So, if I was a customer in the store and I said something like “I really like what you sell and your prices, but I’m not comfortable with the music you’re playing which is why I’m afraid I’ll have to shop elsewhere” to the store manager, would I be being anti-Christian? As I said, I am genuinely not comfortable with what little I’ve heard of Christian rock, especially if it’s not being played in an explicitly Christian environment.
Years ago, I was working as a receptionist in a small office. I got in an hour before my boss. One day not too long before Christmas, in honor of the coming season, I had on a tape which had the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah on when my boss called in. “What’s that?” she asked, sounding disgusted.
“The Hallelujah chorus!” I answered, “Isn’t it great!?”
“That’s awful! Turn if off!” she replied in disgust.
Since this happened in Hawaii, I have no idea whether my boss was Christian or not, although I think I assumed she was. The thing is, the reason she was disgusted and offended had nothing to do with the content of the music. She really didn’t like classical music. Her idea of a good tape of Christmas music was a New Kids on the Block tape.
I love Christian folk music. I’ve sung it at folk music services and still turn to it even though my current choir director prefers different music. In a book called simply Songs put out by Songs and Creations, one of the stock books of Christian folk music, at least among Episcopalians, there’s a song called “Lord of the Dance.” It’s a pretty enough song and I’ve sung it on occaision, but there’s one thing I’m aware of thanks to my friendships with pagans. This song fits the traditional pagan model of the death of the god as well as it does the Christian model if not a bit better. Prisoner, where does this fit in to your world view?
Johann Sebastian Bach wrote glorious church music. My choir’s singing his Passion of St. John on Good Friday. He also wrote dance music, not to mention things like preludes and fugues. His Ave Maria and Prelude in C Major have similar structures and may sound similar. Would Prisoner’s friend object to one and not the other? Neither has lyrics.
I use music to glorify God and to pray. I was doing that in my car on the way to church yesterday. I also use it for dancing and pleasure. One of my fondest memories is of dancing to A-Ha’s Take On Me in a disco in Matsuyama, Japan on one of the best nights of my life. I don’t consider myself any less of a Christian for enjoying “Rock And Roll Dreams Come True” as much as I like “Ashes”, a favorite piece of Christian folk music. Both have been a source of strength and joy to me.
A very similar thing happened at our church years ago.
My parents were heavily into the church music programs. My mom was usually a soloist, and my dad was the perfect “stage husband” (very proud and supportive of her). Each year she’d sing in Handel’s Messiah and that music is considered one of our all-time favorites. So imagine my parents’ distress when they heard a fellow church member become very vocal expressing her disgust at the concept of (gasp!) having to sit through the complete Messiah. This lady loudly proclaimed that the Hallelujah Chorus was tolerable (she’d heard it on TV and so forth), but the rest of it? Well, it was beyond unreasonable to expect anyone to sit through that. This church lady obviously was completely unaccustomed to Classical music, and as far as she was concerned, it was all bunk and completely unlistenable. (I still am appalled when I think of that story!)
That was just the first three hits I found, not an exhaustive list. Maryland, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Hawaii and New Hampshire are listed as having similar laws. This does not mean they are being enforced, but does that really matter? They are there, and could be enforced with very little effort.
so, in summary, and I’m gonna make this big and bold, In some states in the US, atheists are legally second-class citizens
Maybe the reason that so many non-Christians resent Christians is because their definition of “persecuted” is “not believing in their religeous views” and “failing to adhere to their narrow morality”. Hey…sorry if some of us choose not to live your lifestyle. That’s what being in a free country means - freedom to do what you like, provided you aren’t hurting anyone. It does not mean “do whatever you want as long as Jesus approves”.
You shouldn’t be listening to the radio at work anyway.
I understand your point, as made to prisoner6655321 (“You can take me down to church, any old time”). But you do generalize to an unacceptable degree here – you might notice that several people in this thread who do self-identify as Christians are arguing in a quite different sense than pris.
Would you care to take a guess what percentage of the 59,054,087 people believed in god, versus the percentage of those who did not vote for GW?
Am I wrong to point to the fact that there is a high correlation between believing in ghosts/fairy tales/gods and being dumb/ignorant? Would you like some cites and credible references clearly showing that Religiosity is pathological.
There are certainly religious obsessions that are considered symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder; so while religious belief per se is not defined as a pathology, there is a degree of religiosity that is most definitely recognized by the medical community as pathological. It’s interesing to note that individuals who displayed such behavior in the not-so-distant past were sometimes regarded as saints.
