As promised, the Morris Sun Tribune published my letter about the Morris chimes. I want ’em gone.
But I wasn’t the only writer this week! There was another letter, more charitable than mine but even more demanding, asking that the chimes be shut off completely.
Some do not like the cemetery chimes
I am writing to thank Blaine Hill for paying attention to complaints about the cemetery chimes and to urge him to shut off the chimes completely.
I am certain Mr. Stork has the kindest of intentions regarding the chimes, and I know that some people like the chimes.
But some do not. And that fact alone should persuade the city to shut them off entirely. Those who live within hearing distance of the chimes cannot avoid them without shutting out all sounds. That is why the cemetery chimes are a nuisance to some: we must hear them whether we want to or not.
And of course, there was someone who wants to keep them fired up, and makes the most awesomely stupid arguments.
Shutting down chimes is bowing to the minority
Regarding the chimes. Again we must bow to the minorities.Two people have shut down the chimes at the cemetery. A small group of people said no more prayers in the schools. Again we bowed to them. Again they said no religious symbols in state and federal buildings and we bowed. Then our president said no more Christmas trees. They will now be called holiday trees. When will the majorities stand up and take our country back?
Damn minorities. How dare they expect any respect?
I have to do a little fact checking, though. The chimes have not been shut down. They presumably turned down the volume…but not by much.
You can say all the prayers you want in schools — no one can stop you from mumbling words at invisible beings. But we do have policies that disallow public institutions from favoring particular sectarian beliefs, so school officials should not be telling their captive audience, the students, what religion they ought to follow.
Likewise, dressing up a government institution with religious symbols is deeply problematic. To be fair, you could allow all religions to be represented with symbols of their faith, but then we have a situation like the one in Oklahoma, where basically a mob of competing interests try to drown the capitol in glop…and which requires that Christians then respect the rights of, for instance, Satanists. It seems cleaner and simpler to me to simply disallow all of that stuff as a distraction from the purpose of the institution.
Wait, seriously, you’re going to complain that the religious symbol on the White House lawn must have a particular and specific title now? Ridiculous. Besides, the claim that you’re not allowed to call it a Christmas tree is false. This is what happens when you get your news from Fox and World Net Daily.
Strong ending, though. Why, whenever will white people take control of the country?
Most importantly, since he believes so strongly in promoting the desires of the majority over the minority, what will he do in 2043, when white people are predicted to become a minority in the US by the census bureau?
The paper will be interesting next week (it’s a weekly) when all the responses come crashing in.
You ought to send that, and the following paragraphs as a reply.
Man those darn minorities, how dare they not bow to the tyranny of the majority? Don’t those minorities realize they should accept their status as second class citizens, bow down, and avoid trying to assert their humanities?
once again it is shown that many of the conservative christians who live in the United States do decidedly not believe in the principles on which the country was founded on. That it is just words like their bible which can be interpreted the way they want they are not ideals we should strive for and to be inspired to try harder to make real.
they are the “loyal opposition ” to true democracy and just rabid nationalists and would probably vote in king if he said the right things.
uncle frogy
“How would you feel if a mosque were installed in town, and five times a day a muezzin made an extremely amplified call to Muslim prayers? We have something similar, only it’s more like 60 times a day.”
Sounds like a mosque is a better deal.
I warn those christians NEVER to come to Germany. Even though we don’t have a real seperation of church and state, church bells are regulated by the government to ensure that people get some sleep.
Aaaargh, no more pagan, expresedly forbidden Christmas treeeeeees!! We’ll now have to worship nature with mere holiday trees….
Christians are fucking ridiculous…
About the “holiday tree” winning out over the bazaar of competing religious symbols: if it’s your religion’s tradition that becomes the default symbol of “holidays”, you won!
(Notwithstanding the fact that christmas trees aren’t really christian in origin.)
Culture, language, beliefs – all of these need protection from dark forces who want to do away with them.
That’s MY culture, language and beliefs, of course – everyone else can go and screw themselves.
My standard reply to the question why I celebrate christmas is “Just because the christians stole it doesn’t mean they can keep it”.
Also, what about a big, fat, all night long party in their neighbourhood where the majority of people is invited? Every Saturday. Why should the partying majority heed the desires of the sleep liking minority?
Xmas trees are explicitly forbidden in the bible.
Having that noise go on all day sounds perfectly horrid. We live in a New England city, which means that when you walk down Main Street there’s several churches to the block, and the noisiest of them does bells on the hour (during the day. Don’t know about night; we’re far enough away not to hear them most of the time). Heck, there’s a small church two houses down, and they don’t feel compelled to make a constant racket.
I think in general I hold with Miss Manners’ dictum on this sort of introduced sound: The non-obtrusive preference holds over the obtrusive one, that is, silence over noise. Of course there are exceptions, but it seems like a good place to start. And it’s not as if I’m anti-noise; our house is close enough to the town’s firework displays that it shakes, and our older son was less than a week old for his first Fourth. He was sleeping on the couch doing the startle reflex every minute or so.
Well … at least he acknowledges that Christians are a majority in the US.
No more playing the “poor persecuted Christian minority” card, all you US Christians.
Also … I am verrrrry interested what this letter-writer would have said about the ANC wanting an end to apartheid back in the 80s, early 90s when the (white, Christian) minority still called all the shots in South Africa.
Really??
Also, what Giliell said. I like my pagan symbols in midwinter, thank you.
There are so few of them but they are so powerful!
It’s like they deliberately ignore that there are allies and social principles that led to these decisions, or something.
