Religious Propaganda

[Andronicus]

...Many of you who don't live in the central US may not know about Westboro Baptist Church. This is the hate group that loudly protests people's funerals, especially American soldier's funerals. They scream at the family during the graveside service and carry signs that say that the soldier died because there are gay people in America. Oh, let's don't forget the signs about "Jews killed Jesus" and the ones about Catholic Priests and little boys. Talk about inappropriate!

 

These people have turned off more people to Christianity that you would believe, myself included. I recognize that the majority of Christians are not like this, but I'm not taking any chances on being connected to that. I commune with my maker in my own very private way.

 

The extremes of the religion are the ones most likely to spend the money to put out the spiritual version of spam otherwise known as religious tracts. I don't like spam, and I despise hateful religious materials. This is why I remove any tracts from caches and throw them away, without even reading them.

 

We hear of them up here in Canada too. They actualy tried to come up here to protest something, and they were turned back at the border.

[Andronicus]

Google the Triquetra.

It has both Christian and pagan connotations.

The Pentacle has a similar history, finding favor with early Christians.

 

The tracts speak out against wicked ways

For clarification, most tracts I've read speak out against what one particular author perceives to be wicked.

Just because a moldy scrap of poorly written paper claims some act is a sin, doesn't make it so.

I hold to the philosophy that the only true sin is unnecessarily harming another soul.

Everything else is invented nonsense.

 

Does that mean I'm going to Hell?

 

I sure hope not. Rumor has it all they got down there are Magellans...

 

Well, acording to Jesus, you would be very close to correct. He said to Love God, and love you neighbour. (Not the Catholic prist and little boys kind of love though). So I would agree with you.

 

Only Magellans...That does sound bad. Better repent!

[+wimseyguy]

... That little girl asked to go home, and cried all the way there. I talked to her mom and explained what happened, and how sad I was that that happened, but she will never go geocaching again...

Oh now wait a minute... talk about extremism!

 

If she finds such a tract that someone left on a table in the service waiting room of a car dealer will she never again buy a car?

I hope she'll at least wait 9-10 years before doing so. She's only 9.

[+flask]

... That little girl asked to go home, and cried all the way there. I talked to her mom and explained what happened, and how sad I was that that happened, but she will never go geocaching again...

 

If she finds such a tract that someone left on a table in the service waiting room of a car dealer will she never again buy a car?

 

kids of gay parents have a hard time in this world; they are subject to hearing and seeing a lot of hateful things about the people they love and respect most: their parents.

 

nine is about the age where they are less insulated by the family and start to be painfully aware that they're different.

 

so. you take one of these kids on what's supposed to be a nice fun outing and she gets to read that her parents are going to hell?

 

here's a little experiment: go up to any randomly selected nine-year-old and tell them that their parents are sick, evil twisted sinners and certainly headed for hell and see how that goes over.

 

outside of that, thick skin or not, all the hate really gets to you. last spring i was waiting at my mechanic's for my car to be done and some (family-friendly) (family-friendly) was opining very loudly that a kid with a gay parent is better off in the foster care system, or even dead.

 

i wanted to throttle him.

 

i would not expect a nine-year old to do much better, and i certainly understand why she may not have enjoyed her caching experience and not want to place herself again in the path of unnecessary exposure.

[+Renegade Knight]

Google the Triquetra.

It has both Christian and pagan connotations.

The Pentacle has a similar history, finding favor with early Christians.

 

The tracts speak out against wicked ways

For clarification, most tracts I've read speak out against what one particular author perceives to be wicked.

Just because a moldy scrap of poorly written paper claims some act is a sin, doesn't make it so.

I hold to the philosophy that the only true sin is unnecessarily harming another soul.Everything else is invented nonsense....

 

I highlighted the tract language that you used. To be perfectly blunt if folks honored "Love they neighbor" (which is essentailly the practice of your philosopy) the world we be a far better place. This can be done by anyone, even the ones who don't like tracts in caches (cheap caching tie in).

Edited November 3, 2009 by Renegade Knight

[+CanUK_TeamFitz]

... That little girl asked to go home, and cried all the way there. I talked to her mom and explained what happened, and how sad I was that that happened, but she will never go geocaching again...

 

If she finds such a tract that someone left on a table in the service waiting room of a car dealer will she never again buy a car?

 

kids of gay parents have a hard time in this world; they are subject to hearing and seeing a lot of hateful things about the people they love and respect most: their parents.

 

nine is about the age where they are less insulated by the family and start to be painfully aware that they're different.

 

so. you take one of these kids on what's supposed to be a nice fun outing and she gets to read that her parents are going to hell?

 

here's a little experiment: go up to any randomly selected nine-year-old and tell them that their parents are sick, evil twisted sinners and certainly headed for hell and see how that goes over.

