It would have been better for you to have included this in your original jab. I made the mistake of thinking you meant all of Scrappy’s posts.
Anyway, carry on with that whole hating religion thing.
Just nitpicking, but as you may have noticed, Valteron is a Canadian, and this incident took place in Canada (sounds like the Alberta Rockies, to be exact), so the First Amendment to the US Constitution doesn’t apply. What we need to look at here is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Most likely sections 2(a) and 2(b), though sections 7 and 15 may come into play also. Of course, as with the US Constitution, these rights are only against the federal government, and not against private organizations such as the Gideons or Fairmont Hotels. But an appeal to the Court is possible: from s. 24(1):
Figured that after four or five pages, this needed to be said.
Four or five pages that you skimmed but didn’t read?
Look about 19 posts north of yours.
Not that I blame you, really. It was in a Valteron post, and one can only stand so much bitchy whining before he tunes out.
I saw that but he didn’t state the grounds on which he’d be making a claim. I gave him chapter and verse. He can do with that as he pleases. As for the solution, he’s more than welcome to apply his rights as dictated by section 24(1), and see what a court of competent jurisdiction has to say. (Hint for Valteron: Start at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta. Hey, it worked for Vriend).
Sorry to nitpick back, but I later realized that he is Canadian, and that the “offense” also took place in Canada. That means that there is such a thing as “hate speech” in a legally valid sense. So really he is free to take it up with the appropriate authorities in Canada, whereupon he will be quickly denied any sort of consideration. This thread is nothing more than an extended bitching session about how it sucks that there are bibles in hotel rooms. I’m an agnostic, and I don’t like it either, but I don’t go whinging to everyone about it now do I?
If only we could be sure of that.
I did what?
I called whining what it was.
The mistake you’ve made is that you’re assuming that the Bible is hate speech.
And, NEW FLASH- it isn’t.
Auto, even if InnaGaddaDaVita had put this in its original post, its own brand of whining is still predicated on a false assumption.
The Bible isn’t hate speech.
Valteron is being a whiny bitch.
That’s what the thread is about.
Whoa! I don’t know how we got into all these discussions of First Amendment (which doesn’t even apply in Canada) and my suing under the Canadian Charter of Rights, etc.
I never said I wanted to do any of this. Nor have I ever said that I did not recognize the** right ** of the hotel to put copies of the Bible, or even of Mein Kampf in their hotel rooms. There is a difference between what you have a right to do and what you should do. You have a “right” to call Mr. Obama a “n___ger” if you wish. But I don’t think that is what a decent and just person would do.
And yes, by the way, I have been aware for more than 50 years that there are Gideon Bibles in hotel rooms. I acted as if I were surprised as a form of satire and irony. I swear, there are some of you out there who think that “satire” is short for “USA Tire Co.” and that “irony” means “resembling iron”.
But my OP was very serious in this sense that the placing of Bibles in everyone’s hotel room is part of the free ride that religion gets in our society. The basic premise is that nobody could mind the presence of what is essentially “The Good Book”. There is the naive assumption by millions of persons who have been taught to revere the Bible (but have rarely read it in any great detail) that it contains nothing but good and can do nothing but good.
What I want to make clear is that belief in the Bible is one religious opinion among many. If the hotel wants to offer people books to read in their rooms, from the Bible to “Why I am not a Christian” to “Why I am not a Muslim” to the Koran or whatever, they can offer such a service and send the book up to the room on request. Or they can have a room full of books that the guests can look over and borrow. It is the privilege of automatic placement in the hotel rooms of all guests accorded most commonly to the Bible that riles me. Implicit in this universal and automatic placement is the assumption that this is a fundamentally harmless, good book that all should read.
I am also sorry that I focused just on the murderous and hate-filled passages regarding gays. You can understand that that is a special point for me, but my “addition” to the Gideon Bibles should be much broader.
If I decide to produce my own addendum to the Gideon Bible, I think I will start with the following quote by a great American (and international) thinker:
“Whenever we read … the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind. And, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel”. – Thomas Paine,* The Age of Reason *
Then I might go on with a list of interesting passages for the reader to consult.
If you want to torture and kill thousands of lonely old women and seize their property: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”.-- Exodus 22:18 “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them”. Leviticus, 20:27
If you want to massacre non-Christians: He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed. Exodus: 22:20
If you want to kill or persecute homosexuals: If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:13
If you want to persecute Jews as Christ-killers: "Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children. Matthew 27:25
My other tactic would consist of urging all those who feel as I do (and I believe that with almost 11,000 views of this thread there must be some who do) to simply tell the maid, in a polite and friendly manner, that sombody has left this book in your room that you did not ask for and that you do not want. Most likely the maid would put it somewhere with the soap and towel supplies in a service area.
My guess is that unless the maid returns it to the room as soon as you leave, less than 1% of the guests who follow you will notice the absence or ask for a bible. If they do, the hotel can supply one.
