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USPS Discriminates Against 'Atheist' Merchandise
fish waffle writes "Suspecting that their strongly branded 'Atheist' products may be treated differently by more religiously-oriented postal regions, Kickstarter success Atheist Shoes conducted an experiment. They sent 178 packages to 89 people in different parts of the U.S., each person receiving one package prominently branded as 'Atheist' merchandise, and one not. The results: packages with the atheist label were nearly 10 times more likely to be 'lost,' and took on average 3 days longer to show up when they did. Control experiments were also done in Europe and Germany — it's definitely a USPS problem."
what to label the feces I mail. 3 extra shitty days in transit.
Maybe they are simply falling prey to Acts of God.
What the hell is an atheist product? Practically everything is an atheist product.
does not imply causation
Good to see that there are still good people in the United States willing to stand up for God.
But I ask what I guess everybody who isn't from the US is thinking.
What the hell is an "atheist shoe"?
Need to post some boxes that say 'contains god' and see if it gets there quicker than the control.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
A true study would have equal numbers marked and unmarked. Also, did they change their origination point? If not, that could also skew the data.
If I had a dollar every time an atheist cried like a little bitch.....
Jesus didn't wear shoes -- why should you?
Be a jerk, apparently. Except in the Bible where he was an alright dude.
... are religious nuts, no matter where, just the name of their religion changes.
Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
ALBATROSS.
Sounds more like a USA problem than a USPS problem, this being an outlier of religious beliefs among wealthy nations. Atheist Shoes needed to send packages via FedEx and UPS in the same way to actually test this, and apparently didn't.
Does that mean ... they have no sole?
'Surely the majority will look favorably on this brandname.' Way to rock the boat. What do you mean phil, should the minority just roll over and take this discrimination? No.. but i don't think this is the way to go about it. Baiting religious folk into these pitfalls seems quite petty to me. You could have chosen any of a hundred names for your product.
There was a yoyo craze when i was in primary school, everybody had to have a 'brain' yoyo.
Would you choose that name during a zombie apocalypse? I didn't think so.
It would be really interesting to do this experiment with tracking devices that logged their GPS locations periodically over 3G, and had multiple week-long battery life. The 'lost' packages could be tracked and it could be determined where they ended up. Mail fraud is a federal crime, but if it became a big national story with media shining light on the person(s) who were caught doing it, then it would likely result in some change, people going to prison, and the system improving to better serve the recipients of packages.
"Divine Punishment". I bet the USPS drones would get off on delivering packages like that.
Is Germany suddenly no longer part of Europe?
This is only one sample and not repeated, therefore not proof.
What I would like to see is the distribution of the missing parcels. I would check the tracking on the missing packages and see if they were on the same truck. If they were on the same truck did that truck have an accident?
They don't provide any actual data or proof on the site. I find it hard to believe that out of 189 packages, that enough were lost in total that branded ones could be "ten times" more likely to be lost than unbranded, because that would mean a minimum of 11/189 packages were lost, and the USPS has never had anywhere near a 5% loss rate in my experience. That would literally make it unusable as a package delivery service for any retailer.
Atheists in America love to act like they're repressed, even in cases when they're not. I never understood this. This "study" has been a huge marketing boom for a company I have never heard of. Call me cynical, but this story is fishy as all hell. I've been trying to find any kind of formal study about lost packages and the USPS but haven't had much luck with casual Google searches. I did however find a LOT of anecdotal data from Amazon and eBay seller forums that indicates it seems to be less than 1%.
They have identified something which is painfully obvious. The samples in this experiment are large enough to prove that the atheist branding has affect on the delivery and that it only happens like this in the US.
While the assumption is quite plausible, they did not "prove" anything. The control test was flawed. All packages shipped from Berlin but the US destined packages go through different handling in Germany, international vs domestic. Something could have happened in international handling in Germany. Unlikely but not ruled out. A better designed experiment is needed.
From a sample of 89 packages.
Either USPS loses the majority of the packages it handles, or the sample size is waaaay too small to draw that kind of conclusion. But hey, nice rational atheists would never resort to half baked sensationalist nonsense to promote their world view, would they.
of the strength of America's fundamentalist undercurrent.
The only reason that USPS has the monopoly on first class mail in USA (nobody is allowed to compete on that with them) is supposedly to provide a subsidy so that all the people in USA are covered. This shows that even that meagre reason for this monopoly doesn't stand to the scrutiny if your packages are discriminated against by the government.
USPS is government, it's a government protected monopoly and it discriminates against people. This is government discrimination. This is the real type of discrimination. You think UPS or DHL or Fedex discriminate against customers this way? Yet DHL, UPS, Fedex are regulated under law, which makes them liable to lawsuits, to 'provide equal access' and all that nonsense, while in reality they want to provide the best customer service in order to win against competition.
USPS doesn't care about competition, they are a government protected monopoly, they are a perfect organisation to maintain various types of discrimination.
There shouldn't be any government protected monopolies, private sectors deals with people's needs, whether they are atheists or Muslims or whatever. Government will lose your package if you are an atheist, and I don't want to get into what they will do to you if you are a Muslim.
You can't handle the truth.