 

outside of that, thick skin or not, all the hate really gets to you. last spring i was waiting at my mechanic's for my car to be done and some (family-friendly) (family-friendly) was opining very loudly that a kid with a gay parent is better off in the foster care system, or even dead.

 

i wanted to throttle him.

 

i would not expect a nine-year old to do much better, and i certainly understand why she may not have enjoyed her caching experience and not want to place herself again in the path of unnecessary exposure.

 

I beg to differ.. it's nothing to do with gay or straight parents... it's to do with human nature and kids are... well... basically mean full-stop.

 

A child from a low income single parent family is just as likely to get picked on as a child from a gay family. Just like a child with large parents, or a child with a parent who has disabilities.

 

It's the pecking order, and speaking as someone who went to school in the UK, it's the religious kids who are labelled weird and picked on by the 'normal' kids.

 

What a good parent needs to do is to be realistic with their child that people fear what they don't understand, and they look for people to single out to deflect attention from themselves. A parent needs to explain that bad things happen to good people.

 

It's good to expose kids to other people's viewpoints and then discuss with them what they think about it and how they should respond. Sheesh.

[+PorscheSpyder]

Ironically enough, it was through my church that I found out about Geocaching. My friend was part of the church's youth group, and he got into it and then took me along for the ride. Now, most of my youth class has at least shown an interest in it, though only 3-4 people are actually geocachers. We have even considered taking the whole youth class out on a "caching outing" sometime. I personally have no problem finding "religiously associated" swag in caches. I do, however, prefer not to place anything of the sort myself.

Edited November 3, 2009 by PorscheSpyder

[+Okiebryan]

Just a reminder that his thread is not about religious artifacts left as swag. Those are neat, and I don't think anyone has any issue with that here.

[+flask]

... That little girl asked to go home, and cried all the way there. I talked to her mom and explained what happened, and how sad I was that that happened, but she will never go geocaching again...

 

If she finds such a tract that someone left on a table in the service waiting room of a car dealer will she never again buy a car?

 

kids of gay parents have a hard time in this world; they are subject to hearing and seeing a lot of hateful things about the people they love and respect most: their parents.

 

nine is about the age where they are less insulated by the family and start to be painfully aware that they're different.

 

so. you take one of these kids on what's supposed to be a nice fun outing and she gets to read that her parents are going to hell?

 

here's a little experiment: go up to any randomly selected nine-year-old and tell them that their parents are sick, evil twisted sinners and certainly headed for hell and see how that goes over.

 

outside of that, thick skin or not, all the hate really gets to you. last spring i was waiting at my mechanic's for my car to be done and some (family-friendly) (family-friendly) was opining very loudly that a kid with a gay parent is better off in the foster care system, or even dead.

 

i wanted to throttle him.

 

i would not expect a nine-year old to do much better, and i certainly understand why she may not have enjoyed her caching experience and not want to place herself again in the path of unnecessary exposure.

 

I beg to differ.. it's nothing to do with gay or straight parents... it's to do with human nature and kids are... well... basically mean full-stop.

 

A child from a low income single parent family is just as likely to get picked on as a child from a gay family. Just like a child with large parents, or a child with a parent who has disabilities.

 

It's the pecking order, and speaking as someone who went to school in the UK, it's the religious kids who are labelled weird and picked on by the 'normal' kids.

 

What a good parent needs to do is to be realistic with their child that people fear what they don't understand, and they look for people to single out to deflect attention from themselves. A parent needs to explain that bad things happen to good people.

 

It's good to expose kids to other people's viewpoints and then discuss with them what they think about it and how they should respond. Sheesh.

 

actually, children of gay parents are subject to more than the usual stuff kids get.

 

children of poor parents are not told that they'd be better off in foster care or dead.

 

children of parents with disabilities are not told that their family is fit only for hell.

 

how about children of poor single lesbian mothers? that's a hard life.

 

children know other people's viewpoints about gay people; children of gay parents are ostracized, taunted, and even beaten up. epithets painted on their homes, anonymous threatening phone calls and letters arrive,windows are smashed with baseball bats, and in some communities the police response is that gays and their children deserve no better.

 

it isn't about kids teasing each other, which is cruel but normal.

 

adults feel they have a perfect right to leave virulent anti-gay tracts in caches. many people find it entirely acceptable to preach hellfire to the children of gay people which goes far beyond normal teasing.

 

let's try this "it's good to expose children to other people's viewpoints".

 

how about taking your kids to a neo-nazi rally?

a white power march?

 

you can beg to differ all you want, but your response is naive and makes me suspect that the gay people you know aren't all that comfortable around you.

