In light of the whole Chic-FIl-A fiasco...

[Guest Dragonseeker]

I don't understand why the CEO even said anything to begin with. I stopped eating there after I read their Wikipedia page. If you read it, it will tell you their views on things. So...if they were already open with their views why restate them now? Or did I miss a huge part of the situation?

-Jake

[Carolyn Marie]

Regarding the comments from the Mayors of San Francisco, Chicago and (I think) Boston, Jon Stewart had it exactly right. Those officials have no business and no right to ban someone from opening a business in their communities for saying something they (the mayors) don't like. It appears that some liberal politicians haven't any better understanding of the First Amendment to the Constitution than some right wing politicians do. They give liberalism a bad name. It may be a good sound bite, but its terrible public policy. After all, the franchisee and his employees are the ones whose livelihoods are at stake, not the CEO, and for all we know, the franchisee may be opposed to the CEO's politics.

Bandwagons are not usually stable platforms for reasonable discourse.

HUGS

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Velanna]

I gotta agree with Kelise. Christianity (or any religion for that matter) did not invent marriage. Different religions and non-religious people have their own views on what marriage should be. It bothers me to no end when the top dog so called " Holy Christians" try to enforce their own view of marriage as a national view. I think we can all agree it's very unfair!

I do understand not all Christians think this way (nor do all atheists, Hindus, Jews, etc.) But those in gov't who do believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman and try to make that law, those are the people I feel shouldn't even be in office. If someone is in office, they should be there for the interests of the nation, not a certain group of people. It's absolutely mind boggling to me that we still have such bigoted-religious, holier-than-thou people in such high positions of gov't. I don't mind religious people in power, so long as they do not make bigoted claims or make decisions based on biased notions that have no scientific background. Personally, I have absolutely nothing against religion or people who believe. I actually believe, ironically, that having a belief can be a good thing for some!

I also become infinitely flustered when people (note: I didn't say religious or non-religious people, but just people) are hypocritical in the sense that they do not want others to force their beliefs on them and yet they do that exact thing to others. From both sides I have seen people try to force their beliefs onto others! Religious people trying to convert the world or non-religious people telling religious people they are "stupid" or "blind" because they believe. It's absolutely ridiculous.

The U.S. is not a Christian nations, nor a Jewish nation, nor an Atheist nation, nor A Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, anything! The U.S. is a melting pot of a lot of religions and beliefs and non-religions and beliefs! To try to have this nation under one single belief is ludicrous!

Alas, I wish the whole world could share my sentiment...(sounds ironic, no?) I just wish people could be more open-minded about the world and live and let live instead of bickering over trivial matters...

[Guest Micha]

More CFA nonsense keeps polluting my news feed, sets me in a foul ( sorry) mood. I tried to keep my thoughts on it to myself, just to avoid the over analytical backlash from my conservative, republican family, but they jus don't shut up.

Anyways, tonight I kept it simple, wanted to share my summary.

"If you don't support gay marraige, marry a heterosexual and get over it."

[Bulldog1948]

Its ok Nyxis, its a free flowing exchange of ideas; and positions in writing don't always reflect exactly what we meant or can be subject to triggering thoughts in others that seem to distort... I don't think any apologies are necessary.

As I posted, this may be the lightening rod issue that political strategists can use to move from intelligent discussion of how to recover middle class jobs, regaining America's strength, and instead move into hotbutton emotionally driven fear designed to manipulate the public off of the fact that middle class America is being driven to extinction. Politicians would rather talk about culture wars than the fact that the middle class is trading $20-30/hr jobs for $8-12/hr jobs and the fact that we don't make stuff in America anymore. The only politician that told the truth was Ross Perot in the early '90's when he talked about "the giant sucking sound of jobs going south of the border".

The politicians would rather have people vote because of fear of LGBT issues than fear that their children won't have a middle class lifestyles. Sowing fear of minority groups is as old as history. Galvanize the base... bring the fearful into your camp...

Sorry to derail, but it is what it is...

Michelle

Michelle, I agree pretty much with what you've said. Karl Rove is a master manipulater. Personally, he creeps me out. So, why not get some biz owner to boil up a pot of chicken, throw in some taters, onions, put it on the stove and watch it boil. It is an excellent way to avaoid the discussion of the middle class going down the crapper faster than you can flush it. Then throw the tea-nuts into the mix and we've got a whole lotta shouting going on.

