Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site osu-dbs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!cbosgd!osu-dbs!karl From: karl@osu-dbs.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Shoving one's beliefs down others' throats Message-ID: <615@osu-dbs.UUCP> Date: Tue, 12-Jun-84 12:11:36 EDT Article-I.D.: osu-dbs.615 Posted: Tue Jun 12 12:11:36 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 14-Jun-84 00:04:51 EDT Organization: Society for the Advancement of Raw Weirdness Lines: 60 ---------- >From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) >[commenting on Larry Bickford] > He didn't >bother to address that point, because he can't without telling most of you - >not only atheist but Jew, Muslim, and even most Christians - that he has a >holy mission to ram his beliefs down your (our) throats. ---------- I have heard this complaint many, many, many times. "All Christians (at least all those who evangelize a lot, particularly in a public place) are doing nothing more than expressing their desire to cram their own private, personal belief system down others' throats." Well, it's an interesting point, but I'd like to address it from another angle. This article will in all likelihood get me flamed from both sides of the argument, both from Dick Dunn and Rich Rosen, as well as my Christian friends. Let's see what happens. I cd'd to /usr/spool/news/net/religion here on osu-dbs, and I snooped around in its contents for a while, and I compiled some very interesting statistics. Here's the basics (headers have been included, even though they're not technic- ally part of the article): Total Articles 80 Total Lines 5580 Avg Lines/Article 69.75 Total Words 43824 Avg Words/Article 547.8 Total Bytes 276518 Avg Bytes/Article 3457 (My! We are a *verbose* bunch!) All statistics are current as of 12 Jun 1984 at around 10am. Osu-dbs uses standard 2-week expiration of articles. Now, there were 13 articles which were neither Christian nor non-Christian. For example, I excluded the discussion on hermaphrodites (7 articles), since they represent no clear discussion either way. The breakout of articles was otherwise like this: Non-Christian Christian Total Articles 35 32 Total Lines 2597 2517 Avg Lines/Article 74.5 78.6 Total Words 21182 19538 Avg Words/Article 605.5 610.5 Total Bytes 132423 122105 Avg Bytes/Article 3784 3816 All of these statistics are, of course, subject to change as arguments come and go. I think it's quite clear that neither group has a parti- cular monopoly on espousing their views on the net. The Christians have a (slight) tendency to add 4 more lines to their articles, occupying an additional 5 words and 30 bytes (sounds like signature lines to me), while the non-Christians have posted a few more articles. Big deal. So much for the "Christians flame their beliefs down others' throats" argu- ment; non-Christians do it just as much. -- Karl Kleinpaste @ Bell Labs, Columbus 614/860-5107 {cbosgd,ihnp4}!cbrma!kk