North Carolina Restaurant Offering a 15% "Praying In Public" Discount Has People All Pissed Off

Those too but Maneki-Neko aren't religious as they are good luck charms, like rabbit's foot. The other ones are actually considered religious or at least quasi religious.

 

That is a good point and why I said this would be an interesting case if a restaurant did that regarding equal protection and public accommodation. I don't think though that would apply in this case.

Specifically the owners said they don't give it everyone who prays but it is at random to people who pray. Also it isn't just prayer but to people who take a quiet moment to appreciate their food. More generally businesses have long given discounts for all sorts of behaviors for example a restaurant in Houston could give a discount to people who say "GO ROCKETS!" when ordering. I doubt anyone would consider that an unfair imposition of patrons who don't like the Rockets.

 

If they do not give it to everyone who prays than it really is a non story. Than it is similar to a barman giving a pretty girl a free drink.

I missed that part.

 

Funny thing is, I heard no outrage about this before the complaining about the supposed outrage happened.

I'm outraged about the lack of outrage, I was promised there would be outrage damnit.

 

That is a fair question.

As long as it is in a conversational tone, I don't have a real problem with it (no matter the religion). I also find any other conversation that is too loud and forced upon me annoying (happens on planes sometimes, some people completely lack self-awareness).

To try and answer your question, one difference may be that many religions inherently promote that "they know better" in a way that non-believers "go to hell", sort of in a supremacist way. As long as people believe that and keep it to themselves and don't act on it in any way, it doesn't bother me. But the more ostentatiously religious people tend to be the ones who also believe more in such things than those who hold their prayers in private. Therefore, it might be that element of "we pray and therefore we are better than you and you will probably rot in hell if you don't do as we do" that might subconsciously bother me (regardless of which religion it is). I guess I also just think there is a time and place for things, and personally I don't consider a public restaurant a church or mosque or synagogue. There, I just want to pray to the God of Spaghetti or Rice Cake .

I understand if people disagree with my perspective, but since you asked, I am just trying to analyze why I feel the way I feel, and to answer honestly.

 

Quote from Jesus of Nazareth:

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."​

Matthew 5:5,6​

It appears so simple to understand, yet so difficult to practice. But, that's the nature of the religious zealot: always desiring for their deeds to be 'seen of men' in order to be highly esteemed among them.

This is nothing new.

 

Thank you very much. I knew about Jesus having said something like that, but couldn't remember where the quote was from. And I agree. The zealots are usually the ones who aren't really good people, and they think that by praying ostentatiously, they look better.

 

This was my point. Thank you.

 

Edit: Matthew 6:5,6

Apologies.

 

I've been searching for this supposed outrage of mine, having been clued in to its existence by bigtexxx (thank you, bigtexxx!), yet have failed to discover it (where is it, texxx??). As usual, you get to the nub of the problem, which is that there is no outrage, which is, as you adroitly pointed out, outrageous!

This may be the most hilarious comment in the entire thread!

(god knows - uh, I mean heaven knows - dammit! I've attempted to be humorous here, and have been beaten by adeelsiddiqui!)

 

Except, of course, that Jesus and the disciples did pray and give thanks for food in public as well. The point of that passage was not that praying in public is bad; it's that praying for the wrong reasons (ie, publicity or show) is bad. I know lots of Christians that pray before meals - at home or out and about. Not a single one of them does it for publicity or show or anything like that.

 

That is your personal interpretation. The point of that passage is that there is a strong assumption that doing it in public when you might as well do it at home indicates that you are doing it for publicity or show. Might not always be true, but...

 

That OUTRAGEOUS!

 

Umm, it's the pretty standard biblical interpretation. Unless you think Jesus was a hypocrite, given that he prayed in public. Prayer and worship has been done in public since the founding of the faith.

No. Jesus specifically calls out the publicity aspect of it in other passages:

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven."

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others."


He's calling out people that do it for show. Again, he and the disciples prayed in public.

 

That said, its all sort of irrelevant since this discount is not focused on Christian prayer specifically anyway.

 

Might be true, but as with Islam, there are various interpretations...

 

The posting a .gif or picture with every damn post was kinda funny back in 2006. Now, not so much.

 

While I agree with LHF, this was a nice retort.