They are also an abomination unto Nuggan, along with garlic, MUSHROOMS!, chocolate, shirts with six buttons, cats, and the colour blue, though strangely, not peas.
A few years ago, the crissuns were livid over Walmart using Xmas in their business model, so Walmart changed their greeters’ message to ‘Happy Holidays’. This initiated the so-called ‘war on christmas’. Some people are NEVER happy.
Put the X back in Xmas!
“good. good, PZ. You have taught the power of clicking-for-controversy-for-dollars-and-profit to your local weekly. Good. Feel the rage. Let it flow. Next, you must submit a letter to the editor regarding funding science programs by cutting Minnesota football programs. Be one with the hate, young rage blogger”
I love all the hand-wringing about ‘Xmas’ not being sufficiently Christ-ey. The ‘X’ is Chi, the first letter of the Greek spelling of, yep, you guessed it, ‘Christ,’ and the abbreviation goes back centuries. It’s early, but perfectly pious, txtspk.
So what? Folks like this asshole say “thug” instead of “n*****”; we still know the latter is what they mean.
The War on Christmas has been quiet this year, hasn’t it? Guess people have been too busy Black November shopping and listening to nonstop holiday music to throw the requisite number of red-and-green ornamental grenades.
I suppose it is useless to try to teach that “Christian” the whole reason the Constitution was so quickly amended with those Rights. Try reading the Federalist Papers. Rights were added to protect Minorities from MobRule, i.e. when any law could be enacted by a majority vote. So, sir, the Constitution itself is “bowing to the minority”. I guess your Hallowed Constitution ain’t good enough, eh, you want unbridled mob rule, and damn with all them minoritees, eh? Good Luck with that, mumble mumble coughassholecough cough.
Weren’t these chimes put up by one guy, unilaterally?
Monty Python: because somebody had to.
Bells
Naked Bunny with a Whip@22,
Good point! Damn minority infringing on the rights of the majority.
First the minorities came for our chimes and we said nothing!!!!!!
rq@13:
From the Skeptic’s annotated bible.
@25 I need to revise my old rendition of this poem for this war on chimes/Christmas:
First they came to stop me from leading prayer in school,
and I didn’t stop believing in god.
Then they came to take away my nativity scene from the capital,
and I didn’t stop believing in god.
Then they came to say “Happy Holidays!”,
and I didn’t stop believing in god.
Then they came to turn off my chimes,
and I didn’t stop believing in god.
Then they came to give me a hug,
and there was no god to harden my heart.
Also, the last time I checked, the “Christian Majority” can barely agree on anything beyond the words “God” and “Jesus”. I’d love to see the fundamentalist reaction to the watered down prayer 51% of Americans could agree upon. I think secularists/atheists should pull a 180 and start supporting school prayer and join with the fundamentalists in that it should include stoning unruly children. Something like the below:
Our Father, the God of the Holy Bible (KJV 1769 Edition), which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name, up to, and including, Jehovah, Jesus, God, but definitely not Allah.
Thy Kingdom come to the USA, God’s one true country.
Thy will be done in earth, which can never be polluted by mere human activity
As it is in heaven, where Mormons definitely aren’t going.
Give us this day our daily bread and Dominos Pizza and Chick-fil-a,
And forgive us our trespasses against other true Christians,
As we forgive them that trespass against us after they convert to Christianity.
And lead us not into temptation, except when it will help the economy,
But deliver us from evil jihadists, secular humanists, atheists and satanists.
For thine is the kingdom, proudly born on our soldiers carrying the flag,
The power, and the glory, to stone unruly children,
For ever and ever, because the USA will never die.
Amen.
“Most importantly, since he believes so strongly in promoting the desires of the majority over the minority, what will he do in 2043, when white people are predicted to become a minority in the US by the census bureau?”
–>If that idiot letter writer had his way, the borders would be closed to the arrival of new brown people, the non-native brown people currently here would be tossed out, and the native-born brown people would be given the choice of fleeing or being summarily executed. And thus white people would never become the minority.
Ugh. These people are awful.
Donnie @17
“Shut the fuck up, Donnie.”
I say shut down the chimes and sell CDs of them for the people who will miss them, so that they may be played in their own homes, constantly. These should make a very tidy profit for the guy who put them up. Yes, he will just be raking in the dough, offtune-chimes-every-fifteen-minutes is such a good idea. Everyone happy!
Sastra wins, as so often.
@ people saying “the Bible forbids xmas trees”
Jeremiah is in the Old Testament. Keep in mind that xians believe the Old Testament doesn’t count (except where it supports their personal beliefs)
#29 throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble:
Dude, sit down, put on a robe, and drink a little to relax. ;)
and also, “Donnie’s dead, babe. Donnie’s dead” apologies to Zed.
Like you did before your hallucinogenic post and response?
@uncle frogy, #3:
Fundamentalist Christians really do believe everyone else is out to get them, and they are the only really good, worthwhile people. They want their kind of theocracy, because that’s the only government they will will properly honor their god. By “honor” we mean enforce patriarchy, and, seriously, sooner or later they’ll get around to stoning slightly disrespectful children, because that’s the authoritarian thing to do (also, the bible conveniently supports it).
If some obnoxious person were playing bass heavy dance music 24/7 next to their homes, those “defenders” of the cemetary bells would be the first to whine and complain to cops and the city about the noise.
As with their attempts to put religion in government, the hypo-christians are all for having their religion and music being forced onto other people, though the reverse does not apply.