If those rigths which I find as a custumor completely normal don’t even exist in the USA…
Then I think US citizens largely “overprize” their nation and its “freedom and rights”, no?
So I can build you a house with as much hidden Quranic verses I want to hide in its construction and you have nothing to say against it?
This opens perspectives…
Oh, almost forgot…Proselytizing isn’t permitted in Islam…
Oh well, I can always use Bible quotes to shove them onto atheists just for fun.
Salaam. A
How so? Did they specifically claim that there was nothing religious about the product? You cannot just assume that there isn’t. Again: there is a culture of casual religiosity in the West, and it is your duty to acclimate to it, not expect it to be brushed aside to spare your sensitivities.
It’s called “Freedom of Religion.” The seller has the right to proselytize their religion.
Paragraph and clause, please?
That’s a bit different. Since I approved the plans for the house, including fixtures, etc, and it was built to order, and I paid for the wood you used in building the house, that could be construed as destruction of my property (since the wood was purchased before it was besmirched by your Quranic verses). However, if you made the house as part of a group of homes and I toured the home and liked the home and bought it, and only later discovered the verses, that would not be a problem. I’d simply pay to have the offending parts of the house replaced.
Oh, I would comment. I would comment to everyone I know to “never buy a house from Aldebaran Development.”
You bought the piece that was premade, just as I bought a premade house in my retort to your example.
Now, if you custom order a piece and specify its design, and someone adds a bunch of Bible junk to it, then you have a rightful reason to be pissed. But in buying off the counter merchandise, you are agreeing to buy it as the producer created it. Which may or may not include expressions of the producer’s worldview.
Where are these rights codified by law? What nation codifies the right of the buyer to make extraordinary demands on the production of merchandise made well before the buyer entered the store?
We’re not the freest people on Earth, but we’re damn close. What you’re asking for isn’t a freedom, though, it’s the abrogation of another person’s freedom, namely their freedom to live and express their own religion.
If you’re building a house and finish it and then I later come along and purchase it, you had every right to inscribe Quranic verses in the walls or whatever. Arabic is visually pretty, I might even leave them there.
However, if you’re building to my custom design, that would not be ethical. Surely you see the difference in the two situations.
Islamic history belays that comment. It may not be “permitted” but it certainly happens. Just ask the Spanish.
If they were hidden, then I’d probably laugh when I found them, and show all my friends what a weird builder I had (weird in the sense of wanting to hide passages from any faith in the construction whether they be Christian, Muslim, Wicca, or whatever). Would I care? No. Would I be embarassed by them? No. Would I want to remove them? If they were sufficiently hidden as to be unnoticeable, then removing them would be very low on my list of priorities.
Well, since people simply refuse to see the argument that whenever someone sells a product and makes the custumor believe that he buys the product and the product alone and as it is presented to him that there is no way the buyer can hacve any idea that the seller is using it as a cover up for proseyltizing, there is no debate possible.
Maybe when those same products would carry hidden signs of satanism and would be packed in items with proselyting for satanism hidden on it, the defenders of the christian proselytizing would be ready to see what I mean.
I can think of a few other items that iwould scare the hell out of the people finding them, especially when covered up as innocent Barbie - like dolls. I would like to see the reaction on that too.
Actually, your defense of “producers can do what they want if they want to mislead you and abuse your good faith” brings me to very amusing idea’s.
Salaam. A
Salaam. A
By the way Spectrum, you need to update your “history knowledge” and refrase: “ask the Spanish” while referring to Christianity.
Salaam. A
Actually, Aldebaran debating was pretty much what we were doing here; I’m sorry you missed it.
See, what happened was, I suggested that business owners were entitled to put any legal message upon their packaging and products that they wish, since you have a choice to buy it or not. You then asserted that you have a fundamental and inalienable right to not have that stuff on there, especially since you could be killed.
Then others pointed out that, so long as the product and packaging meet the legal requirements in the country in which it was purchased, the merchant no longer has any obligation to ensure that you do not come into harm’s way because of possession of such materials, and specifically, that the merchant is not required to ensure that what you purchased is legal to bring into any particular country.
Then you chatted a little about how most Westerners push their ideas on those outside, though you still have failed to connect this statement with the fact that the items being discussed are available for purchase within North America. You also inferred that having a religious message discretely placed upon the bag in which you carry the product home somehow made the object materially defective (a la a Barbie doll w/o arms) to the point that it was a breach of the merchant’s obligation to deliver exactly and only what you expected.
