Restaurant's 'Prayer Discount' Sparks Mix Of Praise, Anger - Updated, 8/8/14

[cbayer]

Last edited Fri Aug 8, 2014, 03:59 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/08/01/337110193/restaurants-prayer-discount-sparks-mix-of-praise-anger

by SCOTT NEUMAN
August 01, 2014 1:22 PM ET


Yuri Arcurs/iStockphoto

Updated at 3:15 p.m. ET.

When Jordan Smith got her tab after breakfast at Mary's Gourmet Diner in Winston-Salem, N.C., she was pleasantly surprised to find a 15 percent discount — for "praying in public."

Smith, on a business trip, tells HLN that she and her colleagues "prayed over our meal and the waitress came over at the end of the meal and said, 'Just so you know, we gave you a 15 percent discount for praying.' "

Smith then snapped a photo of her receipt, complete with a line item for "15% Praying in Public ($6.07)" and posted it to her Facebook page. Not surprisingly, it's gone viral.

Some people wondered if it was just another social media hoax, but Shama Blalock, a co-owner of the diner, confirmed to NPR that "It's for real; it does exist."

more at link

[Journeyman]

1. But what if you were a follower of Jesus, and chose to pray silently, out of the public eye . . .

[cbayer]

2. No discount for you!

This has got to be illegal.

[cbayer]

4. Did you give discounts for religious reasons though?

Is it religious discrimination to offer a discount to certain religious people and not to others or not to nonbelievers?

The Department of Justice says that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on religion in a public accommodation, such as a restaurant.

[cbayer]

7. I don't think there is any prohibition in giving discounts to non-religious groups,

like the military. The prohibition comes into play when the determining factor is religion.

There was a case sometime in the past year of a restaurant that was giving a discount to those who brought their sunday church program in. IIRC, they stopped this under threat of a lawsuit.

[msongs]

5. it is discrimination on account of religion in a PUBLIC accommodation, and as such is illegal. nt

[Niceguy1]

24. not illegal. ...

[merrily]

8. The Bible contains many words, but only relatively few of them are attributed to Jesus.

Among the relatively few words in the Bible attributed to Jesus himself, many are parables and open to interpretation, to put it mildly. However, the directive attributed to Jesus about not making a public show of your charitably giving or your prayer seems clear and unambiguous.


Matthew 6 King James Version (KJV)

1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

5 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.

6 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.

I have not gone to the link in the OP yet. However, I assume that the discount is given to encourage people to violate the relatively clear directive that is attributed to Jesus himself; the people praising this discount hate the teachings of Jesus; and the people angry about the discount are devout followers of Christ's teachings.

Now, I will follow the link with the full expectation that the story will confirm my assumption.

[cbayer]

9. This seems to be a part of the bible that some literalists ignore.

It's pretty clear cut.

[merrily]

10. IMO, the ignore many of the words that appear in red in the Bibles

that use red to highlight the words Jesus is supposed to have spoken.

Not judging.

Loving your neighbor as yourself.

Indeed, that all of the OT (the law, or Torah, and the prophets) boil down to loving God and loving your neighbor.

Working on ridding yourself of your own huge faults instead of nitpicking the faults of someone else.

Leaving it to God to separate the wheat from the chaff on Judgment Day.

Taking care of the poor.

Treating everyone as you would want them to treat you.

Being a steward of everything your employer (or master; i.e., God) placed in your custody.

And so on.

I think most people who have huge problems with what they perceive to be "Christianity" have little to no problem with the "red words." And, currently, the people who seem to have the biggest problems with the "red words" consider themselves devout followers of those words.

ETA: And I guess I am judging them for that. Dang! Fell into the trap.

[cbayer]

11. Excellent points.

The things you point out where the things that were emphasized in my religious upbringing.

Back to basics would be a very good thing for all believers in general. The things that are open to wide interpretation make interesting discussion but terrible platitudes.

[merrily]

12. Even the "red words" that are open to interpretation are not open to some of

interpretations that Christians have given them.

Again, I go back to the sharp difference between the "red words" and the Pauline epistles. It is the latter that supposedly pulled forward into the New Testament things from the Old Testament like the subjugation of women to men, the "abomination" condemnation of homosexuality and the like. You cannot discern those things in the NT reports of what Jesus said or how he behaved.

We assume that Jesus came across homosexuals and transvestites, as do we all, yet he spoke not a word about them, certainly nothing condemning them.

There is also little or nothing in his treatment of women that suggests they should STFU in temple, if they have questions and wait until they can go home and ask their omniscient husbands in private. Etc.

I like a lot of things about modern Judaism, and also about the OT, but those particular things about ancient Judaism were not worth "pulling forward, IMO.

It is odd that someone like Paul, who never met Jesus, got to override Peter, to whom Jesus himself supposed handed the figurative keys of his church, as to what Christ and Christianity "really" meant.

[cbayer]

13. Have you had formal education in religion?

You seem to have a really good understanding of this. I have to admit that my knowledge basis is much more limited.

What I do know is that literalism makes no sense when it comes to the bible. I also know that there are some very good lessons in there and despite the bad lessons, there is value in the text.

[merrily]

14. No. As I mentioned a bit ago, I have read the bible cover to cover a couple three times, or tried to

mostly, as a kid. That was the extent of my religious education that is in my posts about Paul.

I did attend a fundamentalist church until I was about 15 and found too great a divide between my desire to listen to secular music and such other sinful things and what I was hearing in church. I didn't think they were wrong, necessarily. I just didn't want to feel like a hypocrite or an evil sinner, so I stayed away. But they did not teach me the things I am posting. I just came to them from reading the Bible.

Even if I believed that the Bible were divinely inspired, I would feel exactly the same. I think people reading any novel or documentary would go facepalm and wonder why Peter was letting Paul tell him (Peter) what Christ and Christianity were all about.