When some political boob said that gay marriage would not become an issue in Nov, I knew that the ultra right wingnuts were going to make it one. And, so they have started it with the Cki-o-let brouha. Just go to KFC and get a bucket of chiken. lol

Mike

[VickySGV]

"If you don't support gay marraige, marry a heterosexual and get over it."

Any of us who are divorced will agree with you on that one!! We want to share the pain with as many people as we can!!

[Guest DanD]

people assume too much of others.

I saw the guy on TV saying well someone asked him his opinion so he said it, but its only his personal thing and he doesnt hate gay people. Since then Ive heard all kindsa stuff. you ask someone their opinion, they should feel free to answer it, but maybe they shouldnt. reminds me of that old phrase, well you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't..

So its one guy, one ceo or whatever he is, but another one differed on it. imagine, and they work in the same damn office building everyday. Does it come up on coffee breaks? I cant remember anyone discussing any of these topics anywhere I worked at before; i wouldnt know what their opinions were on anything...maybe some things, coffeee with sugar? or not?

I know and older couple. I'm not sure how long they've been together..I think 30 some years, im sure its way over 20, and more like 30..something. because they had anniversary and it was 20 someting. So they were together when the dinsoaurs roamed, you got the idea.

Anyway, back to the point. I remember when gay marriage came up in California and Rita said something about you know, theyre making all this fuss about gay marriage now. but once they get it its gonna open up a whole other can of worms they never even thought about before, and they wont like that either. She doesnt care about gay marriage, you might have guessed?

Did you also guess that Rita is one of the women in this gay couple thats been together 30 some years? Neither of them really care about it. partly because they have what they want, and they have legal documentation for it, and their families know about it and its all set. Flashing a marriage certificate around as if its going to give you certain rights is delusional thinking. the same as us having some paper is.

Alt of aspects of what legally marriage is and isnt, and alot of its assumed but it isnt legally binding to it. If anyone thinks getting a marriage certificate proves anything to anyone, theyre just, well..wishful thinking.

they gave women equal rights back in the early 70's but they still dont got that. they still dont get equal pay for equal work, and equal opportunties and as a former female auto mechanic, i get really ouch grouchy when i hear morons say they dont discriminate agaisnt women, and they get equal work and equal pay, and so on. or that i dont know what i am talking about!

and its usually said by some single white male too! grr

When michelle died they didnt consider us a couple, because she was an MTF transsexual..and I am a guy. ok, so you try to figure it out., their thing is that michelle is a guy and i am a guy so we couldnt be a real couple. but what they forget is, if michelle is a guy then youd have to consuder me a girl, since i am FTM after all..eitherway, you figure, if they consider her a female and me a male, or her a male and me a female, thats male and female together so i dont see whyd consider that a problem as an actual couple. youd think?

but either way it doesnt count, and no matter what state our body is in at the time, it was irrelevant..who had the penis and who had the vagina didnt matter one tiny bit. so what that ultimately means, in the real world is, that no matter who or what i would marry, its not a legitimate marriage then? thats a real brain teaser isnt it?

i figured it out, as long as one of the people is transsexual, then it doesnt matter what the other person s, that relationship is voided out, no matter what papers you wanna flash in front of them, that wont mean a "hill of beans", as mom says.

I think if we would ever want to marry, to cover the bases, should have a contract written up, an agreement, that consists of an exchange of specific obligations to each other.

You can name anyone your heir, or "next of kin" (I've heard of people adopting their younger partner to bestow legal rights onto them.) people might say thats what a marriage contract is, and thats true, but its not legally specific, and if you just get the strangers out of your bedroom, it would flow alot more smoothly!

the less people know about your sex life the better, why does anyone have to know about anyones sex life? why does anyone have to know whats between your legs? none of their business as far as i can see.

I dont see the sex police going to my parents house to check in on them, so whys ist anyones business what anyone does in their private life like that? it isnt.

[Guest Different Trains]

I'd never heard of Chick-Fil-A before this nonsense. We don't have them here in the UK. I am puzzled as to why a fast-food chain has a stance on gay marriage, though. If any of them here have a stance, they keep it to themselves. Then again, gay marriage is less controversial here.

[Guest kelise]

I gotta agree with Kelise. Christianity (or any religion for that matter) did not invent marriage. Different religions and non-religious people have their own views on what marriage should be. It bothers me to no end when the top dog so called " Holy Christians" try to enforce their own view of marriage as a national view. I think we can all agree it's very unfair!

