to be really irritated with comments like this

[Leati]

The other day I started a thread about gun policy in the US. I am from the US but agree with alot of you ladies about the US gun policy being to relaxes. One of the ladies suggested that we should change the law. I tried to explain that the law was protected by the United States constitution and therefor it was not very easy to change. Then someone who had not been part of conversation up until that point get on and starts writing outragously insulting comments

Copied from comments of previous

Of course the Americans want guns. They are a huge country with lots of space, animals, wilderness much much less sophisticated and indeed behind the times than the UK and most of Europe with their history of cow boys and some very simple people living there. Obviously they therefore hang on to their guns. Our police can police the 60m people here in the UK without guns on the whole and as there are few guns to be had we have fewer deaths and murders. This is one reason most of us choose to stay in the UK rather than move to the US.

and then the user writes this

Americans are often simple people a bit behind Europe, of course they are. You'll catch up eventually but you even have the death penalty. You and China... we despair over here and so many believing the planet is 6000 years old only. It's a kind of simpleness which in some ways is quite sweet but you've a long way to go to be in the same advanced mindset of most Europeans.

I just have to ask...where does she come up with this crap

I wasn't suggesting you did leati, you meantioned it and so did I - that's all.

well you didn't mention it, you quoted.

Leati, I think other posters are being very diplomatic and much too generous. What if she had said 'You Africans - we despair of you over here...'? People would have seen that her views are quite clearly outrageous. Dismissing a whole ancient civilisation like China in one sweeping sentence? Ridiculous. I also find indsicriminate Yank-bashing to be incredibly simplistic and stupid. America is a huge, complex country - more like a continent, really - and to characterise its massively mixed population as any one thing is idiotic.

Snobbery is a terrible thing, not least because it can be used to disguise generally quite dodgy views (racist, bigoted, ignorant).

You were right in your OP. She is talking utter crap.

It was mostly in jest, but still wearing after a while as was the bad imitation of my accent
It is very hard to determine any tone of voice or emotion in a post. And when you are heated and passionate about a subject it can be easy to take them the wrong way and be offended.
I think you need a thick skin to post on the more topical threads, which yours are. And you need to expect that some people will piss you off, doesn't mean they will bear a grudge the next day, on another thread tho.

Yes, I agree that I do explore the more controversial subjects. I do try to listen(or i guess read) and hear (understand) other people though.

I'll be honest I could have handled any regular comment about guns. I actually think they are rather dangerous myself and mixed emotions about them. The comments thrown at me were so far out there though.

Cowboys...Americans believe planet 6000 yrs old...and something about dinosaurs

I'm really not trying to be insulting but where do these ideas come from.

Leati - you can always CAT (contact another talker) too if someone has really offended you to sort it out off board. If you are not that bothered, defo just ignore and move on

How do you do that? I just thought, talking through these chats was the only way to contact each other.

The Dinosaur/6000 year thing is from the views of the creationists (literal belief in the Genesis creation story despite or in spite of any scientific evidence to the contrary) which I believe is much more prevalent in parts of the US than in the UK, or so we are led to believe!

A lot of what Xenia posts on here does fall into the 'weird' category. However, it is true that a frighteningly large proportion of Americans believe in the literal truth of the Biblical story of Genesis. The logical upshort of this is that they believe the Earth to be 6000 years old. Not a majority of Americans, but something quite close to it (sorry, too lazy to look it up - should be working...)

I do agree that there is a lot of lazy racism regarding Americans, especially from Europeans. It's one of the things that happens when a country is so much more powerful than all the other nations put together. That doesn't make it OK, though.

Leati - you can click on the envelope icon next to the posters name to CAT them. HTH

x-posts Jemima. God, it took me a long time to write that.

the problem is though that there are so many reports in the media over here about Americans embracing creationism, and just how many people believe in it - leaving you with the impression (unless you think about it some more and get your head round the actual figures) that 'most Americans believe the world is only 6000 years old'.

