Yea, after you have been here a little longer and the romance between you and **Lib ** has cooled you will see how often we have to ask the very same thing when Lib gets into a thread and nit picks it to death.
Not that we are nit picking here. **Lib ** made a stupid off the cuff remark. By the way he is much better at defending himself than you are Cos. We all know that when **Lib ** gets defensive he can be a tiger. You should know that I have liked Lib for longer than you have known him, so you really do not have to get all high horsey with me I ain’t trying to flame him.
Now I am just confused as all hell. He (basically) said that the population was probably Christian becuase they were 96% white. I am fairly certain that is incorrect. They would actually be less likely (on the sole basis of race) to be Christian versus the general population.
Not really. I don’t have any hard of numbers here, just my anecdotal experience living here my entire life, and having a social circle that’s always been amost entirely made up of atheist/agnostics, non-observant Jews, and various flavors of New Age. We’re definitly still a minority out here, but not to the extent that they seem to be in other parts of the country.
When Lib gets in a nit picking match with folks I usually abandon the thread unless I’m haveing an exchange with someone else not involved with the nit picking. I don’t care who made the comment. I responded because what was read into his post was ridiculous, several times from several posters.
I don’t agree his remark was stupid. I think what was read into it was a gross misreading of his comment. I am well aware that **Lib ** doesn’t need me to defend him. I chose to respond for my own reasons which I am allowed to do.
High Horsey with you??? What you quoted from me was not directed at you. In fact this is my first response directly to you. But while we’re on the subject, Your response to his post was pretty silly. His comment that the population there is primarily white Christians said nothing even remotely like
No, you interperted his statement incorrectly. He was merely making a statistical observation that in that region they were more likely to be white and Christian than not. He did NOT say they were more likely to be Christians because they were white. See the difference? Its like speaking of Baghdad and saying they are 96% Arab Muslims. The statistic may not be exactly right. Its just a general observation., not a racial comment. Does that clear it up any?
No. So what? Are you so bellow headed that you don’t know that White Appalachia is almost 100% Christian? If 96% of a town in Appalachia is White, then it is, as I said, unlikely that a large percentage is atheist or pagan. Why the hell you can’t just listen to what someone says instead of fretting over made up shit that they might have meant is unclear.
What you said was “96% of whom are white.” No mention was given to religion except that the chance of pagans or atheists in that number are slim. All anyone else had to go on, reading those words, was to presume that you were making the logical conclusion that because they’re white, they’re less likely to be pagan or atheistic, to say nothing of other non-Christian religions.
Had you said “96% of whom are white, and a vast majority of those Christian,” this shitstorm probably would not have occurred.
Say what you mean and don’t leave others to infer something you leave out. If you leave out a key piece of your assertion, such as “the majority in that area are white and Christian,” you really have no grounds on which to get your dander up because someone inferred something different than what you meant to imply.
While the judge is not ordering people to worship, this is a classic unconstitutional condition. See Sherbert v Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963). If you cannot force someone to do something, such as going to Church, it is really problematic to bribe them to do so, whether it be giving them extra money, or reduce their prison sentence. And if you want to say people are drawing unfair comparisons, comparing conditions of release on bail to conditions imposed in place of incarceration after imprisonment is one heck of a lot worse than comparing (not claiming them to be identical) school prayer and requiring religious attendance on pain of hard time.
Well, that’s a good point. However, I believe that the implication was clear, but the inference isn’t up to me. If multiple inferences are possible, it seems logical to consider what you know of the person if your intention is to draw one. I’m no racist, and Guin knows it.
I think if you consider the post just before his and his next one two posts later which made the qualification “WASPs” then the meaning is fairly clear. It certainly seemed obvious to me. You do make a valid point. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this kind of reaction to a comment because of a qualifier that was omitted.
It should be pretty by clear now that your implication was not clear. I sure as hell couldn’t tell with any surety what you were trying to say. When this happens, why don’t you just try restating your position in plainer language? You seem to have a habit of assuming that anytime anyone doesn’t understand something you’ve posted, they’re doing it out of deliberate, malicious intent. A lot of the time, though, it’s simply because people don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. A little more patience and a lot less defensiveness would go a long way.
And where the hell did anyone accuse you of racism? Talk about unwarranted inferences!
I’m willing to presume she does know it and hence did not, in fact, make any accusation, as Miller said. I went and read the responses more carefully, and what I saw were two confused people made even more confused by your wholly unhelpful one-word clarification and were trying to ask for more. You read offense where there seemed to be none, jumped to the attack, and now the thread is about what you said rather than what the judge said.
Really, in askeptic’s case, the misreading could potentially happen, and I could see it, as the language was a little more confrontational. But Guinastasia asked a very neutral question without even a smiley to add tone. Isn’t it possible you’re reading way more into her question than is actually there? You certainly seem to assume others should read more into what you actually write.
None of us are that important that we should expect others to sit there for however long it takes to tease out meaning in our words.
Well, then, if that many people take the wrong inference, I concede that my wording was poor. I apologize. If I could write it again, I would say something along these lines:
Although I think the judge should not be doing what he is doing, the likelihood that atheists or pagans are being coerced into going to church is remote, given the demographics of London, KY — a rural, predominately white Appalachian small town, such places being strong enclaves of Southern Baptist and Pentacostal Holiness congregations especially, and other protestant Christian denominations to a lesser degree, but recognizing and understanding that certain exceptions can and likely do exist as metaphysical possibilities.
Homogeneity of religion is very relevant. Homogeneity of colour is entirely irrelevant. Rather than stating that most people in the area are Christian, you stated that “96% . . . are white”, and then lashed out at those who corrected you on this. Apologizing for your poor wording is a step in the right direction, but a more Christian approach would be for you to apologize for lashing out.
Why not?
I really don’t think any of the defendants are gonna complain. Given the choice between a 30 day lockup or 6 weeks of church (or ceremony) attenance, that’s a no-brainer. Hey, you don’t have to buy into the dogma, you just gotta show up.
Any way you look at it, this is a court sanctioned dodge of a jail term.
I don’t think you’re a racist, but you tend to make statements that are harder to unravel than a Rubics Cube. I still don’t see how we are supposed to suppose that oh, it’s all Christian because it’s mostly white. The two are necessarily related.
Now I am just confused as all hell. He (basically) said that the population was probably Christian becuase they were 96% white. I am fairly certain that is incorrect. They would actually be less likely (on the sole basis of race) to be Christian versus the general population.