I do understand not all Christians think this way (nor do all atheists, Hindus, Jews, etc.) But those in gov't who do believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman and try to make that law, those are the people I feel shouldn't even be in office. If someone is in office, they should be there for the interests of the nation, not a certain group of people. It's absolutely mind boggling to me that we still have such bigoted-religious, holier-than-thou people in such high positions of gov't. I don't mind religious people in power, so long as they do not make bigoted claims or make decisions based on biased notions that have no scientific background. Personally, I have absolutely nothing against religion or people who believe. I actually believe, ironically, that having a belief can be a good thing for some!

I also become infinitely flustered when people (note: I didn't say religious or non-religious people, but just people) are hypocritical in the sense that they do not want others to force their beliefs on them and yet they do that exact thing to others. From both sides I have seen people try to force their beliefs onto others! Religious people trying to convert the world or non-religious people telling religious people they are "stupid" or "blind" because they believe. It's absolutely ridiculous.

The U.S. is not a Christian nations, nor a Jewish nation, nor an Atheist nation, nor A Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, anything! The U.S. is a melting pot of a lot of religions and beliefs and non-religions and beliefs! To try to have this nation under one single belief is ludicrous!

Alas, I wish the whole world could share my sentiment...(sounds ironic, no?) I just wish people could be more open-minded about the world and live and let live instead of bickering over trivial matters...

At least someone gets my point.

[Guest KimberlyF]

I do understand not all Christians think this way (nor do all atheists, Hindus, Jews, etc.) But those in gov't who do believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman and try to make that law, those are the people I feel shouldn't even be in office. If someone is in office, they should be there for the interests of the nation, not a certain group of people. It's absolutely mind boggling to me that we still have such bigoted-religious, holier-than-thou people in such high positions of gov't. I don't mind religious people in power, so long as they do not make bigoted claims or make decisions based on biased notions that have no scientific background. Personally, I have absolutely nothing against religion or people who believe. I actually believe, ironically, that having a belief can be a good thing for some!

I also become infinitely flustered when people (note: I didn't say religious or non-religious people, but just people) are hypocritical in the sense that they do not want others to force their beliefs on them and yet they do that exact thing to others. From both sides I have seen people try to force their beliefs onto others! Religious people trying to convert the world or non-religious people telling religious people they are "stupid" or "blind" because they believe. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Well politicians rarely do things because they believe in them. More often its based on polling or what will get them reelected. That's why they all flip flop. Clinton signs the Federal law defining marriage as between a man and woman. Now he's against it. Obama was for civil unions because Marriage was a religious man/woman thing last election.

But I agree hardcore in your face religious types are as annoying as hardcore in your face atheists. And both are ironically work themselves into a religious fervor pushing their superior beliefs.

[Guest Velanna]

That is true, Kimberly! Some politicians are honest (which, I know, it's unbelievably rare). But the honest politicians stand for things that I'm against... Ron Paul is a pretty honest politician but has some stances that I disagree with. (Sorry for the Ron Paul fan-dome I just did lol I'm not in any way trying to endorse him via LP lol)

As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I have no problem with the president of CFA giving his stance on gay marriage. That's his opinion and he is entitled to it as much as anyone else. I do not and will never understand how anyone would give this man any backlash on his own opinion! It's his and he has the right to have it.

However, the fact that CFA donates money to groups that work against LGBT rights, that's reason enough to be upset and not eat at CFA. Which I never have and never will eat there.

[Guest Misaka]

But I agree hardcore in your face religious types are as annoying as hardcore in your face atheists. And both are ironically work themselves into a religious fervor pushing their superior beliefs.

I'm not really sure how people come to these conclusions. In most cases, even the most hardcore of atheists will not push their beliefs onto others (how do you even do that? you can't make people believe something?). Most will say anyone is free to believe whatever they will. So long as it's private. If you consider debating a point to be pushing your beliefs, then fair enough, but I think it would be difficult to defend a case that debate is a bad thing. I think people jump on the "Why are you trying to make me not believe the thing that I believe" bandwagon far too quickly and easily, and it has to be understood that if you put your beliefs out there into the world in a way that makes a difference, people can push back and it's totally wrong to accuse them of doing so with 'religious zeal' in a negative way. It's no different to slapping someone, then accusing them of being violent when they slap you back.

