Posted on 02/23/2005 8:53:40 AM PST by dukeman
Picture yourself in a restaurant. At some point during the meal service a waiter or waitress sets on the table a small card containing a brief Psalm excerpt. How do you react? Look what happened over on DU.......
mondo joe (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-18-05 11:26 AM
Original message
Alaska Airlines now giving out prayers with dinner
My partner flew to and from Chicago yesterday.
With his dinner he received a little card with the Alaska Airline logo, a landscape and the following:
Give thanks to the Lord,
for He is good;
His love endures forever.
Psalm 107:1
I'm so disgusted I'm beside myself.
flamingyouth (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-18-05 11:28 AM
Response to Original message
2. They always have
Susan Paynter has written about it in her P-I column. I'm a frequent flyer on Alaska so I've seen them for years. I usually just turn it upside down.
PROGRESSIVE1 (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-18-05 12:27 PM
Response to Reply #2
21. Then I'll never fly that airline.
John BigBootay (505 posts) Fri Feb-18-05 03:25 PM
Response to Reply #21
40. Why is it that I, as an agnostic--
can be a happy frequent flyer with Alaska in spite of the fact that I have received dozens of these little messages, and some folks such as you are COMPLETELY put off by it?
The human mind is a strange and complicated organ...
fudge stripe cookays (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-18-05 11:28 AM
Response to Original message
Oh for God's sake.
I thought they were blue! What a way to alienate your major customer base. ?????
They need some serious complaint letters clogging their mailboxes.
Toots (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-18-05 11:39 AM
Response to Original message
11. "Oh for God's sake"
Being "Blue" does not mean anti-God. There is nothing at all wrong with what they are doing. It isn't forced at all and for some it is very comforting. There are more people in america that believe in God than there are ones that do not. If the Government did this there would be room for complaint. Flying this day and time is very stressful for most. A prayer can be very welcome by some.
wtmusic (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-18-05 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. Assuming their passengers are Christian
might offend some. It would offend me. I don't look forward to being preached to on a damn airline flight.
regnaD kciN (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-19-05 02:23 AM
Response to Reply #12
109. YOU are assuming the "prayers" are Christian...
First of all, they're not prayers, they're Bible quotations. Second, they pick phrases that are generically theistic, not pushing a specific faith. (In other words, they speak of "God" the creator in general, not of Jesus or any Christian religious doctrine.) And they certainly don't "preach," if that means urge anyone to accept a specific dogma about sin, salvation, judgement, redemption, etc., etc.
In fact, I can't see the quotations Alaska provides as being offensive even to a die-hard deist. It reminds me of the way the Bible was used by deists such as the Founding Fathers (who, despite what the religious right would claim, were anything but fundamentailsts wanting to create a "Christian nation").
I think some people are just a little too sensitive on this subject.
forgethell (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-19-05 10:26 AM,br> Response to Reply #12
124. How is it
being preached to?? It's printed. Discard it.
manic expression (446 posts) Fri Feb-18-05 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #11
14. For God's sake, indeed....
Being respectful of people's beliefs means that you don't blatantly cater to one religion and generalize everyone on your flights. That is what they are doing and it is a form of perverse discrimination. I'm glad you support that.
I could not care LESS if someone wants a Christian prayer to make their flight "less stressful". They could bring a Bible with them on the flight and not expect someone else to shove Christian dogma down everyone's throats.
This is patently disgusting.
Jack_DeLeon (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-18-05 04:31 PM
Response to Reply #14
55. For God's sake, why dont you fly a different airline...
if you dont like it.
The airline is privately owned I assume, they unlike government can pander to whatever religion they want. People who like that will use that airline, people who dont, wont. Let the market decide this.
manic expression (446 posts) Fri Feb-18-05 06:44 PM
Response to Reply #55
77. There is a lot to be said of respect
How about an airline which is one of the only options available to you starts handing out "Mein Kampf"? Would you like it if they had Muslim or Buddhist or any other religion's doctrine handed out to people? Private providers should have the decency NOT to do such a base act (you, however, have no such decency). This is especially true because there may be little choice given to an individual.