[+Rustynails]

I remove the religious tracts from my caches along with all the other paper swag because it degrades very quickly, either because of the elements or from being jostled around inside the cache by other things (like golfballs)

 

I used to get upset over stuff but not anymore

 

The world is an offensive and inappropriate place most of the time, if you let it get to you too much, you might as well just stay in bed.

 

I do the same. I also log for the CO I removed an offensive item from the cache.

[+TrailGators]

... That little girl asked to go home, and cried all the way there. I talked to her mom and explained what happened, and how sad I was that that happened, but she will never go geocaching again...

 

If she finds such a tract that someone left on a table in the service waiting room of a car dealer will she never again buy a car?

 

kids of gay parents have a hard time in this world; they are subject to hearing and seeing a lot of hateful things about the people they love and respect most: their parents.

 

nine is about the age where they are less insulated by the family and start to be painfully aware that they're different.

 

so. you take one of these kids on what's supposed to be a nice fun outing and she gets to read that her parents are going to hell?

 

here's a little experiment: go up to any randomly selected nine-year-old and tell them that their parents are sick, evil twisted sinners and certainly headed for hell and see how that goes over.

 

outside of that, thick skin or not, all the hate really gets to you. last spring i was waiting at my mechanic's for my car to be done and some (family-friendly) (family-friendly) was opining very loudly that a kid with a gay parent is better off in the foster care system, or even dead.

 

i wanted to throttle him.

 

i would not expect a nine-year old to do much better, and i certainly understand why she may not have enjoyed her caching experience and not want to place herself again in the path of unnecessary exposure.

 

I beg to differ.. it's nothing to do with gay or straight parents... it's to do with human nature and kids are... well... basically mean full-stop.

 

A child from a low income single parent family is just as likely to get picked on as a child from a gay family. Just like a child with large parents, or a child with a parent who has disabilities.

 

It's the pecking order, and speaking as someone who went to school in the UK, it's the religious kids who are labelled weird and picked on by the 'normal' kids.

 

What a good parent needs to do is to be realistic with their child that people fear what they don't understand, and they look for people to single out to deflect attention from themselves. A parent needs to explain that bad things happen to good people.

 

It's good to expose kids to other people's viewpoints and then discuss with them what they think about it and how they should respond. Sheesh.

Nice post! Whatever happened to teaching kids to keeping their chins up and having a stiff upper lip? Most kids experience something about themselves that is different and not totally accepted. As parents we discuss these things with our kids so they can learn to cope with the real world. It's unfortunate that some people are jerks but that is the way it is...

[GOF and Bacall]

There is a difference between explaining to kids that some jerks will treat people poorly and excusing the jerks that do it to children.

[+bflentje]

OMG, is this topic still dribbling on and this far off topic to boot??

[+Okiebryan]

I cannot for the life of me fathom anything that could be said to a 9 year old little girl that could protect her from being crushed when being told BY AN ADULT that their mom is evil and deserves to die and rot in hell.

 

Some of you are trying to say prepare your kids for the mean bullies and jerks on the playground, but an adult saying hateful things in the presence of a child is completely different.

 

It's beside the point, anyway. Why would anyone actually choose to place hateful literature in a cache, unless their goal was to shock or inflame or influence someone into seeing their point of view? And isn't that the basic definition of an agenda? Didn't TPTB decide to keep agendas out of geocaching? What possible place could this garbage have in a light and family friendly activity?

 

If I was sitting at a kids softball game and someone started telling me I'm going to hell, I'd very politely tell this that this is not the time or place and ask them to desist. Then I'd likely move away from them. If I overheard them telling a child that their parents are evil and an abomination to God and going to hell, I would immediately make that stop. Start nice and escalate, they get to decide how much it escalates.

[+Okiebryan]

OMG, is this topic still dribbling on and this far off topic to boot??

 

Feel free to ignore this topic if you have nothing to contribute.

[Skippermark]

The cache says it's a 35mm film can. That must be one small tract.

[+Chrysalides]

There was once I heard an exchange between two person. One told another she's going to hell. Without missing a beat, she promptly replied that she'll see him there.

 

I wasn't aware that the OP is referring to hate literature (insert mild sarcasm here). I'd remove hate speech from a cache and discard them without any hesitation. I do not equate the majority of religious tracts to hate speech though.

Edited November 3, 2009 by Chrysalides

[+TrailGators]

There was once I heard an exchange between two person. One told another she's going to hell. Without missing a beat, she promptly replied that she'll see him there.

 

I wasn't aware that the OP is referring to hate literature (insert mild sarcasm here). I'd remove hate speech from a cache and discard them without any hesitation. I do not equate the majority of religious tracts to hate speech though.

I agree. I would do this too. In reality this is all we can really do because there is no way to know who did this or to stop them from doing it. The good news is that it is definitely a rare occurrence.