The problem is these things have been around for so long that so many things are just considered normal that really shouldn't be when it comes to what is / isn't okay to do in a religious context, and when something comes along to change it, because it's considered normal you get an outcry about all these mean atheists pushing their views onto other people. So this resturaunt donates to groups that oppose the rights of lgbt people, and when the resturaunt is banned from cities you have outcries that they have a right to believe what they want, donate to who they want and so on, Firstly, you have to address this whole right to freedom of speech and belief thing. Aside from it being kind of paradoxical (freedom to speak out against free speech, right to try to deny peoples rights etc) it is just the right to believe things and say things, which is not the same as the right to try to make things happen. Donating money to help remove someones rights simply isn't okay. It wouldn't be okay to donate money to a contract killer to try and remove someone's right to life, why is it okay to donate money to a group to try and remove someone's right to marry etc. You may believe whatever you like about it being okay or not okay for gay couples to marry, you can be the most bitter, twisted old bigot in the world, but when those beliefs start to have an impact on things that happen in the real world, it gets not okay. Opposing this kind of thing isn't atheism with religious zeal, it's just not being contradictory about your rights. It's the difference between a city standing up and saying "We are banning you because your beliefs are XYZ and we don't like them" compared to a city standing up and saying "We are banning you because your actions are XYZ and they would be illegal in any other context" and I wish people would stop trying to defend it based on free speech without considering how far "speech" actually goes.

Going back to the whole thing with things being okay in a religious context that wouldn't otherwise be okay, I think it pretty much explains a lot of the problems that some of the more reasonable christians (or well, members of any religion really) have when these kinds of arguments come up about freedom of speech etc and we have people pouring out of the cracks to say "Well, I am a christian and I fully support gay marriage, as does my church and all the people who go there. The issue is with extremism, not with the religion as a whole!" which is, to be fair, mostly in the right direction but still missing the point. The argument isn't against Sally Smith, the average churchgoer, it's with the religion itself (as in, the physical thing, not the belief in god or whoever). Sally Smith may not believe that it's okay to withhold peoples rights based on sexual orientation, and maybe non of her friends do either, but since bits of the religion she belongs to does. It's like if there was a school subject where all of the textbooks for this subject have a few pages dispersed throughout the book that go into lots of detail about how women are subhuman animals and should be enslaved, it wouldn't be considered a very nice subject. Maybe most teachers who teach it will just skip those pages and go to the bits that make sense, maybe ALL of the teachers teach it like that. But teaching such a vile subject in an acceptable way doesn't make the subject itself acceptable. If it was like this with a school subject, we'd simply get rid of the subject, start a new one, and re write the textbooks so they wern't really awful, and people who taught, or studied that subject would stop saying they taught and studied it, and if they didn't then the rest of the world would have every right to look down on them ("why do you still study the old one? That's a terrible subject, why not switch over to the new one. You can believe all the same stuff just without the REALLY HORRIBLE PARTS"). In the same way that when we discovered that alchemy was really wrong and we did away with it and replaced all the alchemy textbooks with chemistry textbooks, and alchemy wasn't even trying to deny the rights of same sex couples, and now nobody takes alchemists seriously. You wouldn't be part of a football club that doesn't support gay marriage, so why be part of a religion that doesn't. If you were in a football club and that happened, you would switch to a new one. You dont have to change sport, you're just going somewhere that the sport is played without intolerance. It's no different to religion. You can move to a different religion without changing your beliefs. It doesn't have to be christian to muslim or buddhist. Just make a new one that believes in all the same stuff without the intolerance. If there really are that many people who are christians but dont support this stuff, you won't be struggling to get members, and then there will be no confusion. No one will lump you with bigots and you don't have have to share a church with them. Seems like a win-win to me, I can't figure out why anyone who says "i'm a christian but i'm okay with X" even still calls themself a christian, for that matter.

[Guest kelise]

Great post Misaka! Very well put. Just a few things I'd like to add.

