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Tempest in a Teapot
Wow!
And here I was just thinking recently how nice it was that the OtR list had
somehow managed to get to the point where people could talk about religion
without getting into the ugly brawls we used to get into. Me, I don't want
less Jesus, I want more pagans! More Muslims! More Hindus! I would much,
much, much rather read twenty off-topic postings about things that people
*care* about than twenty postings about which boots Karin was wearing at the
concert last night. I'm sorry if discussing faith reminds people of dirty
underwear (my god, that was a funny image; I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything
when I read that post!), but *I* was raised in a family where issues of faith
were debated intensely, openly, and at length. So where I'm coming from, a
religious discussion is like taking that dirty underwear, rolling up your
sleeves, and scrubbing it zestfully in a huge bucket of sudsy water. Hopefully
at the end, you end up soaked, exhausted, and a little cleaner. :-) Okay, now
that I've stretched that metaphor way, way past the breaking point, I have to
say that even with this weekend's flare-up, I don't think the list is anywhere
*close* to as bad as it was in 1996; those religious arguments *still* make me
shudder. That's why Shelly put those clauses in the subscription notice in the
first place. Although I suspect that since Jeremy stepped down (gosh, wasn't
that in like 97 or something?), probably no one has updated that file. :-)
I wish I had the answer...
--
Don Smith Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/
"Am I gentrifying my inner neighborhood?" - Dar Williams
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