If only a small percentage of guests do this regularly (and remember to be polite) the hotels will realize that we live in a secular, multi-religious society and will make bibles (or any other book) something that guests can request if they want them.
Now, for this attitude, I have been called intolerant and covered with derision for the past week. But I am proud to say that even here in the Pit, I have not descended to obscenity and name-calling.
No. I’m Southern in dialect and Christian in religion but I’m not a bigot. He’s your husband – lawfully married and all. As it is there, so should it be here. I called him that in a previous post. And I think “sweetheart” is a perfectly good word used for people in their nineties; it speaks, to me, of two people who adore each other like newlyweds and do little things for each other like putting love notes in lunchboxes and having secret little in-jokes and knowing how the other person likes their coffee and I really am sorry if you took it as a perjorative. It was a term of endearment and commitment, to me, well beyond ‘husband’ – not a diminution of what he is to you.
It is. That’s true.
There’s a play out there, a very old and respected one, all about how a man needs to bully a woman to make her act properly. There’s an on-stage assault, after which the battered wife is diminished, docile, extolling the virtues of being dominated by men. And here I am, a single woman in her late twenties, a feminist and the daughter of a feminist, and the idea of putting up with something like that makes my blood boil.
Nevertheless, I love The Taming of the Shrew and I’m trying out for Katherine for a local production.
“That’s a false equivalency, LPN,” you say, “because there is not a religion of a billion people worshiping Shakespeare.” Fair enough, but it’s not like this is an obscure play by an unknown playwright, either. Or a play that musicals and movies – popular ones – haven’t been based from.
“But there’s many interpretations of that play’s theme!” Yeah. There are. Funny, that.
I read the quote before I read the meat of the post, at least the red bits, and I started nodding to myself.
Because what I thought Dio was pointing out was the fact that people can be so dense and vain as to take their own bigotries, paste them on God’s face, and then parade them around as if they meant something.
…it will not help. Seriously. It will not convert any more people to atheism than the presence of the Bible itself in the hotels converts people to Christianity. It will make you feel better. That’s about it.
Amazingly, you’re even a bigger dolt and asshole than I thought. Here’s your answer, drama queen: DON’T OPEN THE FUCKING DRAWER. Were you really surprised to open it and find—shivers—a bible. What are you, 8 years old? I stay in a lot of hotels and most of the time I never have reason to go in the drawer. If I do, I just slide it to the back. If I’m there for an extended stay and really want/need to use that drawer, I just move it to some bottom drawer of a bureau that I’m not using. But then I don’t think that picking it up will burn my hands. And if your oh-so-delicate sensibilities just can’t withstand the the evil bible in your presence, just call the front desk. I’m sure they could call some Haz-Mat squad to remove it to a place where it could do you no harm.
And for the record, you’re a whiny fucking asshole. And all this comes from someone who adheres to no religion.
And if someone puts copies of the Taming of the Shrew or the Merchant of Venice in every hotel room, and tells people who take offence to stop being whining bitches, as some posters have told me . . . . ?
I will defend to the death the right of anyone to possess a Bible, to put on these plays, to read or republish Mein Kampf, to hand out KKK literature on street corners on put it up on the wb, etc.
The only point you are making is that there are many plays, books and other things that are offensive to some people but that we have a right to own and read. I agree with you 100%.
I am simply saying that I don’t want that trash (and both Thomas Paine and I have the right to consider the Bible trash, just as much as you have to revere it) automatically placed in every hotel room I rent with my hard-earned money.
Thank you for that contribution. It is a well-established rule of debate and discussion that the person who uses the most obscenities and personal abuse in their comments is the one who is right. So you are obviously correct. And since I have used none, I am obviously wrong. :rolleyes:
Oh yes, I did make a pun about “anus” and “annus”, which could be seen as an insult, but I must admit I cannot resist Latin puns.
Lots of public money is spent on teaching Shakespeare at various levels in public schools. I suspect that a lot of public money is used to help fund public performances of Shakespeare’s plays in many places. On the other hand, the Bible is seldom taught in public schools. The Bible in your hotel room was not paid for by your money at all. The hotel pays nothing for the Bibles. It’s paid for by contributions to the Gideons. So public money is going for Shakespeare and not for the Bible.
You do have that right.
I’m just saying I don’t get offended by all things that could offend me and angry by all things that I could, by rights, get angry at. I don’t think it’s a good way to go through life.
Here’s a recent example of that: I went to a movie with two people. We could not find the theater and were late getting in. All the while we were searching, one of the three people kept sniping and huffing and snarling and making herself generally unpleasant. We’d already bought the tickets so we were pretty committed, but we were going to be late and miss part of the movie.
Finally, I said “All three of us in this car have a good reason to be upset and angry. Notice how only one of us is.”
She turned around and said “Shut up, you sanctimonious shit-eater.”
“I may be a sanctimonious shit-eater,” I replied, “but I have low blood pressure.” 