In sum, like many human preoccupations, there’s a level of pursuit that does not impair overall functioning. Religious belief and ritual is not special in this regard. There is a level of pursuit, though, that is considered highly maladaptive, and worthy of treatment. I doubt very much you’ll get unanimous agreement among the faithful that obsessive and potentially crippling religiosity is truly a pathology, as opposed to a sublime expression of piety; this was once a widely-held assessment, after all.
In the future, could the definition of “pathological” religiosity not evolve further? I honestly don’t know if any change is necessary, but it’s not incoceivable.
The pendulum has swung the “other” way, and IMO that’s why atheists and other non-Christians are lashing out.
I will say, however, that for every rabid atheist I randomly encounter, I encounter two dozen evangelicists openly telling anyone who will listen (regardless of whether they want to listen…subway cars make good traps) that if you don’t follow their path you are going to hell.
Is this what your friend was told by the boss. I’ve worked for bosses who were spineless. They wouldn’t change an employee’s music choice because they didn’t want a confrontation, even though it might be their perogative to do so. However, once given a reason that was “out of his/her hands”, such a boss/manager would gleefully change the station. No agenda, just too much gelatin in the spinal column.
“wah” doesn’t mean you are not allowed to complain; it means that your complaints are being dismissed derisively and not taken seriously. Complain away, but not everyone’s complaint is going to be taken seriously by everyone everytime. That is not, in any way, intolerance.
**Why is it alright to offend the religious people, but it’s not alright to offend athiests? **
Well you see an average atheist just like an average christian is an undereducated and intollerant fellow. He thinks - here are those people that:
Claim to base their reasoning and logic on something I can not see.
Claim that they do good or bad because they fear some punishment or hope for some reward that I will never get no matter what.
So they can not trust christians to act according to the rewards and punishments delivered by this world which is all they have. So they think christians are somehow more irrational then them. So they discriminate(maybe not in the OPs example, but in general).
In order to stop the so called “pendulum” atheists need to know that you won’t just one day up and prohibit them all from having abortions or marrying people of the same sex just because you feel like it(as far as they know there is no god remember). Until that happens they see you as a danger, they fear you and they hate(discriminate against) you.
So you’re only talking about one guy who you believe put on some music deliberately to bother some Christians. Well that hardly proves the the world is becoming more anti-religious.
It doesn’t make sense to me to limit the definition like that. A person can have a very deep belief in God without necessarily having to attend a particular church or participate in certain rituals. You’re saying you wouldn’t describe such a person as “religious”? My dictionary says religion is, “belief in and reverence for a supernatural power acepted as the creator and governor of the universe.” It doesn’t say anything about how many times you go to church. That’s the definition I generally use. Where are you getting your definition?
No, you are wrong. President Bush should make his policy decisions based on his beliefs, acting within the framework of the Constitution and the law of the land.
It seems to me that as a general observation of US culture in the last few years, atheist’s opinions are not considered more important. What is true is that atheists tend to ask, petition, or take actions on the basis of secular matters that they feel are not given equal treatment by our society. That is an appropriate thing to petition the government about. Asking for consideration of religious matters is not appropriate, unless someone’s religion is being suppressed. Christians are not being suppressed in recent centuries, in the US.
Tris
“People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.” ~ Lao Tzu ~
I’d like to point out that it’s possible that offending some atheists with Christian Rock is more costly to sales than offending some Christians with other music. I, for one, will choose to take my business elsewhere if I find that the owner/manager of a business is excessively exuding Christianity (playing Christian Rock in the store would qualify). It’s not because I can’t tolerate Christianity; I’m not offended; I just think it’s incredibly tacky and I don’t appreciate being surrounded by preachy messages when I’m going about my daily business. For the same reason, I don’t do business with merchants who wrap themselves in the flag.
I’m sure there are people out there who won’t do business with a store that plays music they don’t approve of or has displays that annoy or offend them. My guess would be that you lose more people with Christian rock than with random Top 40 rock, and it’s possible that the manager realized this.
Preach it. If the President wasn’t supposed to make his policy based on his beliefs, he wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) campaign them. And we shouldn’t vote for or against him based on his beliefs. We choose the president, indeed all politicians, based on their beliefs.
So, are you going to address the other issues raised in this three-page thread?
Out of curiousity, if your friend was in a restaurant or cafe where, on listening to the music, he or she realized it was a song praising Isis, Astarte, Pan, Kernunous, or some combination thereof, would he or she have objected? If so, wouldn’t he or she then be repressing the local pagans? From what I know of, that’s a lot more common.
I’ve never heard of protestors at public gathering of Christians here; in fact, celebrations on Easter Day and Christmas get positive, front-page news coverage. Public gatherings of local pagans, however, draw equally public protests from Christians who make sure the local pagans know that, as far as they’re concerned, the pagans will suffer in hell for all eternity.