Comments on: What Americans Read

By: programmer craig

programmer craig — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:30:56 +0000

Also, I don't have any Christian friends. Not one.

That probably explains why you have more in common with your Arab atheist friends than your Christian friends. Since you don't have any Christian friends :p

By: moataz

moataz — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:32:55 +0000

I don't see the big deal about all of this

By: Shafiq

Shafiq — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:24:00 +0000

yawn

By: lol

lol — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:15:40 +0000

Nazi Will says: all media even slightly offensive to Muslims must be removed and destroyed. All hail Allah! You Will submit!

By: JillianKF

JillianKF — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:42:34 +0000

Just for you, Craig, I sat down and took stock of the things I have in common with those friends, and oh shit, I'm still right.

Also, I don't have any Christian friends. Not one.

By: The Stabbing Pen

The Stabbing Pen — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:31:24 +0000

Whoops, tried to comment before, not sure what happened. Thanks for posting this, I share your sentiments.

Here's a working link to my related blog post::
http://thestabbingpen.com/2009/07/02/72-national-…

By: 7/2 - "National Examiner too irresponsible for even a rag" | The Stabbing Pen

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:21:34 +0000

[...] I did some Googling later in the day and found this — See the cover for yourself. [...]

By: programmer craig

programmer craig — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:08:28 +0000

Shafiq, I can't explain it any better than I already did. Will has a track record on this blog. And that track record includes behavior that is much worse than what he is complaining about in this post. If you want to act like you don't know anything about Will's past behavior and just take his comments at face value, that's up to you. I choose not to.

By: programmer craig

programmer craig — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:04:33 +0000

I don't deny, Craig, that a way a person grows up influences their values. What I take serious issue with is the weight you are placing on religion as a factor.

Only to the extent that religion influences culture, Jillian. I already stipulated than an Arab Christian who grew up in the ME will have more in common with an Arab Muslim who grew up in the ME than with a Western Christian. That's because in the Arab world, it is Islam that has influenced culture. In the West, it is Christianity that influenced our culture.

And just because your parents made a conscious effort not to expose you to Christian beliefs, doesn't negate over a thousand years of Christian cultural influences. Even the whole counter-culture revolution of the hippies in the 1960s and 1970s failed to do that

By: JillianKF

JillianKF — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:56:41 +0000

"don't see a gap to bridge between myself and anyone, because it isn't there."

I didn't mean anyone, that was a mis-type.

Regardless, you're still wrong. You know nothing about my family, social background, neighborhood, or schooling, and have been basing the argument entirely on ethnicity and religion of birth. If you want to bring in those other factors as important, then we have a different story, and in fact, my family, social background, neighborhood, and schooling are still quite similar to that of the people I was using as an example!

I don't deny, Craig, that a way a person grows up influences their values. What I take serious issue with is the weight you are placing on religion as a factor. I come from people who have never set foot inside a place of worship and who intentionally avoided passing anything remotely Christian on to me. For you to say that counts for nothing is simply bullshit.