[+TrailGators]

There is a difference between explaining to kids that some jerks will treat people poorly and excusing the jerks that do it to children.

Ironically most religions teach people to forgive, so they don't continue the hate cycle. You can see it in this thread. A small seed of hate was planted and is being allowed to grow. So if we all just agreed to dispose of hateful items that we find in caches and moved on, that small amount of hate would die the quickest death.

[+wimseyguy]

Sweet potatoes are not grown from seeds, but from vine cuttings called slips. There's nothing to hate about sweet potatoes. Edited November 3, 2009 by wimseyguy

[+TrailGators]

Sweet potatoes are not grown from seeds, but from vine cuttings called slips. There's nothing to hate about sweet potatoes.

Call me weird but I don't like 'em...

[+flask]

The good news is that it is definitely a rare occurrence.

 

nope, not rare.

 

You can see it in this thread. A small seed of hate was planted and is being allowed to grow.

 

where, exactly, is the hate in this thread?

[Clan Riffster]

I'm an atheist. If I left tracts telling everyone how their religious beliefs are wrong and they're wasting their time and money on their make believe god they would find it offensive.

I would not find it offensive. I would consider it simply the opinion of another human being, which has the exact same value as my opinion. While there are certainly zealots in every faith who would become upset at you for expressing your beliefs, I seriously doubt they make up the majority. What I find most curious is, why you, personally, would be offended by someone else's opinion?

 

If folks honored "Love they neighbor" (which is essentially the practice of your philosopy) the world we be a far better place

Almost. My philosophy is more geared toward "Do No Harm", then "Love Thy Neighbor".

I am perfectly free to consider my neighbor a nitwit.

 

how about taking your kids to a neo-nazi rally?

a white power march?

Great idea! I can preach the importance of tolerance to my kids all day long, but without a strong example, all they hear is words. By showing them, in person, the twisted psychs that make up the outer edge of intolerance, the lesson might sink in even deeper. Now I just gotta find one...

 

I do not equate the majority of religious tracts to hate speech though.

Agreed. A tract, in my eyes, is just an opinion, put to paper. If that opinion is presented in a caring, sharing and loving way, it shouldn't bother any mature adult. If it is vitriolic, spewing hate along with its embedded opinion, it is suitable only for CITO. I reckon a good compromise would be to look at how the message is being presented, then act accordingly.

[+TrailGators]

The good news is that it is definitely a rare occurrence.

nope, not rare.

I've seen zero "hateful" tracts in 2000+ caches. So it is rare to me. What percentage of caches have you have found "hateful" tracts in?

[+geodarts]

Last month I read an article on line about how the game was catching on with Mormons who sometimes leave a Book of the Mormon in caches. And I have found biblically themed caches that were filled with things like Jesus key rings. None of that particularly bothers me and my daughter is such a sceptic that she would not be fazed by a religious tract any more than she was by the Bigfoot cd that I traded for at a cache awhile back.

 

While I don't think religious tracts make a good trade item, neither have I paid much attention to the few that I have found in caches. But that is different from tracts that single out a particular group, tell me that gay marriage is a sin that should be outlawed, espouse the doctrines of the Aryan Nations, or seek to impose a religious view on society as a whole. I never have found anything like that in a cache and it would not last long if I came across it.

 

If somebody leaves a tract in a cache it can be easily removed by a later finder. But don't get me started about anything having to do with sweet potatoes.

[+flask]

The good news is that it is definitely a rare occurrence.

nope, not rare.

I've seen zero "hateful" tracts in 2000+ caches. So it is rare to me. What percentage of caches have you have found "hateful" tracts in?

 

oh, goodness! i don't even keep track of how many firstfinds i have!

 

i should be able to produce a statistic on how many caches i have found hateful literature in?

 

it isn't exactly an epidemic, but neither would i call it rare.

[+TrailGators]

The good news is that it is definitely a rare occurrence.

nope, not rare.

I've seen zero "hateful" tracts in 2000+ caches. So it is rare to me. What percentage of caches have you have found "hateful" tracts in?

 

oh, goodness! i don't even keep track of how many firstfinds i have!

 

i should be able to produce a statistic on how many caches i have found hateful literature in?

 

it isn't exactly an epidemic, but neither would i call it rare.

If it makes it easier you can subtract out all the nanos, micros and most of the smalls that you have found.

 

If other people have/have not commonly seen "hateful" religious tracts in caches please chime in. We can do a mini survey to see how big this issue is...

[+Okiebryan]

I have removed over 100 of the fake $100 bill tracts that were really religious tracts. Any tract that mentions hell or eternal damnation unless one surrenders to their particular flavor of salvation is CITO material in my opinion. These were almost all found folded into the log of a micro.

