expand...

Yikes.. pretty mean of her.
That would never happen here in the UK. I can see why Americans can get p****d off with religion.
Next time garrote the b**ch with the E string.
 
-Fran- said:
More than ten years ago I met a man from USA being in Sweden for a shorter period to work. That was my first, and so far only, meeting with a real fundamental Christian nut, creationist, bigotted, intolerant idiot. I seriously believed he was mentally ill. He talked about evolution being a conspiracy, dinosaur bones being planted, me celebrating death and evilness becuase of my tattoo depicting a bird skeleton, him being saved by god to a new moral and rigtheous life while he got drunk and tried to get my friend into bed (he was married), and how he personally would enjoy putting all lesbians and gays on a boat and exile them from America... and so on, and so on... Sure I had met religious nuts and gay-bashing idiots before, but I had not run into quite this combination of fundamental Christianity, hatemonger and total ignorance before.
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You're sure he wasn't just playing hard to get?
 
plumjam said:
Yikes.. pretty mean of her.
That would never happen here in the UK.
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No. I'm sure it wouldn't. It would never, never, never, never happen in the United Kingdom. Never.

I can see why Americans can get p****d off with religion.
Next time garrote the b**ch with the E string.
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Just like no one in the UK could ever be really appallingly bad at humor. Never, never, never.
 
I'm currently listening to "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
by Chris Hedges" book on CD.

The author asks (paraphrasing) "should we be tolerant of intolerant people?" The author responds with an emphatic "No!"

Canada has basically the same freedom of speech that the US is so proud of with this one major provision: You cannot promote hate against an identifiable group. People like Phelps and a few right-wing talk show hosts would have problems in Canada. I kinda like that ...

Charlie (hate the haters) Monoxide
 
It's been my experience that here in Australia that sort of thing is a whole lot less common. Here in Canberra, it's the bible-bashers that get the funny looks.

On the other hand, there is Fred Nile.
 
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