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Re: The Bible Belt



AThos, Re:

> 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."
> [...]
> 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.

Religious intolerance doesn't necessarily imply violence, so one place can be
more religiously intolerant than the other while by the same time being a less
violent one.  But I don't want to ride my own statement to death.  I admit that
I don't know the Southern States from my own experience, and that I might
easily mistaken in my impression.  If my statement hurt you, then please accept
my apologies.

I was just desperately looking for a reason why Mark was attacking his `Xtians'
so vehemently.  Living in the Bible Belt sounded like a good one :-).

> 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.

As I already mentioned in my last posting, I don't regard the Ulster conflict
as a religious one.  Essentially, the issue is national politics - people whose
loyalty is with Britain fight against people whose loyalty is with Ireland.
For historical reasons, both groups also represent different Christian
denominations, which makes the conflict even worse.  I admit that it is
sometimes hard to tell its nationalist aspect from its religious one.  The
reason is that both groups simply hate each other... :-(

> You don't see Turkish Muslims getting the crap beat out of them by skinheads
> like you tend to see in places like Germany.

Again, this has in the first place nothing to do with religion.  The skinheads'
driving forces are racism and xenophobia.  The religious difference is only
some further `reason'... :-(

> You don't see Muslims and Christians trying to commit genocide on each other
> like you do in the former Yugoslavia.

Hm, you might be right here.  Though they sometimes pretend to be different
nations, their difference is indeed only religion.  I think I will never really
understand this war... :-(

> Me?  I'm probably what you'd call a lapsed Episcopalian.
> [...]
> And I think there are a lot more people like me in the "Bible Belt" than you
> seem to believe.

Hm, interesting how many positive responses my discussion with Mark evoked.  I
had already feared that we would be flamed for our completely off-topic
quarrel :-).

And of course I didn't assume that the majority of `Bible Belters' were
narrow-minded in their religious beliefs.

Cheers,

Bernd