[+wimseyguy]

Sweet potatoes are not grown from seeds, but from vine cuttings called slips. There's nothing to hate about sweet potatoes.

Call me weird but I don't like 'em...

 

Sorry, but personal attacks, even those that are self requested, are against the forum guidelines.

[+CanUK_TeamFitz]

 

actually, children of gay parents are subject to more than the usual stuff kids get.

 

children of poor parents are not told that they'd be better off in foster care or dead.

 

children of parents with disabilities are not told that their family is fit only for hell.

 

how about children of poor single lesbian mothers? that's a hard life.

 

children know other people's viewpoints about gay people; children of gay parents are ostracized, taunted, and even beaten up. epithets painted on their homes, anonymous threatening phone calls and letters arrive,windows are smashed with baseball bats, and in some communities the police response is that gays and their children deserve no better.

 

it isn't about kids teasing each other, which is cruel but normal.

 

adults feel they have a perfect right to leave virulent anti-gay tracts in caches. many people find it entirely acceptable to preach hellfire to the children of gay people which goes far beyond normal teasing.

 

let's try this "it's good to expose children to other people's viewpoints".

 

how about taking your kids to a neo-nazi rally?

a white power march?

 

you can beg to differ all you want, but your response is naive and makes me suspect that the gay people you know aren't all that comfortable around you.

 

Ok so we have a sketchy attempt to appeal to emotion and pity, misleading vividness, hasty generalisations, straw men, even had time to throw an ad hominem attack in there too!

 

Oh and is this a candidate for Godwins Law, I think it is.... Well done!

 

[K.191]

I'm an atheist. If I left tracts telling everyone how their religious beliefs are wrong and they're wasting their time and money on their make believe god they would find it offensive. Likewise finding their tracts in a cache condemning me and my moral but god free lifestyle is offensive to me.

 

No matter what one person believes, says or does, somebody else will find cause to be offended. And THAT is the actual problem - it seems that people are terribly thin-skinned these days and, in many cases, ACTIVELY SEEK to take offense over even the most minor or petty "irritant."

 

Why plant things in a cache that you know will offend people?

 

I haven't perused the entire thread, but I'm sure it's been stated several times already: Any item found in a cache is easily ignored; no one is forced to take, much less read, anything that has been left in a cache.

 

I thought caching was supposed to be agenda free.

 

Let's get back to that in a second:

 

It doesn't cost me anything to throw away tracts.

 

That sounds suspiciously like an agenda to me. The very next visitor to the cache may well have appreciated that tract, had it been there.

 

I would agree, however, that cache owners have every right to remove material that they personally consider to be offensive. But that is not a right enjoyed by mere cache finders.

[+TrailGators]

Sweet potatoes are not grown from seeds, but from vine cuttings called slips. There's nothing to hate about sweet potatoes.

Call me weird but I don't like 'em...

 

Sorry, but personal attacks, even those that are self requested, are against the forum guidelines.

Hey, my folks forced me to eat yams when I was little. I would have rather found a hell and damnation tract in a cache than eat those yams. I'm just glad that we aren't allowed to put yams in caches. Now that would be a huge mess!

[+flask]

 

If other people have/have not commonly seen "hateful" religious tracts in caches please chime in. We can do a mini survey to see how big this issue is...

 

many people need not be harmed by a thing in order for it to be harmful.

 

if the discussion is about whether these things are acceptable in a recreational activity among a diverse population, i'm not sure why there needs to be a huge epidemic of these things in order for us to say nope, not appropriate.

 

there need not be any huge mass response or making of rules, but it certainly won't hurt for people to practice a little forbearance.

 

of all inappropriate things left in caches, anything designed to promote hate or to make other people feel bad rises to the top of my list of things i don't want to see.

 

remember the debate about pocket knives in caches? that wasn't a crisis, either. most of us saw pocket knives as being handy as tools and jim-dandy as cache swag. some people (a small number of landowners in particular) thought they weren't appropriate; kids might get them, convicts might get them, someone could get hurt, blah, blah.

 

enough people thought they were a bad idea that we made it common practice as a community not to leave them. some people still leave them, but as a group we do not encourage it.

 

likewise with tracts: enough people are bothered by them that perhaps we might just make it a common courtesy to leave these things out of our caching kit? is there any good reason for leaving something that you KNOW is going to step on somebody's toes?

 

i mean, not just a thing that some people wouldn't want to take, like a golf ball or a mctoy. these things are actually and actively offensive to some people. a tract that tells any group of people they're hellbound is clearly designed to be unkind and offensive to some people and while you may believe that certain classes of people deserve to be offended and treated unkindly i am still going to have to maintain that a cache isn't the proper venue for it.