In regards to the free speech thing. I hear the arguement a lot that the owner of CFA has the right to say and believe what he wants. However, I have to counter your statement that it's wrong to donate money to legislating your beliefs. If that were true we'd be pretty hypocritical donating money to HRC etc. The CFA owner has every right to donate his own personal, or ever his company's money to whatever organization he wants. But here's the thing: People seem to think that his rights to do all this makes him immune to criticism. The mayors trying to ban him from opening restauraunts in their cities are wrong (or would if wrong if that's in fact what they are doing. I think in reality they are merely using THEIR free speech to inform him his company is not welcome there, in their own opinion). Apart from that NO ONE is trying to ban him from operating his business, believing what he wants to believe, saying what he wants to say, or giving money to whomever he wants to give money to. What we are doing is exercising OUR freedom of speech and free market powers to do the following:

1. Proclaim OUR beliefs that his beliefs are STUPID.

2. Refrain from spending OUR money at his restauraunts, and therefore preventing any of our money from going to said organizations.

3. Encouraging others to do the likewise.

4. Feel disheartened when others do not do likewise and feel hurt by said people.

All of these things are completely within our rights, just as much as he is within his rights. It does not matter how much I speak out against his company, his stance, or his religeon. Will it offend him? SURE! Will it offend others? Probably. That's how freedom of speech works, folks. Sometimes you get offended. But me saying your beliefs are stupid is not the same as me trying to pass a law that says you can't believe what you believe.

[Drea]

4. Feel disheartened when others do not do likewise and feel hurt by said people.

It seems to me that taking such as a personal hurt is giving others power hurt you that they shouldn't have. It is this sort of thinking that results in people perceiving someone who expresses a different point of view as a personal attack.

And of course under free speech and expression they are just as free to proclaim their belief that "OUR" beliefs are STUPID.

[Guest Micha]

1. Proclaim OUR beliefs that his beliefs are STUPID.

Think George Carlin said something very similar to this.

[Guest Misaka]

In regards to the free speech thing. I hear the arguement a lot that the owner of CFA has the right to say and believe what he wants. However, I have to counter your statement that it's wrong to donate money to legislating your beliefs. If that were true we'd be pretty hypocritical donating money to HRC etc.

See I disagree with this. I dont think legislating your beliefs is wrong if its not infringing on other peoples rights. Which this is. He is donating to a place that is actively trying to keep peoples rights away from them. If you want to donate money to a place that tries to legislate you belief that ametica should have a health service, thats fine. People may disagree but it doesny remove any of their rights. This does. As i said, you wouldnt be allowed to donate money to an assassin to try to remove peoples right to life. You would never get away with supporting an organisation that tries to push for enslavement of all non white people, so why does this get through okay? Its still infringimg on peoples rights. And in that case the police should be doing something about it, never mind a few city mayors!

[Guest KimberlyF]

But I agree hardcore in your face religious types are as annoying as hardcore in your face atheists. And both are ironically work themselves into a religious fervor pushing their superior beliefs.

I'm not really sure how people come to these conclusions. In most cases, even the most hardcore of atheists will not push their beliefs onto others (how do you even do that? you can't make people believe something?). Most will say anyone is free to believe whatever they will. So long as it's private. If you consider debating a point to be pushing your beliefs, then fair enough, but I think it would be difficult to defend a case that debate is a bad thing. I think people jump on the "Why are you trying to make me not believe the thing that I believe" bandwagon far too quickly and easily, and it has to be understood that if you put your beliefs out there into the world in a way that makes a difference, people can push back and it's totally wrong to accuse them of doing so with 'religious zeal' in a negative way. It's no different to slapping someone, then accusing them of being violent when they slap you back.

The problem is these things have been around for so long that so many things are just considered normal that really shouldn't be when it comes to what is / isn't okay to do in a religious context, and when something comes along to change it, because it's considered normal you get an outcry about all these mean atheists pushing their views onto other people. So this resturaunt donates to groups that oppose the rights of lgbt people, and when the resturaunt is banned from cities you have outcries that they have a right to believe what they want, donate to who they want and so on, Firstly, you have to address this whole right to freedom of speech and belief thing. Aside from it being kind of paradoxical (freedom to speak out against free speech, right to try to deny peoples rights etc) it is just the right to believe things and say things, which is not the same as the right to try to make things happen. Donating money to help remove someones rights simply isn't okay. It wouldn't be okay to donate money to a contract killer to try and remove someone's right to life, why is it okay to donate money to a group to try and remove someone's right to marry etc. You may believe whatever you like about it being okay or not okay for gay couples to marry, you can be the most bitter, twisted old bigot in the world, but when those beliefs start to have an impact on things that happen in the real world, it gets not okay. Opposing this kind of thing isn't atheism with religious zeal, it's just not being contradictory about your rights. It's the difference between a city standing up and saying "We are banning you because your beliefs are XYZ and we don't like them" compared to a city standing up and saying "We are banning you because your actions are XYZ and they would be illegal in any other context" and I wish people would stop trying to defend it based on free speech without considering how far "speech" actually goes.

