Religious Tolerance in America

Tanstaafl said:
In the U.S., he'd be a mainstream Republican.
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The Fundamentalist Christian Conservative/Rebuplican marriage seems to be breaking down somewhat, after a quarter of a century, thankfully. And in the Deep South, I think a lot of old school Democrats would be just as likely to agree with the letter to the editor as the Republicans.
 
People like Phelps and a few right-wing talk show hosts would have problems in Canada. I kinda like that ...
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Phelps has problems in the United States let alone Canada. He's pretty much universally hated on both sides of the spectrum. So much so that there were laws that people tried to pass specifically aimed at him.
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
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That isn't freedom of speech though. We are proud of it because there aren't any idiotic cavets like the above.
 
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-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.

A few years later I got a PC, got on-line and went. "What? There are more of them??"
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I read that...and I blushed and cringed so hard, it hurt my face.

I'm embarrassed to be sharing a country with people who go over to other countries and do...that. :boxedin:

I have to say though that I never meet people like that. Ever. I meet average variety gay bashers, religious nuts and bigots, yes, but they have enough shame and sense to be open bigots and idiots in private. If you know what I mean.

That breed of American idiot I have never encountered personally, even though I know there are people like that...I guess it's only you that's so lucky!

Were was he from, if you still remember?
 
EeneyMinnieMoe said:
I read that...and I blushed and cringed so hard, it hurt my face.

I'm embarrassed to be sharing a country with people who go over to other countries and do...that. :boxedin:

I have to say though that I never meet people like that. Ever. I meet average variety gay bashers, religious nuts and bigots, yes, but they have enough shame and sense to be open bigots and idiots in private. If you know what I mean.

That breed of American idiot I have never encountered personally, even though I know there are people like that...I guess it's only you that's so lucky!

Were was he from, if you still remember?
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Don't know if I would call that luck :D

Well, even though I, at that time, had never heard of people having views and beliefs like that before (in that "nice" combination) in a western society, it can now sometimes be easy to draw the conclusion that the USA is overrun by them.

But I have met many enough quite normal, intelligent, tolerant and plain nice :) Americans both on-line and in reality to know that that sort of fundie is still a minority even though they make noise. And I guess if you looked for it you could find such people in all secular western countries. It's not like we don't have nuts of our own here in Sweden (and some quite nasty ones too). But that special combination seems to be mostly an American thing (at least in some parts of the country)??

And even if it is a minority still, there's too many of them to just dismiss them one might think. I was really surprised to learn later that it is a movement at all, even if it's marginalized. Back then I thought for sure I had just run into a single individual of a certain special madness :D

I don't remember exactly where he was from, but it was down south somewhere.
 
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I'm glad you think so :).

You know, I'd say that even among Christian conservatives and possibly even among Christian evangelicals/ fundamentalists that type of hate-monger fundamentalist is a rarity.

My father is a conservative and ex-long time Republican (he left the party because of Bush) and a Catholic and he says that he finds these confusing-politics-with-religion, Intelligent Deisgn, 6000-year-old Earth, hate-mongering American fundies borderline insane.

What I find absolutely amazing about these people, as an ex-Catholic, is how hate-mongering their religion is. It's not like the gay-bashing and politics are an outgrowth of religion- they are their religion.

Take me. I have almost never heard a priest talking about homosexuality in church. I never heard a Catholic priest even condemning until I was almost 17. They were too busy talking about Jesus.

These people though- their kids first find out what abortion and homosexuality are from church.
 
EeneyMinnieMoe said:
I'm glad you think so :).

You know, I'd say that even among Christian conservatives and possibly even among Christian evangelicals/ fundamentalists that type of hate-monger fundamentalist is a rarity.

My father is a conservative and ex-long time Republican (he left the party because of Bush) and a Catholic and he says that he finds these confusing-politics-with-religion, Intelligent Deisgn, 6000-year-old Earth, hate-mongering American fundies borderline insane.

What I find absolutely amazing about these people, as an ex-Catholic, is how hate-mongering their religion is. It's not like the gay-bashing and politics are an outgrowth of religion- they are their religion.

Take me. I have almost never heard a priest talking about homosexuality in church. I never heard a Catholic priest even condemning until I was almost 17. They were too busy talking about Jesus.

These people though- their kids first find out what abortion and homosexuality are from church.
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Last year I started a thread about something I heard in a homily while I happened to be at a Catholic mass. I can't be arsed to look up the thread right now so I'll just recount it.

The priest was speaking about homosexuality. He wasn't railing hatefully, but it was clear that he was condemning it as wrong. He asked "What if everyone in the world decided to become homosexual and the human race just died out?". I was certainly amused by the irony of someone who'd taken a vow of celibacy warning of the dangers of people who don't reproduce. Even taking into account the fact that homosexuals can and do have children. Hell they don't even have to have sex. I wanted to stand up and ask, in the same "groovin' on my own words" voice he'd used "What if everyone in the world decided to join the Catholic clergy and take a vow of celibacy and the human race just died out?".
 
-Fran- said:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/atheists.asp

Snopes has an article up on this one. Apparently it's a hoax of some sorts, but Snopes still say about it, that judging from the many mails they have gotten with the same sentiment, it still reflects the genuine opinion of many people.
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Interesting. After this thread was posted back in February, I actually signed up so I could read back letters. I finally got around to sending one via e-mail, but I guess it was after Ms. Shannon's hoax had been exposed.

Also interesting, if the letters printed/posted were representative, I'd say the snopes conclusion is a bit off base as most of the letter writers seemed to be supportive of religious tolerance and freedom... even for atheists.
 
plumjam said:
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.
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What a sheltered upbringing you must have.

I have just listened to a fundie nutcase extolling the virtues of the Old Testament (his capitals, not mine) on BBC Radio 4 (paid for, in part, by me and, presumably, you) and telling me that evolution is random chance and Intelligent Design is real.

The beeb didn't broadcast a disclaimer, either. So I'm assuming that it's official.:jaw-dropp
 
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