 

your st. cristopher medal, you ganesh figurine, your silver pentacle, your little book of psalms, your recording of verses of the koran, all of these are fine with me.

 

i draw the line at the point where objects in caches are used to declare one set of people to be not as good as others, or to deliver moral and spiritual instruction where none has been asked for. i do not want to see trade items or cache logs that criticize or condemn other people's lives.

 

it really is that simple.

Edited November 3, 2009 by flask

[+TrailGators]

 

If other people have/have not commonly seen "hateful" religious tracts in caches please chime in. We can do a mini survey to see how big this issue is...

 

many people need not be harmed by a thing in order for it to be harmful.

 

if the discussion is about whether these things are acceptable in a recreational activity among a diverse population, i'm not sure why there needs to be a huge epidemic of these things in order for us to say nope, not appropriate.

 

there need not be any huge mass response or making of rules, but it certainly won't hurt for people to practice a little forbearance.

 

of all inappropriate things left in caches, anything designed to promote hate or to make other people feel bad rises to the top of my list of things i don't want to see.

 

remember the debate about pocket knives in caches? that wasn't a crisis, either. most of us saw pocket knives as being handy as tools and jim-dandy as cache swag. some people (a small number of landowners in particular) thought they weren't appropriate; kids might get them, convicts might get them, someone could get hurt, blah, blah.

 

enough people thought they were a bad idea that we made it common practice as a community not to leave them. some people still leave them, but as a group we do not encourage it.

 

likewise with tracts: enough people are bothered by them that perhaps we might just make it a common courtesy to leave these things out of our caching kit? is there any good reason for leaving something that you KNOW is going to step on somebody's toes?

 

i mean, not just a thing that some people wouldn't want to take, like a golf ball or a mctoy. these things are actually and actively offensive to some people. a tract that tells any group of people they're hellbound is clearly designed to be unkind and offensive to some people and while you may believe that certain classes of people deserve to be offended and treated unkindly i am still going to have to maintain that a cache isn't the proper venue for it.

 

your st. cristopher medal, you ganesh figurine, your silver pentacle, your little book of psalms, your recording of verses of the koran, all of these are fine with me.

 

i draw the line at the point where objects in caches are used to declare one set of people to be not as good as others, or to deliver moral and spiritual instruction where none has been asked for. i do not want to see trade items or cache logs that criticize or condemn other people's lives.

 

it really is that simple.

I don't disagree with you. I just think there's nothing we can effectively do to stop it from happening in the real world. People have been pushing personal agendas since the beginning of time. So I just ignore it. It is really that simple.

[+Frank Broughton]

OMG, is this topic still dribbling on and this far off topic to boot??

 

Feel free to ignore this topic if you have nothing to contribute.

 

He did contribute. Matter of fact same quality as much of the rest.

Edited November 3, 2009 by Frank Broughton

[+Frank Broughton]

I'm an atheist. If I left tracts telling everyone how their religious beliefs are wrong and they're wasting their time and money on their make believe god they would find it offensive.

I would not find it offensive. I would consider it simply the opinion of another human being, which has the exact same value as my opinion. While there are certainly zealots in every faith who would become upset at you for expressing your beliefs, I seriously doubt they make up the majority. What I find most curious is, why you, personally, would be offended by someone else's opinion?

 

Clan - I find your spirit and attitude refreshing - thank you!

Edited November 3, 2009 by Frank Broughton

[+flask]

]I don't disagree with you. I just think there's nothing we can effectively do to stop it from happening in the real world. People have been pushing personal agendas since the beginning of time. So I just ignore it. It is really that simple.

 

oh, well. had the question been how do we stop it, rather than is it appropriate, i might have had a different response.

 

i think the single most useful thing we can do is to talk about it.

 

maybe one more person will get he message who hadn't thought of it before.

 

when i find them on the trail, i either trade them out or i don't. i don't give it much thought. the OP does, though, and wished to know if it's appropriate.

 

nope.

 

and yet it happens.

 

at least that's what i think i said back near the top of the first page:

 

no, proselytizing materials in caches are not appropriate, and yet they get left anyway by spiritual busybodies who consider themselves in a position to know what's best for you and think they're doing you a big favor.

 

if they bother you enough, you can trade them out and destroy them.

 

they make reasonably acceptable emergency toilet paper, and you might mention that in your log.

[+Sol seaker]

... That little girl asked to go home, and cried all the way there. I talked to her mom and explained what happened, and how sad I was that that happened, but she will never go geocaching again...

 

If she finds such a tract that someone left on a table in the service waiting room of a car dealer will she never again buy a car?

 

kids of gay parents have a hard time in this world; they are subject to hearing and seeing a lot of hateful things about the people they love and respect most: their parents.