Going back to the whole thing with things being okay in a religious context that wouldn't otherwise be okay, I think it pretty much explains a lot of the problems that some of the more reasonable christians (or well, members of any religion really) have when these kinds of arguments come up about freedom of speech etc and we have people pouring out of the cracks to say "Well, I am a christian and I fully support gay marriage, as does my church and all the people who go there. The issue is with extremism, not with the religion as a whole!" which is, to be fair, mostly in the right direction but still missing the point. The argument isn't against Sally Smith, the average churchgoer, it's with the religion itself (as in, the physical thing, not the belief in god or whoever). Sally Smith may not believe that it's okay to withhold peoples rights based on sexual orientation, and maybe non of her friends do either, but since bits of the religion she belongs to does. It's like if there was a school subject where all of the textbooks for this subject have a few pages dispersed throughout the book that go into lots of detail about how women are subhuman animals and should be enslaved, it wouldn't be considered a very nice subject. Maybe most teachers who teach it will just skip those pages and go to the bits that make sense, maybe ALL of the teachers teach it like that. But teaching such a vile subject in an acceptable way doesn't make the subject itself acceptable. If it was like this with a school subject, we'd simply get rid of the subject, start a new one, and re write the textbooks so they wern't really awful, and people who taught, or studied that subject would stop saying they taught and studied it, and if they didn't then the rest of the world would have every right to look down on them ("why do you still study the old one? That's a terrible subject, why not switch over to the new one. You can believe all the same stuff just without the REALLY HORRIBLE PARTS"). In the same way that when we discovered that alchemy was really wrong and we did away with it and replaced all the alchemy textbooks with chemistry textbooks, and alchemy wasn't even trying to deny the rights of same sex couples, and now nobody takes alchemists seriously. You wouldn't be part of a football club that doesn't support gay marriage, so why be part of a religion that doesn't. If you were in a football club and that happened, you would switch to a new one. You dont have to change sport, you're just going somewhere that the sport is played without intolerance. It's no different to religion. You can move to a different religion without changing your beliefs. It doesn't have to be christian to muslim or buddhist. Just make a new one that believes in all the same stuff without the intolerance. If there really are that many people who are christians but dont support this stuff, you won't be struggling to get members, and then there will be no confusion. No one will lump you with bigots and you don't have have to share a church with them. Seems like a win-win to me, I can't figure out why anyone who says "i'm a christian but i'm okay with X" even still calls themself a christian, for that matter.

I'm willing to demonstrate what I mean with a little game here. How about we spend a day or two looking over LP and you count the number of comments that were condescending, insulting or anyway negative towards atheists/agnostics and was not provoked, and I do the same towards Christians? If what you say is true, you'll win by a landslide because atheists/agnostics just want to be left alone.

[Guest Maria_B]

Kimberly,

You'll see many posts having God Bless You, Thank God you're okay, or other phrases, which are all quite non-malevolent and generally very kind and thoughtful, but would be applicable to the context of your game.

Maybe we should all just come back with cooler heads and talk about things without need for bitter, passive-aggressive posts.

Misaka,

The problem with Legislating your beliefs, even if they don't infringe on anyone, is what we are dealing with here. Marriage is not a religious ceremony but a political and legal, but it was born from religion, and thus some religious people want to see it as it is defined, religiously. However, it is no longer defined by religion the moment it became a legal and political matter, in which it applies to ALL people, and not a specific religious group. It can no longer be held in a religious context.

[Guest Misaka]

I'm willing to demonstrate what I mean with a little game here. How about we spend a day or two looking over LP and you count the number of comments that were condescending, insulting or anyway negative towards atheists/agnostics and was not provoked, and I do the same towards Christians? If what you say is true, you'll win by a landslide because atheists/agnostics just want to be left alone.

