And for every one of those, there will be several who don’t give a shit one way or the other. I’m one of them–atheist, for the record.
I imagine there wouldn’t be an uproar so much as confusion over the fact the hotel was replacing Christian bibles (which is the largest religion in the US by far) and replaced them with a Muslim text (small, but growing) or an atheist book that not representative of “atheism” in any way (and atheism is even smaller than the Muslim population I would guess).
Indeed. They probably wouldn’t notice in the first place.
Me too.
Oddly enough when my school went to play at Carnegie, our rooms at the Grand Hyatt didn’t have any religious text in them. I’m not even sure WHY we looked mind you, we wouldn’t have used it anyway, but we searched every drawer closet and cabinet and there was no Bible in sight.
Click here for a variety of whooshing sounds missing from this thread.
For a good time call Mary Magdalene: 666-1010 (p.s., she won’t make you pay for the second coming).
Wow, that certainly got a lot of reactions and debate. For something which was not supposed to be a debate according to Tomndebb. . . . . .but I digress.
In fact, I do not believe I said anywhere in my original posting that it was ruining my vacation, but thank you for your concern.
In fact, my spouse and I are staying at the Banff Springs Hotel here and we are having such a wonderful time in the majestic Rockies that it would take a lot more than that to ruin our vacation.
BTW it is a Fairmont hotel.
Reviewing some of the above responses, I find interesting how some of them fall into what I would call the “muscular theistic fascist” school of thought. Basicall, they are saying “Christians are a majority so shut your fucking mouth and grin and bear it. If we want to fill every hotel room in the country with our holy book, we will do so and if you don’t like it, fucking tough!”
To my knowledge, there is no state religion in Canada or the US, so the question of majority/minority has nothing to do with it.
A recent decima poll reported in Canada a few days ago showed that Canadians who believe there is no God are now over 21% of the country! If we all started calling the hotel front desk and asking that the bibles be removed from our rooms, maybe they would adopt the fair and equtable practice of having bibles, Korans, Book of Mormon, etc. on hand for those who request them instead of assuming that we all want one.
I also wonder what would happen in the American Atheist Society printed up just a short pamphlet as to why there is no God (they must have some already available) and offered them to hotel chains to put in their drawers next to the bibles.
One of the posters responded that if I did not ask for the bible, I also did not ask for a bed or a lamp of a toilet in my room. Fair enough. Neither did I ask for a pamphlet entitled “Gas the Jews” or “Kill the Niggers” in the night table. But I get the feeling you would object to finding that the hotel had a policy of putting those pamphlets in their rooms. But the Bible cearly says “Kill the faggots”.
I have decided I will now do one of two things. I may prepare a small card warning people that this book contains passages encouraging violence, hatred, murder of gays, slavery and sexism, giving the specific references, chapter and verse. I will print the text of stickers that can be pasted on the front of the book, and put one on the front of every Gideon Bible in every room I stay in from now on.
Or I may simply ask the staff to take this offensive book away.
Both methods seem to make the point.
No, not really.
Most of the posts are saying, “The majority either wants this or does not care.” Thus, the entirely independent actions of a religious group are either appreciated or not even noticed by pretty much everybody.
What that essentially means is that people like you who are offended by a mainstream practice can cope in your own way, and that’s fine, but demanding an institutional response will gain no traction. Not because of holiness, but because of prevailing opinion.
So what if there’s no state religion? The hotels are not state actors, they are private actors and thus can do what they like- they can promote or work against the establishment of religion as they see fit. But here, they haven’t even done that.
And of course, you know that it has EVERYTHING to do with majority/minority, because you use it as a basis for your very next rant:
So which is it? Do you want to use the power of the majority? Or do you want the State to act on your behalf? You generally don’t answer questions put to you, but please take notice of the fact that you cannot have it both ways.
The hotels would probably politely decline. And that would be just fine.
No, it doesn’t.
Why not just wear a T-shirt saying, “I’m a shrill reactionary?” Probably reach more people with less effort.
Nobody has ever successfully explained why hotel chains are so gutless that they feel they have to put the bibles in the rooms in the first place.
You know who else put Bibles in hotel rooms?
You are interpreting the Bible quite fundamentally. Not everyone interprets the passages you mentioned in such a way. Somebody linked to this earlier.
I have in fact seen the Book of Mormon in hotel rooms. Now, as it happens, the B of M (or BM as I prefer) says that Indians are descendants of Israelites who came to America and were turned into a “dark and loathsome” (See book of Nephi) people by God because they were evil. And the same book promises that if those wicked savages will mend their ways “not many generations” will pass before they again become a “white and delightsome people”. Those are the very words used in the English Translation. I have no idea what the words were in the original since I do not speak the “reformed Egyptian” from which Joe Smith translated the Book of Mormon.
Come to think of it, Joe Smith is the only person I have ever heard of who even mentioned the existence of a language called “reformed Egyptian”. :rolleyes:
How would an Aboriginal American feel about sleeping next to a book that says that? How do you think I feel about sleeping next to a Bible that says that my spouse and I should be murdered?
Perhaps because it’s not gutlessness so much as apathy and./or sound business sense.
I have no idea, and neither do you, since you’ve never actually done that.
I’ve stayed in one in Seoul that had those *and * a copy of “The Teachings of the Buddha”.
Left hardly any room in the drawer for my porn.
The only thing that surprises me about this thread is that anyone could possibly not know that Gideon bibles are in just about every hotel room in North America, and other parts of the world as well. (I know I’ve seen them in Europe for example.)
If hotel rooms with bibles offend you, you won’t be spending many nights in hotels.
Ed
Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me what this means,in reference to homosexuality:
Leviticus, 20:13 “They shall surely be put to death. Their blood be upon them.”
Leviticus 18:22 “It is an abomination”.
Why should I have to put up with insulting shit like that in a hotel room that I have paid for?
Honest question: How do all these Gideon bibles get placed? Is there some sort of Gideon-based hotel registration every chain has to go through (then recieve 'em in the mail)? Or, are there traveling conventions/seminars that descend on newly constructed hotels like swarms of locusts leaving these things behind? 
Tripler
Seriously, even if it’s a fraction of hotels in the US, this is a huge logistical endeavor.
Ed, (or suranyi) I intend to spend a LOT of nights in hotels since my spouse and I like to travel. But as long as I am paying for the room, I will NOT have homophobic hate propaganda as contained in the Bible in my room. Or else I will leave warning stickers on the bibles.
It is not nearly as clear cut as you would have us believe.
Without getting into a debate about what the Gideon bible says about gays, if something in your room offends you – be it hair in the sink or a Bible in the drawer – then by all means call and write a letter of complaint about it to TPTB. Let them know, nicely, that it offends you. If enough people complain, then management will react.
Having a Bible in the drawer does seem like a throwback from another era. It’s just not very inclusive to allow one religion to place their literature in hotel rooms, but not give equal time to others.
I’m a Catholic and if I really want to read my Bible, I’ll pack it.