 

nine is about the age where they are less insulated by the family and start to be painfully aware that they're different.

 

so. you take one of these kids on what's supposed to be a nice fun outing and she gets to read that her parents are going to hell?

 

here's a little experiment: go up to any randomly selected nine-year-old and tell them that their parents are sick, evil twisted sinners and certainly headed for hell and see how that goes over.

 

outside of that, thick skin or not, all the hate really gets to you. last spring i was waiting at my mechanic's for my car to be done and some (family-friendly) (family-friendly) was opining very loudly that a kid with a gay parent is better off in the foster care system, or even dead.

 

i wanted to throttle him.

 

i would not expect a nine-year old to do much better, and i certainly understand why she may not have enjoyed her caching experience and not want to place herself again in the path of unnecessary exposure.

 

I beg to differ.. it's nothing to do with gay or straight parents... it's to do with human nature and kids are... well... basically mean full-stop.

 

A child from a low income single parent family is just as likely to get picked on as a child from a gay family. Just like a child with large parents, or a child with a parent who has disabilities.

 

It's the pecking order, and speaking as someone who went to school in the UK, it's the religious kids who are labelled weird and picked on by the 'normal' kids.

 

What a good parent needs to do is to be realistic with their child that people fear what they don't understand, and they look for people to single out to deflect attention from themselves. A parent needs to explain that bad things happen to good people.

 

It's good to expose kids to other people's viewpoints and then discuss with them what they think about it and how they should respond. Sheesh.

 

actually, children of gay parents are subject to more than the usual stuff kids get.

 

children of poor parents are not told that they'd be better off in foster care or dead.

 

children of parents with disabilities are not told that their family is fit only for hell.

 

how about children of poor single lesbian mothers? that's a hard life.

 

children know other people's viewpoints about gay people; children of gay parents are ostracized, taunted, and even beaten up. epithets painted on their homes, anonymous threatening phone calls and letters arrive,windows are smashed with baseball bats, and in some communities the police response is that gays and their children deserve no better.

 

it isn't about kids teasing each other, which is cruel but normal.

 

adults feel they have a perfect right to leave virulent anti-gay tracts in caches. many people find it entirely acceptable to preach hellfire to the children of gay people which goes far beyond normal teasing.

 

let's try this "it's good to expose children to other people's viewpoints".

 

how about taking your kids to a neo-nazi rally?

a white power march?

 

you can beg to differ all you want, but your response is naive and makes me suspect that the gay people you know aren't all that comfortable around you.

 

THANK YOU FLASK!!!!!!

 

People do not realize how hard kids of gay parents have it.

and children can't be asked to just "suck it up"

They are effected very badly by what they hear.

 

Propaganda of any type has no place in caching.

 

I have been encouraged by reading this thread, and how most people do indeed want to keep geocaching a game for all people from every walk of life.

 

and YES some of us do find this stuff offensive.

 

I've been personally attacked very badly by people who claim to be Christians of some sort.

People who have attempted to do me great harm and damage.

 

That was not the way of Jesus, so I do not consider them to be Christian, but they think they are acting in the name of Jesus. Jesus was not judgemental, so I don't know where they get that, but that is another topic altogether.

 

So with my personal history of these attacks, to be out geocaching trying to have a good time, and forget all that is bad in the world, I come across more of the same, it is upsetting to me.

 

I can see how if you don't have any of this kind of history it is easy to say, "just blow off the tracts".

 

This is not so easy with people with a history of violence from these people.

 

I, like others have said, (esp. well spoken in post 162) that I have no problem with religious objects. It's the pamplets I have a great problem with.

 

I'd love to find some little Buddha's in caches like the one guy said he left. A Buddha lover has never been violent towards me.

[+bflentje]

OMG, is this topic still dribbling on and this far off topic to boot??

 

Feel free to ignore this topic if you have nothing to contribute.

 

But you're off topic. So feel free to start a new thread instead of continuing to railroad this one.

[+TrailGators]

I can see how if you don't have any of this kind of history it is easy to say, "just blow off the tracts".

So what do you suggest should be done besides asking people to please remove these items from caches when they see them?

 

P.S. There is a subset of every single group on this planet that have issues. So it really annoys me when people make sweeping generalizations about an entire group based on the actions of a tiny minority within that group.

[GOF and Bacall]

I think you have it. Ask people not to be so thoughtless. That and trade out and dispose of things that are offensive in nature.

[+brodiebunch]

While geocaching today, I can across "Heroes of the Bible" playing cards.

 

I left them because I don't like cards.

 

By leaving them there, am I contributing to the spread of religious propaganda?

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

... That little girl asked to go home, and cried all the way there. I talked to her mom and explained what happened, and how sad I was that that happened, but she will never go geocaching again...