Ditto the death penalty - the USA is AFAIK the only western first world country to still have the death penalty. Europeans are brought up to consider it something that is usually a feature of a politically unjust regime - and again there is plenty in the media about executions in the USA.

You just never hear much about the enlightened America, it doesn't make for very interesting reading and doesn't sell newspapers I guess

They actually teach the big bang theory in schools here. And I don't even thing the c use the word "theory" anymore. This is the first time I have heard any of this other stuff is on this website.

I have heard of people trying to mix in thier religous with science so that they don't contradict each other. But I have never heard anyone in my 30 yrs suggest that the earth was only 6000 years old, or that dinosaurs were put on earth to test a persons faith.

I think we are basically, taught the same as you guys and believe the same things as far as this subject goes.

I think the China comment was probably a reference to both countries having the death penalty. And she's right that there are plenty of fundamentalists in the US who apparently believe in Creationism.

There is a view that because European civilisation is so very old, it's more sophisticated than newer actors on the world stage. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, kind of stuff.

Doesn't hold true for China, obviously - they are coming round for a second attempt at top country. Maybe in a few hundred years Denmark will be in charge again!

Wow this is enlightening. At least now I know where her comments come from. I am going to tell you all, this is simply not true.

Sure there maybe some over zealous religous cults out there but main stream America does not believe this stuff.

Okay I am going to google this right now. Seriously, I am shocked at what I am hearing. I have never in all my years heard of this stuff. I have been all over the states and accept for the rare occasional cult, I have never heard such crazy ideas.

I was just telling by brother about this conversation and we both went to church growing up and he doesn't remember hearing that either.

Maybe it's just a function of population size. If 1% of the UK population believed in something extraordinarily daft, that would only be 600,000 people. In the States, that's 3m, if I've rememembered the stats right. And, for example, 3m nutters going on about dinosaurs in the Ark draw a lot more attention to themselves.

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the Creationist Museum got tons of publicity over here - and the articles usually pointed out that it was within a day's drive of 2/3 of the US population and that many schools were planning on going there for a field trip....

According to a 2007 Gallup poll,[47] about 43% of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." This is only slightly less than the Interesting - check out 'creationism' on Wikipedia (not my favourite source of info but increasingly so for many - scary!)

46% reported in a 2006 Gallup poll.[48] Only 14% believe that "humans being have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process."[47] Belief in creationism is inversely correlated to education; of those with post-graduate degrees, only 22% believe in strict creationism.[48] A poll in the year 2000 done for People for the American Way found 70% of the American public felt that evolution was compatible with a belief in God.[49]

In 1987, Newsweek reported: "By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve but appeared 'abruptly.'"[50][51]

Pruner
I am from California. How long ago was this? In my state it is mandatory along with the big bang theory?

Leati, again, think it's to do with size. The US is so vast, I imagine you can grow up there and never meet a fundamentalist Christian or Mormon.

Coincidentally was speaking to an American expat last night, who grew up in Utah. She said her state was full of nutters! But if you come from, I dunno, New England, you'd probably regard those people as the equivalent of funny foreigners (ie how the British regard stories about people in continental Europe getting worked up about things that don't affect us).

this link includes the following quote:

'But one of the starkest recent displays of creationism's popularity came during a recent debate between the 10 Republican candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination. The candidates were asked which of them did not believe in evolution. Three proudly raised their hands.'

this link includes the following:

'US public opinion is also extremely hostile to Darwinian theory. In a national poll two months ago, 51% of Americans said they believed that human beings were created by God. Another 30% said God guided human evolution, and only 15% thought that humans had evolved without divine intervention.'

However, I'd be glad to be shown that my impression is wrong! I have a highly intelligent American sister-in-law, a registered Democrat who works in genetic research and is fimly anti-gun, so I do know that these views are not representative of all Americans.

Message withdrawn

Ooops, that all went horribly wrong. I meant to say that the quote was from Wikipedia - not my favourite source but increasingly so for many - scary!