Being insulting, condescending, negative etc is not pushing your beliefs. It is being an donkey. It's a nice game, but the problem is when as an atheist, you don't believe in a god that cares about what you do in the bedroom, there is nothing for a theist to be condescending or insulting or negative about. It's like trying to make fun of the car sombody drives when they don't own a car, what can you say? It's not like you can be "my car is faster" or "my car as more wheels". Also, because there are no atheist policies that get in the way of peoples human rights (in the same way religious intolerance of homosexuality gets in the way of peoples rights) there arn't any bits you can say "oh, well, you guys do this because you are atheists and that isn't cool" in the same way an atheist can say "well, you don't allow gay people to marry because you are religious and that isn't cool" so again, the fact that there arn't hundreds of condescending insulting comments isn't always in the favour or religion. Think things through a little more!

Now, if you want to play the "who is more of an donkey" game, which is what being condescending (hey, you brought it up!) is really about, how about instead of going through LP, we go through recent history and count the number of times a theist has been an donkey because of their theism, and then the number of times an atheist has been an donkey because of their atheism. I have a haircut in a few minutes but I'll start with the internal church letters covering up sexual abuse to save the public image of the church, the war against same sex marriage, and the refusal of aid to developing nations on the grounds of refusal to adopt the 'correct religion' and then check back afterwards to see how we're getting on. I'll give you a head start though and we'll call this post being condescending to give you a little +1 right out the gates!

[Guest KimberlyF]

Kimberly,

You'll see many posts having God Bless You, Thank God you're okay, or other phrases, which are all quite non-malevolent and generally very kind and thoughtful, but would be applicable to the context of your game.

Maybe we should all just come back with cooler heads and talk about things without need for bitter, passive-aggressive posts.

As a Christian, I've been greeted with a Shalom many times in Chicago. I never took that as condescending, Insulting or in any way negative. I took it in the spirit offered and returned the same.

People could play the game any way they want I suppose, but as you've said, there was no maliciousness behind those comments.

[Guest Maria_B]

Let me clarify Kimberly, though you're very correct in what you say. Your post was directly feeding off of what Misaka had posted, and relating to Atheists ''being left alone'' or not ''confronted'' with theism. Thats the context in which I meant the posts could apply .

I for one am happy someone would care enough for me to ask their higher power to bless me, or be thankful for my being safe!

[Guest KimberlyF]

I'm willing to demonstrate what I mean with a little game here. How about we spend a day or two looking over LP and you count the number of comments that were condescending, insulting or anyway negative towards atheists/agnostics and was not provoked, and I do the same towards Christians? If what you say is true, you'll win by a landslide because atheists/agnostics just want to be left alone.

Being insulting, condescending, negative etc is not pushing your beliefs. It is being an donkey. It's a nice game, but the problem is when as an atheist, you don't believe in a god that cares about what you do in the bedroom, there is nothing for a theist to be condescending or insulting or negative about. It's like trying to make fun of the car sombody drives when they don't own a car, what can you say? It's not like you can be "my car is faster" or "my car as more wheels". Also, because there are no atheist policies that get in the way of peoples human rights (in the same way religious intolerance of homosexuality gets in the way of peoples rights) there arn't any bits you can say "oh, well, you guys do this because you are atheists and that isn't cool" in the same way an atheist can say "well, you don't allow gay people to marry because you are religious and that isn't cool" so again, the fact that there arn't hundreds of condescending insulting comments isn't always in the favour or religion. Think things through a little more!

Now, if you want to play the "who is more of an donkey" game, which is what being condescending (hey, you brought it up!) is really about, how about instead of going through LP, we go through recent history and count the number of times a theist has been an donkey because of their theism, and then the number of times an atheist has been an donkey because of their atheism. I have a haircut in a few minutes but I'll start with the internal church letters covering up sexual abuse to save the public image of the church, the war against same sex marriage, and the refusal of aid to developing nations on the grounds of refusal to adopt the 'correct religion' and then check back afterwards to see how we're getting on. I'll give you a head start though and we'll call this post being condescending to give you a little +1 right out the gates!

This is an interesting conversation to me in that you quoted me to start and now you are going to define for me what pushing ones beliefs means. Have a great day . This place is so much better than cable.

[Guest Misaka]

Define for you? Sweetie, society as a whole defines what words and phrases mean. I won't lie, I am pretty great like, and pretty influencial too, but being able to define what a phrase means on my own personal whim is a bit much, even for me!

Haha, I didn't realise how much funnier that is when you replace every instance of that word with donkey, though.