Please don’t call it privilege. They are/were the majority where this hotel seems to be located. I can assure you you won’t find a christian bible in a hotel in the UAE but you will find something else…
Please don’t call it privilege. They are/were the majority where this hotel seems to be located
in other words: they have privilege where this hotel seems to be located, along with millions of others, but admitting being Christian is a privilege makes me uncomfortable (because I am, or was one, and still enjoy said privilege), so please don’t say things as they are.
Whatever dude. I’m against the use of a victimising term in defence of atheism. We just don’t need that. We fight religion with reason and the scientific method, we don’t need to victimise anyone in the process. Also, my point was not that things must remain as they are. Is that some things are habits, are customary acts from the place/region you’re from. Some hotels will have a small bottle of milk in the fridge but not coffee, only tea, because their custom might be that they prefer english tea over coffee. Some places will have water instead of milk because they see cows as sacred. Só many examples that you’d find very peculiar if you travel around the world. So no, is not privilege. Most of this (before mentioned) hotel guests are from around the area and they generally pray with the Christian bible before they go to sleep. The hotel business is just catering to their customers. Want to make a big deal of it, fine but don’t make a fuss if you get some criticism back at ya.
I know you mean the Quran but in Islamic countries I’ve mostly only seen a little sticker in the hotel bed drawer pointing in the direction you should pray.
I didn’t know how to react to that one… My first instinct was to call you bad names but then I thought “have some sense of humor, would ya?”. Thanks!
Many years ago, a Christian friend of mine sent an email to his entire Sunday School class saying, “… As Christians we need to be more discerning.” This was in response to another email that had been sent to the class about the evils of Harry Potter, and it used an Onion article for its source material.
As people who claim to be more discerning than people of faith, we really need to be more discerning…
Bibles in hotel rooms are not an example of Christian privilege, but an example of a private non-profit, spending their own money to place Bibles in hotel rooms. If it were not for this private non-profit they would not be there.
The privilege is not that they are provided. It’s that they are allowed by otherwise impartial hotels to be there, no questions asked. Can I leave millions of copies of The Quran? Of Ulysses? Of Industrial Society and Its Future?
Have you tried? Until an org starts trying to place the Quran, and is told they can’t, there is no privilege involved. Once that happens, I’ll buy your argument, until then, nope.
Well, you’ll be glad to learn that hotels in Muslim countries often do keep copies of the Quran.
I haven’t tried to place copies of the Unabomber’s manifesto in hotel drawers, but then again I haven’t tried to get a small loan of $1,000,000 or the deed to an emerald mine from my parents because, as it turns out, you don’t actually need to experience literally everything that you hold an opinion on. I don’t like rape either, lads, and I’m not giving it a try.
A hotel with back bone would not let a private non-profit mess about in their hotel room and put their things there. Regardless of if it was religious propaganda or pamphlets about immigration.
Why not? They are offering a free “service” to their customers. Hell Mariott pays out of their own pocket (I think) to have Book of Mormon in addition to the Bible.
If a private non profit were there to put Qurans in Hotel rooms, how many American hotels do you think would take them up on the offer outside Dearborn, MI?
I have no idea because as far as I know, no one has tried. When the attempt is made and if it fails, I’ll buy into the privilege argument.
Do a thought experiment, and factor in the rejection of building a Muslim cultural center near where the world trade center buildings once stood, versus a christian center.
I usually vandalize them in way way or another. The book that is.
If you do this, make sure it’s deep in the middle somewhere and not easily seen via flipping through. Hotel bibles are provided by Gideons, and if you deface/destroy/remove/throw out/etc one, it’ll just be replaced with zero fuss and no effort. The more people doing this, the more they replace, the more they print, etc etc.
It’s always a great feeling taking it and wanting to wipe your arse with it, but 10 mins after you vacate the room another copy will be there waiting for the next person regardless of what you’ve done.
I carry a stash of these for the bibles: https://shop.ffrf.org/product/24-stickers-bible-warning-bundle/
And like you, I just toss the book of mormon into a trash can in a common area (not in my room) in the hopes that it won’t be missed and replaced.
Aside: my phone auto corrected both book titles with caps. I manually decapped them.
It’s very dependent on the region. Where I live hotels either have nothing or both Christian bible and The Book of Mormon (with huge majority having nothing - just two chains having anything). IMO this is not an example of Christian privilege.