Paul, the guy who had never met Christ. Paul, the guy who had been proving what a great Jew he was by proudly murdering Christians. Paul, the guy who came to Christianity because, while on his way to Damascus to slaughter even more Christians, had a "vision" in which Chirst spoke to him very briefly, only tell him to stop the persecution. Paul, who then starts ordering around Christians who had known Jesus and who had been Christians long before he was. Paul, who switched from murdering Christians to prove how religious he was, to converting people to Christianity, to prove how religious he was. Whichever he was doing, it was all about him and not pretty.

As I said, if you came across him in a novel, you would know that the author never intended you to take what the Paul character said as gospel, as it were.

[cbayer]

15. Well, you done an amazing job in self-teaching.

I wasn't raised with the kind of dilemma you faced, though. Sin wasn't really a part of it at all. It was mostly just emphasizing the good parts - social justice, treating others well, civil rights, taking care of those most in need.

Why do you thing that so much of Paul's writings have been included in the bible? Who made those decisions and why?

[merrily]

16. I would imagine that the undivided Church authorities decided what should be in the Bible and what

should not, before the Great Schism, but I am not an expert on those things. I also imagine that, if you set yourself up to tell people what God said and what God wants of them, you have an authoritarian bent that would draw you to Paul, perhaps even more than to Jesus.

It is not only a matter of including them in the Bible, which can make pastors seem as though they have multiple personality. It's deciding that Paul was correct, even though, as I said, an ordinarily discerning reader would think, "Why is anyone listening to this hubristic guy about Christianity?"

As a reader of a novel, I might wonder if the author included the character of Paul to explain why the movement had diverged so much from the teachings of Christ so early on. But, I assure you, no one in any church pointed this out to me. I am simply both blessed and cursed with having a somewhat different take on almost everything than most people have. Even when they are trying their "damndest" to convince me of something very different that I am coming away with.

[cbayer]

17. Very interesting theory about why Paul may have been included.

I thank you very much for the lesson on this. I tend to stay out of discussions about this because I don't really know the history or have the depth of understanding to engage.

It's good to have a variant POV. It gives you the opportunity to add a different perspective.

We may not always agree, but I enjoy talking with you.

[merrily]

20. Thank you. I don't think always agreeing makes a very interesting message board anyway.

How many would come to DU to see one "K and R!" post after another and not much else?

I did not mean to give you any lesson. As I said, what I have posted is only my personal interpretation, not based on any study, and not at all authoritative or mainstream.

But, if you read the Bible cover to cover, you, too, may be jarred by the epistles, as I was.

I am afraid that will be it for me today in religion. But, please, don't take my word for anything when it comes to Bible history or interpretation. That is not my intent when I post my opinion. I have just enough religion to fear being struck by a thunderbolt.

[flyingfysh]

18. would they give that to a Pastafarian?

What if someone prayed over his spaghetti?

What if someone did Buddhist prayers?

[cbayer]

21. I don't think they would give you the discount under those circumstances.

But as noted below, if you did a little act, you would probably get it.

[gwheezie]

19. I'm an atheist but I'd pray for a discount

What would I have to do? Close my eyes, bow my head and move my lips like I'm saying something? I could pull that off.

[cbayer]

22. Yep. They have no way of telling if it's real or faked.

[Squinch]

23. Barf! Where are those praying Satanists when you need them?

[cbayer]

25. Diner Stops ‘Praying In Public’ Discount After Atheist Group Threatens Lawsuit

http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/2014/08/07/diner-stops-giving-praying-in-public-discount-after-atheist-group-threatens-lawsuit/

August 7, 2014 1:33 PM

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (CBS Charlotte) — A North Carolina diner has stopped giving discounts to customers who pray in public after an atheist organization threatened to sue.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote a letter to Mary Haglund, owner of Mary’s Gourmet Diner, threatening legal action if the diner did not drop the 15 percent discount for praying because it violated the Civil Rights Act.

The “promotional practice favors religious customers, and denies customers who do not pray and nonbelievers the right to ‘full and equal’ enjoyment of Mary’s Gourmet Diner,” attorney Elizabeth Cavell wrote in the letter.

Following the letter, Haglund posted a note on the diner door informing customers that the 15 percent discount will no longer be allowed.

[Hissyspit]

26. She is the wife of a friend of mine I've known since college.

They are both very intelligent and good-natured people.

She, his wife, the Mary of the diner's name, told Fox News, who - I THINK but don't quote me - didn't run her interview because they didn't get what they wanted from her, that it wasn't about religion, it was about spirituality.

I didn't say anything about this to my friend, but, as an atheist and DUer, I knew where this was going, as the content of your post shows.

“We at Mary’s value the support of all of our fellow Americans. While you may exercise your right of religious freedom at this restaurant by praying over your meal to any entity or non-entity, we must protect your freedom from religion in a public place,” the note read. “We are no longer issuing the 15% praying in public discount. It is illegal and we are being threatened by lawsuit. We apologize to our community for any offense this discount has incurred.”

Haglund told WGHP-TV last week that the discount was “not a religious thing” and didn’t know it was breaking the law.

“This is a thankful thing. It’s just an attitude of gratitude,” she told WGHP.

[cbayer]

27. Not clear - the restaurant owner is your friend's wife?

It's too bad she didn't get the opportunity to explain her position, then.

As usual, a lot of assumptions were made by a lot of people, including me.

[Hissyspit]

28. Yes.

[intaglio]

29. As long as they allow this credit for atheist/agnostic invocations as well

I don't have a problem

[cbayer]

30. Based on what hissyspit posted, I suspect they would have,

but they chose to discontinue it completely after the FFRF got involved.