Irreligious Discrimination: The Only Kind Still Acceptable Today
So I have a conservative, very religious uncle who forwards me emails about every 3 to 4 weeks that are disturbing (I have yet to agree with a single one). Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I email back. This time I figured I’d post it here:
FLORIDA COURT SETS ATHEIST HOLY DAY
In Florida, an Atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.
The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, “Case dismissed!”
The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, “Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays.”
The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, “But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant.” The lawyer said, “Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists.”
The judge said, “The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 states, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.’ Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned.”
You gotta love a Judge that knows his scripture!
So, I debated emailing my uncle to let him know that he just called me a fool. But that just didn’t seem appropriate considering he meant this in jest. I’m sure he’d apologize as he really is a nice guy. But I’m just kind of confused as to how I should respond to discrimination like this.
Let’s think about it for a second… If I were to send an email to a bunch of Mormons calling them “morons”, I’m guessing they would be upset and probably want an apology. Yet, I’ve just been called a fool for what I believe is a very rational “lack of belief” in a god. Why do I feel like I shouldn’t demand an apology but would be willing to give one if I had called a Mormon a moron?
Instead of demanding an apology, why not just tell your side of things and let him decide what to do. Something like “I’m a little hurt by that ‘Atheist Holy Day’ email which implied that I am a fool because I’m an atheist. I realize that you probably meant it as a joke, and I’m trying to have a sense of humor about it. I hope you don’t really think I’m a fool. You’re a great uncle, and a really nice guy, so I thought it out of character to receive this email from you. BTW, have you heard the one about the ward party at the beach?”
(BTW, good to have MSP back. It’s telling me that I must be logged in to comment. I’m just lucky to have an account.)
Yes, we’ve changed servers. I guess the new configuration requires login to comment.
Well, I mention it because there’s no obvious way to get an account, and there’s no mention of this policy near the comment form.
Assuming that someone has access to change the settings (and that this isn’t a desired comment policy): Settings > Discussion: Uncheck “Users must be registered and logged in to comment”.
Odd. “users must be registered and logged in to comment” is unchecked. I wonder if it’s this option that is making that happen “Comment author must have a previously approved comment”.
lol, I unchecked it myself as soon as I read Jonathan’s comment. Sorry for the confusion. 😉
Yeah, I’m with Jonathan’s first comment…because I know people who send me stuff like that all the time, and it seems to me that it’s just not worth it making demands when these guys really probably haven’t thought about the personal implications of what email they are usually just forwarding at a whim.
I haven’t emailed him back, but I’m leaning toward the suggestions Andrew and Jonathan made if I do. Thanks for feedback!