From there, you again made reference to this alleged right of yours to not have religious propoganda, be it apparent or hidden, while failing to explain with reasonable satisfaction how your right topples that of a merchant to put any legal message upon their products and packaging that they wish. You also kept stressing how all of these abundant “hidden messages” that are serruptitiously placed on such clandestine places as the bottom of a bag and gasp on a card apparently delivered with your meal on Alaska Airlines is a breach of some ethereal sales contract. Oh, and you asked if it was ok if an apartment had hidden Quran verses, and everyone who replied agreed it was reasonable since it is not a custom-made item. That, unfortunately, took the wind out of your sails as you tried to turn this into a Christian vs. Islam discussion instead of a “do companies in the West have the right to put religious messages onto their products and packaging” discussion.
Then, it appears that you set yourself up to take your ball and go home. Just be sure you check that ball for hidden messages when you import it into your home country. I don’t support any state’s murder of its citizens because they failed to adequately check their foreign-made and purchased goods from meeting the domestic speech-control laws.
So you see, it was a debate. Make no mistake…I can see your argument. I simply deem it absurd.
Well said, Stand Up.
Aldebaran, this was a debate. This is what a debate looks like. You seem to grow tired simply because no one agrees with your absurd point of view. But just to make sure you don’t get any sort of last word:
Only if you define debate as “people agreeing with me.” Perhaps that’s what political debate looks like where you come from: someone with religious or temporal authority says something, and everyone else agrees. Welcome to democracy. Messy, isn’t it?
As for your contention, we see your argument… we just dismiss it as being inaccurate.
I am not a Christian. I don’t like be proselytized at. By anyone, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Scientologist, Republican – anyone. However, I support their right to do so, since I believe in freedom of speech and religion.
You have failed to show any misleading. A store has jewelry and on the back is a Jesus icon or Bible verse. You go in, you look at the jewelry, and you buy it. How is the shopkeeper misleading you? If you didn’t look at the back of the item, that’s your own damn fault.
You just hate freedom of religion. How sad.
Aldebaran
For myself, if I were selling my product to a person from another country and I knew it had some Christian symbol on it; I would tell them. Just like I wouldn’t mix pork in a chicken dish at my restaurant without disclosing it. It’s a matter of respect. If I received a hidden Satanic message, I would call the store and complain and not shop there anymore. But in our country we merely consider it an irritation if someone pushes their faith on us. Most of us aren’t aware of how serious it could be for some. We take our freedom of religion for granted, although it can be irritating at times. It’s actually up to you to inquire, if there is a potential problem for you. I wouldn’t have a problem at all with receiving excerpts from the Qur’an on my next airplane flight, but I make it a point to use unsolicited Christian literature to wrap my gum in. Personal choice. Personal responsibility. Now quick, go check your jewelry.
And, just to put one more stake in the vampire’s heart, yes, we know that Spanish Christians forced the conversion of Spanish Muslims. But you (Aldebaran) claimed that Islam didn’t engage in forced conversions, and Iberian history shows that to be incorrect.
The statement “Your side did it too” is not a rebuttal to the claim “Your side did something bad.”
Trinopus
I’m sorry, you still completely miss my point.
I have no choice at all when I was made believe that said product would not have any kind of such messages on it or coming with it.
I don’t know why you fail to see that point.
See above and re-read my posts.
I can not know what is hidden on a product I buy or what is hidden on a package of a product I buy if the producer/retailer doesn’t inform me about it. Thus they have no right to hide that information from me because they feel the urge to follow some lunatic hidden agenda that urges them to “spread the message” by all means and no matter at what cost.
I never said he had; I said he has no right to put me in any danger by shoving hidden religious quotes and insertions onto me while I am not aware of that practice.
That you make this strange and completely wrong conclusion is not my problem. I already said I never wrote anything like that.
I said however that some members posting here try with their comments to impose their values on other nations.
I diodn’t say it makes the product “defective”. I said I buy the product, not the proselytizing and if I buy a product and people want to use that for proselytizing they have the obligation to inform me that they are proselytizing by means of the product.
If they don’t do that, they are misleading the custumor and are selling a product that isn’t conform on what they have led him to believe it is.
Where I live practices that mislead the custumor are against the law. As it is also in Europe. Even misleading advertizing is.
No, I said if it is visible, then I have the choice to buy the product with the proselytising items or additions included, or not.
If it is hidden then I don’t have that choice since I do not see it. And thus it is pushed onto me. Unwanted and without my consent. See above.
I never referred to any Alaska Airline ticket.
And if I buy something, I enter a contract with the producer via the retailer and/or the salesman who works for him.
