Hi! After going through about 5 digests and over 20 posts on Christianity I'd like to pipe in on the subject myself if I may: It's something I've thought a great deal about this past year because I've met both fiercely religious and anti-religious people at my school. And, we just moved into a house at the end of a parking lot in between two churches (one's Catholic and one would be under the heading "Other". It's a nice place because we can blast loud music all week and no one can hear us; but on Sunday morning we have little kids running around our yard and car alarms going off. We play Black Sabbath on those mornings :-) I'm personally very non-religious (yes, as opposed to anti-religious), but I really dislike it when some Christians feel the need to make everyone around them embrace the same set of beliefs as themselves. An example: When I was in 7th grade I lived in Cottonwood, Arizona, a plethora of bible-thumping stereotypes (the town had no decent bookstores but about 3 Christian ones, and even though the town had a modest population it boasted over 10 churches). Halfway through the school year a new girl appeared in my friends & I's classes so we became friendly with her to make her feel at home. By about a week later she had asked each of us individually if we wanted to go to church with her sometime, each of us declined. When she asked me I gave her some excuse about how I was half-Jewish and I didn't know if my mom would be thrilled with the idea of me going to church (actually she wouldn't mind in the least, but I had to say something not to offend). Upon hearing I was half-Jewish the girl quickly disengaged in in conversation with me and never spoke to me again. Now is this anyway for a person to act? I wasn't terribly hurt that she didn't talk to me anymore because she was a bit of a bland person anyway, but geez. And then there was that story awhile back where this girl said a prayer over the PA system before a high school football game and couldn't see why this was frowned upon. Sure, if you want to pray with your friends or something beforehand knock yourself out, but over the fucking PA system?? It's called separation if church and state, and it's something I'm very grateful for. Another example: My Biology teacher skipped teaching Evolution last year. Just skipped it! Sure, she discussed it for about 5 minutes one day in passing, but we never were accountable for the information, never had a test on it. Ok, teacher, if this you don't agree with this particular subject that's fine, but to keep 150 kids ignorant of it entirely is unacceptable. Another question: Why is it that when someone refers to God in the pronoun form they always capitalize He? Is it me, or is this improper English? A good example is in, fittingly, A Catcher In The Rye, where, even though Holden says he's an atheist, he goes about capitalizing He. I understand if you're religious you'd want to capitalize your creator even in pronoun form but if you "don't believe", then why He? Wow! This is certainly the longest post I've written and I've even managed to stay on topic! I'll leave you with a joke: "What do you get when you cross an insomniac, a dyslexic, and an agnostic?" "A person sitting awake all night wondering if there is a Dog." Cheers and Happy Christmas in July for all you Dick Powell fans, Rachel W. :-) Belated B+S content: "It took God six days to make the world and Belle and Sebastian five to record Tigermilk. And yes, Tigermilk is better."-George Shiel +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+