I understand saying “Ehh, just don’t let it bother you” is a fine damn thing to say to someone who couldn’t even legally marry until quite recently. You have every right to be upset. You have every right to be upset.
I just don’t think it’s a profitable use of your outrage in this instance. I understand and support your right to disagree with me.
I admit that maybe 90% to 99% of hotel guests never actually pick up the Gideon Bible. I have no firm statistics to back me up on this, but common sense tells me it must be a very rare guest who does so. Really religious people probably have their own Bible that they travel with.
But what about the occasional teenager who has been left in the room while his parents are out and is looking through the drawers? What about the occasional person looking for something else in the drawers who comes accross my addendum and says: “What’s this?”
Even if these people do not actually look up the references chapter and verse, it could be the first time in their lives that they will start to realize that this alleged word of God is not just a big pile of feely-touchy invocations to love one another, but is in fact one of the most bloody, violent and intolerant books every produced, and that it has been and STILL IS used to persecute and marginalize innocent people who are different throughout the world.
Atheists are not made through baptism or conversion. They are not issued membership cards (except I suppose for certain organizations for atheists) and they are VERY difficult to define for statistical purposes. They are not converted by a blinding flash on the Road to Damascus. They come to their realization through a process of reason and rational thought that can take years, even decades.
Bertrand Russell, that famous atheist, once actually believed for a while that one of the arguments for the existence of God put forward by an early “doctor” of the Church was valid until he saw the logical flaw.
Somday, there may be an influential atheist writer who remembers that it all started the day he found a sheet of paper tucked next to the Gideon Bible when he (or she) was 14 and bored in a room at the Hilton. 
I am not referring to YOU, Ninja, but who on this thread has displayed anger and outrage, me or the people who are calling me a whining bitch and throwing the F-word at me as if it were holy water that will somehow make my deminic presence disappear?
Not much more likely, I daresay, than that teenager flipping around in the book and finding The Song of Solomon really freakin’ hot or the primacy of love over all other virtues in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
Just as you are apparently offended by the ubiquitous presence of the Bible in hotel rooms, so will many current Christians be offended by warning stickers on the same book. It will cause most Christians, I daresay, to be against your position before they even know who it is, just as a small silver cross around my neck is a sign to many people that I’m a Fundamentalist bigot. Heck, I’m Christian now but back in my agnostic days I heckled the street preachers with a certain joy… not because I thought the Bible was so much hooey, but because they were such strident blowhards that I wanted to be as far away from whatever they were as possible. They were actively pushing people away from Christianity by their actions.
You catch more flies with honey than you do with flamethrowers.
Yeah, I saw that title before I read the post and did a big :dubious:, but I see where you’re coming from now.
Well, we’re in the Pit. I know we didn’t start there, but did you really think a thread like this was not going to end up there? Starting your debate as a debate, not as false shock and outrage at the presence of the Gideon Bible in a hotel room, would probably have kept the thread in GD. People would be arguing back and forth as they do, but I would posit as a theory that calling the Bible ‘hate literature’ is not an invitation to reasonable debate, nor is it without anger.
And I’m sorry to say this, Valteron, but we have to consider the source. We are, around here, kind of aware of how you feel about religion. You really, really, really, really hate it. You knew calling the Bible ‘hate literature’ was inflammatory. It’s no fair tossing dry wood on a fire and then blaming the fire for burning the forest down.
ETA: And now, because of you, I’m completely late for church. I hope that makes you happy.
I’m not actually blaming you. I woke up late and I’m going to visit my grandmother anyway. Ta ta for now!
Jesus, what a self-aggrandizing douchebag you are! You want to know why everyone here is jumping down your fucking throat? Because you put on this drama queen act of pretending to be shocked. Had you started your OP in a straightforward manner, you would have gotten a different response. Had you said:
I think the Bible is hate-speech and I think it’s inappropriate for it to be in hotel rooms.
You would be getting zero flak at this point. You’d be getting an honest debate about why you are wrong, but you wouldn’t be getting personal insults. But the disgustingly transparent way in which you pretend to be unaware of this, and offended by it is really what nobody here can fucking stand. And you pose it as a question “What should I do?!?!” Nobody at the Dope wants a fucking drama queen. We here tend to be a drama-free bunch and value people who are straight-forward in their communications. Really I find it insulting to everyone’s intelligence that you try to pass it off as an honest reaction. Then you use the shitty little tactic of combining Gideon and hate-speech in the same sentence while keeping the word Bible out of it just to piss everyone off even more.
I, for one, think I understand Valteron’s intention for starting this thread. I think it points out, using the vehicle of satire, just another thing that we take for granted that it’s high time we start to question.
It’s satire, folks, satire. Valteron’s not stupid, and he’s not a raving lunatic. He might be a philospher, if he wants to don that hat.
Some other things we need to start thinking about are: accepting “In God We Trust” on money and government venues (it’s posted in my local courthouse), and the tacit prohibition of discussing the absurdities of religion in polite company.