I expect the producer, retailer,salesman to deliver me the product I buy in ** the state I buy it = how I have seen it as it was presented to me**.
If I buy products presented to me as being completely secular, then every information about the fact that this is not the case and which the producer/retailer/salesman knows about and willingly witholds from me, makes it a case of misleading of the custumor. Which is a transgression of the salescontract because I don’t get the product as it was presented to me… I get the product with additions on or added to it I wasn’t informed about when I bought it.
I did no such thing. I said I would like to see the reactions of the defenders of hidden Christian proselytizing on other forms of hidden messages.
And sorry, I don’t speak about “the West” since nowhere where I come besides the USA I have ever seen or heard of such lunatic arrogant practices. These countries do have laws to protect the custumor against abuse, misinformation and misleading by producers, retailers and salesmen.
In fact: Good guess… Being at the present not in my country, I do plan to go home in a few hours.
I don’t need to worry about anything. And I don’t need to even make anything inspected of no matter what I take from here with me, on the possibility of hidden messages of lunatical fanatics.
They don’t have mad arrogant proselytizing idiots overhere who can’t resist the lunatic urge tho plant religious items where they aren’t supposed to be, abusing the good faith of their custumors. You don’t see that kind of practices here because there are laws to protect custumors against misleading practices and abuses of good faith.
In my opinion you need urgently some good custumors-protecting laws where you live.
To you it may be. Since you seem to have no notice at all of being protected by normal laws against abuses and misleading practices. I feel sorry for you. You do nothing else then witnessing that everyone can sell you whatever they like, pretending it to be what it is not and then claim that you needed to look out for what you buy. That seems an extremely absurd and unreal situation for me to be in as a custumor.
Salaam. A
Fair enough…we’ll revisit:
Oh, I see the point. But I feel you fail to substantiate it. If a shopkeeper fraudulently misprepresents an item, they have indeed failed to meet their obligation as a seller of goods. If you asked, “does this item or any of the packaging you will present to me contain any religious matter or writings” and the seller said, “no”, and you then found some, then you would have been made to believe other than what was true. In the absence of your asking that question, there is no guarantee. If this causes you a problem, it is up to you to ask the question.
I didn’t take exception to this earlier, but I feel I now must since it continues to be brought up. No example we have used thus far has contained “hidden” messages. You can decide to include discretely placed messages in your definition of “hidden”, but that doesn’t make it so.
Our three examples from the other thread are:
None of these are “hidden”. You are free to take offence to their proselytization, but that doesn’t make it “wrong”.
Semantics, my star-monikored friend. You said he had to right to put those messages on what you bought, since by taking them into another country, you would be put in harm’s way. Therefore, even if such a message is completely legal here, you imply that he should not be permitted to put it onto the product since you could be breaking the law of another country. Therefore, you are asserting that it is up to him to ensure that whatever you’ve purchased is legal in all countries.
You may have said you didn’t write anything like that, but your posts don’t lie. Early on, you used, “You try to push your views on society on other ones, as most Westerners like to do” and then you later made reference to Westerners pushing their religious views on other countries.
He has no such obligation. He is not obligated to tell you about that, about what materials make up the bag he gives you to take it away (what if you’re against the use of plastic products), or whether he pays his staff below minimum wage (maybe you’re against that kind of legal activity). If you have a particular problem with any of this, it’s up to you to ask.
In no case we’ve discussed was it “hidden” as we’ve already covered. Sure, you might bring up the jewelry as being close to “hidden”, but rings are purely aesthetic, and if you liked the design, you did, and if you didn’t you wouldn’t have bought it.
Again, no example we’ve discussed contains misrepresentation. The fact that you read it to automatically be free of religiosity is your mistake, not the merchant’s. You know what they say about assuming.
Oh, you did so.
[snipped portions that do not require response]
I’m plenty protected by laws. My country is a bit too patriarchal for my liking in my opinion, but so be it. However, I don’t feel I need to be “protected” from buying others’ goods when it comes to religious messages. As IWLN said, it is an irritation at worst. I’m afraid something this minor of an issue doesn’t need legislation. I’d rather I weren’t subjected to it, but I’d rather I am than have others’ rights limited by outlawing it.
Forgive any screwed up coding or replies. There was a whack to reply to, and I’m in kind of a hurry.
But the product, as it is presented does include the “hidden” messages. To use the example raised in the other thread, of the jewelry with Biblical symbolism included, it’s there in plain view. When you turn the pieces over, right there on the setting where everyone can see, is the inscription. What isn’t being presented to you in that case? Same with the “Forever 21” bags, all you have to do is look at the bag, you’ll see the reference to the Bible verse. That is the product, as it is presented.
