The Bible Belt

ernd, re:

>maybe living in the Bible Belt - certainly one of the worst places of
religious
intolerance in the western hemisphere - has somehow influenced your point of
view towards religion in general and Christian believes in particular.<

Sorry, but as a Tarheel born, a Tarheel bred, and when I die a Tarheel dead
(that's the nickname for North Carolinians, for our international listers) I
must take exception with your characterization of the "Bible Belt."  I'll
admit that we've got perhaps more than our share of overenthusiastic
Jeezo-freaks, but we're not killing each other over it.  I'll admit that the
recent church-burning thing doesn't look so great, but in almost all of the
cases they've solved so far it had little or nothing to do with race or
religion--in most cases it's been petty vandalism.  But you don't see
Protestants and Catholics (or maybe, more appropriately, Baptists and
Methodists) throwing rocks at each other or beating the crap out of each
other as tends to happen in places like Northern Ireland and Ireland.  You
don't see Turkish Muslims getting the crap beat out of them by skinheads like
you tend to see in places like Germany.  You don't see Muslims and Christians
trying to commit genocide on each other like you do in the former Yugoslavia.
 You DO tend to get more street preachers and door-to-door Baptists, more
places that won't sell you a beer on Sunday, more televangalists who sucker
poor people out of their money, etc etc, but you ALSO (at least in the past
20-30 years) tend to get more people who will tell you that you're going to
hell in a POLITE fashion and then go about their business.  We may have a lot
of people with very strong (and narrow-minded) beliefs that they are more
than willing to LOUDLY proclaim, but they rarely get violent over it.  So I
hardly think you can call the South one of the worst places of religious
intolerance in the western hemisphere.  Our history may not be great, but
whose is?

Me?  I'm probably what you'd call a lapsed Episcopalian.  I was raised in the
church, but don't go now.  Why not?  I don't know.  I'm not entirely sure I
believe in the whole Jesus thing, although I certainly do believe in some
sort of supreme being.  I try to live by the golden rule, and I figure if
there is a God (or whatever) then being kind to others, being generous with
your time and money, and being true to yourself and your beliefs has got to
be good enough in his/her/its eyes. So I'm always kind to people (like
Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Muslims) who come to my door wanting to
spread their message.  I respect their beliefs.  I may not agree with them,
but I respect their belief.  And I think there are a lot more people like me
in the "Bible Belt" than you seem to believe.  IF you come over for the MSG
shows, you ought to come down to Dixie and check it out yourself.

AThosWhite