 

If she finds such a tract that someone left on a table in the service waiting room of a car dealer will she never again buy a car?

 

kids of gay parents have a hard time in this world; they are subject to hearing and seeing a lot of hateful things about the people they love and respect most: their parents.

 

nine is about the age where they are less insulated by the family and start to be painfully aware that they're different.

 

so. you take one of these kids on what's supposed to be a nice fun outing and she gets to read that her parents are going to hell?

 

here's a little experiment: go up to any randomly selected nine-year-old and tell them that their parents are sick, evil twisted sinners and certainly headed for hell and see how that goes over.

 

outside of that, thick skin or not, all the hate really gets to you. last spring i was waiting at my mechanic's for my car to be done and some (family-friendly) (family-friendly) was opining very loudly that a kid with a gay parent is better off in the foster care system, or even dead.

 

i wanted to throttle him.

 

i would not expect a nine-year old to do much better, and i certainly understand why she may not have enjoyed her caching experience and not want to place herself again in the path of unnecessary exposure.

I will grant that children sometimes suffer for their parent's choices, but that's not the topic here.

 

I think you were approaching an answer in the last sentence... which if I understand it correctly is that if she encountered this hateful tract in an automotive service shop waiting room then she would not want to ever again sit in such a waiting room? Only if that is true does the argument that she won't geocache because she was traumatized by a tract in a geocache make sense.

[+BlueDeuce]

I like bacon.

 

Back on topic.

 

Will tracts ever cease from being left in caches? Just wondering. It's been six years for me and I haven't seen much change one way or the other.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I like bacon.

 

Back on topic.

 

Will tracts ever cease from being left in caches? Just wondering. It's been six years for me and I haven't seen much change one way or the other.

As I've mentioned in the numerous previous threads on this issue I've found a few thousand caches in 28 states and seriously doubt that I've seen 10 religious tracts total and can remember only one that was so out there as to be offensive.

 

The question was are tracts appropriate in caches, not how often they are found there.

[+Team Cotati]

I like bacon.

 

Back on topic.

 

Will tracts ever cease from being left in caches? Just wondering. It's been six years for me and I haven't seen much change one way or the other.

 

No, tracts will never cease from being left in caches.

 

Anything that I can do to make certain that remains true, I'm gonna do.

[+flask]

 

I will grant that children sometimes suffer for their parent's choices, but that's not the topic here.

 

I think you were approaching an answer in the last sentence... which if I understand it correctly is that if she encountered this hateful tract in an automotive service shop waiting room then she would not want to ever again sit in such a waiting room? Only if that is true does the argument that she won't geocache because she was traumatized by a tract in a geocache make sense.

 

you have betrayed your bias in that you think it's a choice.

 

as for not wanting to go caching again, i don't really want to go back to the mechanic. sitting in that waiting room makes me uncomfortable because i keep hearing that hateful young man go on about how children of gay parents are better off in foster care or even dead.

 

i'm a grownup and i'm used to this kind of filth. the memory still makes me uncomfortable.

 

and no, it's not just limited to my memory of bigotry.

 

i don't enjoy bonfires anymore since the longest night and i still get the willies when i pass the place on the road where i was run over.

 

i feel uncomfortable in certain areas where i have found geocaches with hateful logs and hateful tracts in them.

 

you're having a lovely day out and you open a box that's supposed to be fun and find a little piece of garbage informing you that you're somebody's idea of second-class waste.

 

you don't have to let it rule your day, but it's one more thing you could have done without, you know?

[+Okiebryan]

Well said, Flask.

 

I cannot understand why people in this thread are trying to minimize or even justify the emotional pain that I witnessed.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

you have betrayed your bias in that you think it's a choice.

I can't speak to whether being gay is a choice or not, I do not have the experience nor education nor insight to make such a call, nor do I care enough about the issue to ponder it... who folks sleep with is none of my business. But, that brings up what I was calling a choice... it appears that straight folks don't much publicly mention or make an issue of their sexuality, while it appears that gay people almost invariably do. THAT is the choice I was referring to... the choice to make your bedfellows known to others. What's the point of even bringing up such a personal issue?

 

As to the pertinent question, whether someone would avoid geoaching because they found a tract in a cache I thank you for your clarification.

 

To me the aversions that you refer to are akin to saying "I once had a wreck so I will never again get in a car" and I guess that on that basis I can understand your position. My wife had a fender-bender on the Interstate 35 years ago and has never driven on an Interstate since. I don't have to understand it, I just have to accept it!

[+bittsen]

A question, if I may.

 

How would those, who say the tracts are no big deal, feel about literature in support of nudist camps being left in caches?

 

After all, there is no more natural state that a human can be, than nude.

 

Right?