I buy stuff off of Half.com. It’s one of the best things on the internet.
I bought a low-carb cookbook.
I got it in the mail today.
Along with a little something extra…a 62 page illustrated religious tract entitled “Darkness before Dawn: Finding Hope for the Future.”
Now, you wanna be a Christian, that’s fine.
You wanna hand out leaflets on street corners? Great.
You can even knock on my door and ask me if I’m interested, and I’ll tell you no thanks. (Or I might engage you in a debate about it, I do that sometimes.)
But it strikes me as really tacky for you to slip your propaganda into my book purchase. Really it does.
I actually think it’s quite a bit different, Beeblebrox. You’d think a simple transaction would be safe from religious impositions. This is kind of like if the salesman at Sears insisted on praying over your new stove with you. Or the guy you bought your gas from following you out to the pump and reading you glurge. Creepy and presumptuous, if you ask me.
Does this site have a feedback feature, Stoid?
I really wish people would get over the fact that others have different religous views. This group, whoever they are, probably bought advertising from Half.com. Would you be so upset if it was somebody offering you a credit card? No, it’s just junk mail.
I’ve said this before and I will not stop saying this. The first ammendment protects both the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. That also means the freedom to advertise your religion is protected. You don’t like it? Treat it the same way as you treat credit card companies.
Show some religous tolerance and quit being so fucking touchy.
Beeblebrox, this is not even close to being the same as being offered a credit card. A credit card offer is maybe 3 pages long. What Stoid received is a 62 page book.
This is not a matter of religious tolerance IMHO either. Stoid was not given the opportunity to tolerate anything. Rather, s/he (sorry, Stoid, am a newb and I don’t know what sex you are.) was forced to receive this information that s/he purchased. This is forcing an opinion down someone else’s throat without that someone having the benefit of rebutting the opinion.
IF that is intolerance, then color me intolerant, because it sure would torque me off. :mad:
BTW, Stoid, the first thought that popped into my mind was, “Jeez, did Stoid have to pay for shipping and handling for an opinion he didn’t ask for?”. So…Did you?
A tract or what have you isn’t forcing somebody’s opinion down another’s throat, unless of course somebody forces him to read it at gunpoint.
Just chuck it in the trash and move on, it’s no different then any other junk mail or advertisement except in this case size, but assuming you weren’t charged for the shipping of the beastly 62 page offender then it irrelevant IMHO, now if they charged you then you have every reason to be incensed regardless of wither it was trying to save your soul or sell you a Dell.
Though I am tempted to ask the people who commissioned such to be done just how many people have they ‘saved’, it can’t be an overly large amount.
I agree with Seven, it is tacky, and it is not something that would be done by a group I would hold to.
But Wildcatz, a lot of adverts are tacky and I’ve seen worse. You ever get one of those $5 “checks” where if you cash it you change your long distance company? They have an opinion that their long distance company is better. That’s even more tacky than this, but they still want you to believe in them. Chevy wants you to believe that their trucks are better. Coke wants you to believe that their sugar water is better.
These guys send Stoid a 63 page track. This is no different from an 82 page J Crew catalog touting how good they are, and why you can not live life without a pullover fleece. No one asks for this type of mail, but it is frequently bundled with products you have shipped to you.
Don’t agree with what they sent you? Don’t do business with the company doing the advertising … or in this case, the advertising religion. Are you insulted by LL Bean Catalogs? Of course not. Don’t be insulted by the fact that a religion has the audacity to broadcast it’s message.
I not only advocate tolerance, I also advocate perspective.
Somebody says she finds something “really tacky”, and someone else finds it necessary to invoke the First Amendment in respone–and then follows it up by saying we all need to maintain our perspective. :rolleyes:
You know, the First Amendment also protect’s Stoid’s right to say she thinks something is really tacky.
If you had maintained a certain perspective… no, not perspective, just reading comprehension, you would have realized that I told the OP (Stoid) “ehh, just use the recipes”. That’s all. I used the first ammendment to try to explain to Belladaonna and Wildcatz that a religious tract isn’t fundamentally different from Sears’ catalogs. You are a moderator, pay attention.
Also, people who use roll-eyes smilies are people that are not intelligent enough to put a counter-point into words.
Really? Let me know when you next auction is up. Just kidding.
Though to be a bit more serious there is a big difference between pornography and a religious tract touting about how to save your soul, if nothing else one has more pictures and is limited to who it can be sold to legally, thought I suppose both make great tinder for the fireplace.
Is this a reasonable equation? Please buy our fleese lined water proof boots versus please change you fundemental perspective on the universe?
Maybe the reason somebody would find junk mail like that irritating is because they don’t think matters of conscious are really, ** exactly ** the same as decsions about what sweater to buy.
And they might think treating them the same is tacky.
From a first amendment view point, they are the same but nobody’s mention banning anyting, have they?
Oh and, questions of tackiness aside, I’m definatly ordering something from Espix a soon as possible.
I agree that it’s a bit tacky and…I dunno…weird. I personally believe that religion is best shared under more controlled and receptive circumstances. Foisting it upon strangers would not be my style, but, whatever.
But the main thing is, did she pay extra postage for it? If not, throw it away, and enjoy the recipes.
I am forever throwing away ads for dreadful sports crap. I am exiled in a town that is sports (specifically football) obsessed, and it gets annoying after a while—to be inundated with sports-related stuff at every turn. I find that the less time I think about it, and the faster I get the loathesome football-related material out of my site, the happier I am.
I personally would be offended if I got a religious tract in something I ordered, and would not at all regard it like a Sears catalog … mainly because a lot of modern/traditional Christian doctrine teaches that my religious faith is WRONG WRONG WRONG and is not even a real religion anyway. I don’t hold modern Christian fundamentalists responsible for the witch hunts, the Crusades, or the Inquisition, but I do face a lot of harrassment because of my religious faith, and when I order something I don’t want to have this kind of thing shoved in my face.
It would be the same, to me, as if I had opened the book I ordered and found, say, and ad for that foundation that supposedly turns gay people straight. The implication is that homosexuality is bad, and that I am doing something wrong – the same way that the Christian tract implies that my non-Christian faith is bad. I just want my freaking book.
If the people had approached me on the street I would have smiled and politely turned down the proffered tract. Here I have no choice, as it is automatically included with something completely unrelated that I ordered. Personally, I would contact the company, let them know that I didn’t appreciate it, and politely ask that they not do that in the future. If the web site has a feedback option, I would note that they included it, without saying how it affected me. But it’s far more than a Sears catalog.
Oh, and Esprix, you sooooo have to let us know when you’re selling something next!
Tell me, Dragonblink, would you be equally offended if the tract was Wiccan? Think honestly.
If I have one message, it is that religous intolerance flows both ways. It is wrong whichever way it travels.
Do not be offended by religous expresion, even if you find it in a place you don’t expect.
Your belief in your world view is reasonably solid, right? How can a simple idea offend? How can the fact that people hold that idea offend? You are stronger than that.
Just kidding.