The people who take the flights have no idea which religion a certain airline caters to, and so it is unrealistic to think that people will decide not to use the airline. The market CAN'T decide this because while it is completely offensive, patronizing and wrong, it will have no effect in the patronage of the company (don't deny this hypothetically, because that is the way it is).
The government should do something about this and put a stop to it. If it does not, it is pandering to a religion through omission.
Maybe if you were a little less arrogant and disrespectful you might see things a bit more clearly...oh well.
How powerful a little prayer card is, eh?
Disgusted by prayer?
I've been disgusted by a lot of things, but prayer will never be one of them.
Everytime I read something like this I think "Is this all they have to talk about?" I'm an agnostic, but to compare a Psalm to Mein Kampf is freaking ridiculous. (If someone gave me such a card I'd read it and put it aside--are these DUmmies so damned frail that a few words freaks them out?)
I had fun with a DU'er who lives down the street from me. I was walking my Greyhound when she came up to me in a snotty voice complaining about W's victory. I just said, "See you in bible study, it is now mandatory don't you know."
It has been known since Early Middle Ages that prayer and/or holy objects make the devil uncomfortable. But why didn't it occur to anyone there that one could have politely requested that the card (or whatever else) be removed from their table/food tray, since they had neither requested nor wanted it?
Would you like to recieve unsolicted Koran quotes with dinner? I wouldn't
Kinda makes you feel sorry for some of those people. They sound very uptight and bitter. I suppose they blame Bush.
Exits are conveniently located on both sides of the fuselage.
our country wasn't founded on the koran, it was founded by christians, also, christians didn't blow up 2 large buildings in new york a few years ago. wake up.
You can tell how fragile their belief system is by how threatened they are by this.
Someone who has deep rooted integrity and a strong conviction to what they believe in doesn't react this way to something outside their ideals. Even if it was an atheist.. if an atheist was strong in his personal beliefs and convictions, he would just politely take the card, realizing that most people on the flight were Christian and may appreciate it, ignore it and go about his business unfazed. That is not the case here, these are just really hateful, reactionary individuals. I pity their simplistic and primitive worldview.
This threat speaks volumes about how bitter and insecure they are.
Bones
"I'm so disgusted I'm beside myself"
I sit down to get my regular fix of Freerepublic, and someone sticks content from DU on my monitor. The government needs to do something to prevent this. (end sarcasm)
should read: this "thread" speaks volumes....
(not "threat"...spelling error, need more coffee)
So I take it you don't want the Koran quotes with dinner?
You can give me any piece of written information you want and it won't bother me.
Now bad fashion, THAT bothers me!
Wasn't this a DUFU a while back?
---------------------------------
mondo joe (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-18-05 11:26 AM
Original message
Alaska Airlines now giving out prayers with dinner
My [domestic] partner flew to and from Chicago yesterday.
With his dinner he received a little card with the Alaska Airline logo, a landscape and the following:
---------------------------------
I hope that clarifies things.
Quite frankly, if the same article were posted on FR, we'd see similar comments and similar points of view represented.
Now, if you search on DU about some of the "Reagan has died" threads... Now, those would curl your hair!
Speaking as a Catholic, when the Mormons come to Evangelize me at my front door, I am not offended. It takes a lot of guts to care about your Faith (whatever it is) enough to be free to express it. I congratulated a Mormon friend of mine for the Missionary time he did in Birmingham, Alabama. Heroism and devotion should be rewarded with kind remarks. If someone cared enough about the Koran to leave me material, I would not have a problem. I probably would just throw it away. But I would respect why they did it.
even before i found my faith something like this wouldnt have bothered me.. some people are just _intolerant_
intolerance on DU? no way!!! lol.
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