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