Once again, you presume that because people disagree with your point, they aren’t understanding it. We understand you, we don’t think that what you’re saying has any merit. Do you get that point?
The problem with this assertion is that in the case of the jewelry or the bags, you were never made to believe anything about any product. You assume that because a product doesn’t seem to be something which might have a religious messge attached that there is none. But that’s not the case. You still have the responsibility to know what you’re buying. That means inspecting it. That means knowing what the logo on your shirt means. That means looking at the little mark on the arm of your eyeglasses to decide if it’s a decoration or a cross. That means asking “What is this inscription on the back of this bracelet?” if you can’t decipher it for yourself.
If you make assumptions about the nature of any product, you’re the only one responsible when your assumptions turn out to be incorrect. And if, by some odd chance, you face some repercussion for having that product, the fault still lies with you for failing to know what you had.
Leave it to me to make that kind of mistake.
That should read, obviously:
You know, all this talk of “hidden” Christian messages is pretty surreal. It’s like something from a bizarre bearded-Mr.-Spock mirror-image universe.
“Hey, man, I’ve heard that if you play those guys’ music backwards, there are, like, hidden Christian messages!” “Whoa, freaky!”
“I never buy anything from that company. Didn’t you know, their logo contains hidden Christian symbolism! And the president of the company was on Geraldo once, and he said they give ten percent of their profits to the Christian Church!”
“I’ve heard there’s this secret underground cult who have these bizarre rituals where they drink human blood and stuff! And their symbol is, like, this instrument of torture and death from ancient times! And they go around trying to convert everyone!”
“Isn’t she that Christian lady who filed a lawsuit with the FCC to ban all Satanic programming from TV?”
And of course the really funny part is that the members of the Jack Chick wing of Christianity are convinced that that’s pretty much what the world is already like, or will be very soon–groups of Christians worshipping in secret in the catacombs, anyone caught possessing Christian writings is put to death, and the Christian underground are forced to sneak hidden Scripture messages into product packaging as their only way of “witnessing” to people…
I would like to know what country Aldebaran is referring to that would execute someone for having a Christian message on a shopping bag. All I can find through Google searches is that Saudi Arabia, the most notoriously conservative Islamic country, will sometimes confiscate Bibles from tourists, and will sometimes lock up or deport Christians–but not that they will execute anyone simply for being in possession of a Bible, let alone nothing more than a shopping bag with “John 3:16” on it.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/saudiarabia/contact/sauvisit.htm
http://www.domini.org/openbook/sau20010719.htm
http://www.christiantimes.com/Articles/Articles%20Jul02/Art_Jul02_14.html
Nobody’s been executed in Saudi Arabia for having a Bible, as far as I can tell–just had it confiscated, or been locked up or deported. And there’s considerably more Christian material involved with a Bible than just the words “John 3:16” on a shopping bag.
So what country are you talking about, Aldebaran?
A quick question–
What if the retailer in question printed a small but explicit photo of two men having sex on the bottom of the bag?
Would that be better than/worse than/the same as a retailer printing Bible verses on the bag?
I know that I would be more offended by the Bible verse, but I wouldn’t really appreciate companies putting ANY such personal messages/images on my product or packaging.
Couldn’t someone get in trouble (not killed, I hope) for bringing a bag depicting a sex act into work/their home/wherever???
Must we check all packaging before we agree to buy a product from a store?
Also- what about politeness? In my opinion it is just rude and in very poor form to put little representations of one’s obsessions on material they plan to sell to strangers.
That’d presumably run into some issues with distribution of pornography-- witness the to-do about Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs. So that’d probably be illegal, certainly to give to underage folk.
**
Yeah, but it’s not illegal to be rude, just bad business.
OK-- let’s change my scenario a little-- the photo on the hypothetical bag is of two man engaged in intimate acts, but does not violate any pornography laws (though it comes as close as it can).
I’m not exactly religious, but even I don’t see the Alaskan Airlines cards as proselytizing. I tend to give my business to those companies who do not add religion to their products, but I’m not offended. And, as mentioned, if the stuff is that hidden it can hardly be proselytizing, right?
Might I add that those living in a country who would kill someone for accidentally bringing in a Bible verse have a moral obligation to change the government of that country, or at the very least not support the country by visiting it. If the US executed people for bringing in Koranic versese, all US citizens would have the moral obligation to rise up against the government.
By the way, Aldeberan, do you self censor magazines you carry to get rid of the naughty bits (like bikini ads?)