Anyone who's ever actually sent a package through USPS should know that they explicitly recommend you destroy or cover any non-USPS related markings or labels, explaining that it may lead to delays or failure to deliver.
=Smidge=
"Note that we are not prepared to render equal services to the religious and the infidels.
However, the fees we will charge to the religious and the infidels are exactly equal, though.
May at least one of the gods officially approved by USPS be with you, if not all of them.
Regards,
Services Justification Service Dept.,
United States Postal Service."
A sample size of 89, all carried out at the exact same time from the same starting point is frankly an awful sample. How many international packages get sent from Germany every day? 100,000? 1mill? How is a non-random sample of 89 in any way representative of that?
Then there are other variables and questions. Why didn't they track the packages? They'd get detailed information that'd let them pinpoint where the problems happen. Are all the packages the exact same in terms of shape, size and contents? What were the contents? How long did they wait before saying the packages were classed as missing?
My suspicion would be that a lot of the Atheist branded packages were stopped by customs for inspection. I've had packages delayed by months because of this in the past (and the goods arrived damaged from them being opened). But that still shows signs of discrimination by customs right? Not really. They gave all the Atheist packages the same, very obvious branding (far more obvious than the plain packaging at least), one of the customs centres could've spotted that a 10 or so goods arriving at their centre were obviously from one company and picked those for inspection on the basis of them checking out the company. My experience is that certain companies are magnets for getting goods stopped/inspected by customs.
And they thought it said "A Theist".
They didn't want those pesky Theists getting any shoes and walking around the neighborhood knocking on doors.
"I'll explain right after you explain to me why Afghanistan under Taliban regime should be considered average with regards religious polarization."
It isn't. Neither is the USA.
Hence the request.
89x2 is enough to show a problem.
If you repeat the experiment, but change the brand to one of the following non-real brands:
1) High Explosive
2) Big Bomb
3) Subversive
4) Mind Control
5) Insurrection
6) Hardcore Porn
7) Gay Elimination
I wonder whether you'd get similar levels in variation of how many packages get through. I'm not suggesting anyone actually carries this out, just think about it. Labels containing words which give rise to perceived meanings will always cause at least some difference to happen. The simplistic idealistic 'don't judge a book by its cover' mindset that says that labels don't matter is just that: simplistic and idealistic. And in reality we can't evaluate the true content of what we see, so judging by outward appearances based on our internal beliefs is always going to happen. If you want packages to get through somewhere, don't put labels on which might cause delivery agents to not like the package.
On a similar note, I have the right to free speech, and to say that I disagree with government policy. But I should not expect to be able to walk onto a stage at a Republican conference and say that I believe that all Republicans are stupid, deluded and should be heavily medicated by our psychiatric friends to treat them for their 'disease' without at least getting heckled a little. People have likes and dislikes, and will not react the same to things they like as to things they dislike. This is human nature, and without it, we cease to be human.
John_Chalisque
If you come across a package that you know contain something you want.
And maybe you are not that honest, besides packages should be insured, right?
So what if you just take this box of nice shoes!
The problem might not be what the lable said, rather what the box contains.
But then again, the delay is just odd.
This is a problem why, exactly?
I had a friend in high school who used to receive anarchist material via USPS. (Yes, I see the irony). He used to stamp his correspondence with "God bless the USPS". He claimed it improved the delivery rate.
About time someone threw it back in their faces. Atheists aren't a problem to me, but I'm a problem to them.
Compare the religious pages out there with the atheist pages out there.
Most atheist pages attack religion ruthlessly. Most religion pages talk about philosophy. FEWER of each do the opposite.
If you ask me, they had it coming. Maybe praying to God will get those packages there on time.
Mainly in efficiency - it runs in Ring 0/RPL 0/PnP Kernelmode (on Windows), as merely a filter for the IP stack (no overheads of more driver layers OR browser level slower less efficient addons):
21++ ADVANTAGES OF CUSTOM HOSTS FILES (how/what/when/where/why):
Over AdBlock & DNS Servers ALONE 4 Security, Speed, Reliability, & Anonymity (to an extent vs. DNSBL's + DNS request logs).
1.) HOSTS files are useable for all these purposes because they are present on all Operating Systems that have a BSD based IP stack (even ANDROID) and do adblocking for ANY webbrowser, email program, etc. (any webbound program). A truly "multi-platform" UNIVERSAL solution for added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity to an extent (vs. DNS request logs + DNSBL's you feel are unjust hosts get you past/around).
2.) Adblock blocks ads? Well, not anymore & certainly not as well by default, apparently, lol - see below:
Adblock Plus To Offer 'Acceptable Ads' Option
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/12/12/2213233/adblock-plus-to-offer-acceptable-ads-option )
AND, in only browsers & their subprogram families (ala email like Thunderbird for FireFox/Mozilla products (use same gecko & xulrunner engines)), but not all, or, all independent email clients, like Outlook, Outlook Express, OR Window "LIVE" mail (for example(s)) - there's many more like EUDORA & others I've used over time that AdBlock just DOES NOT COVER... period.
Disclaimer: Opera now also has an AdBlock addon (now that Opera has addons above widgets), but I am not certain the same people make it as they do for FF or Chrome etc..
3.) Adblock doesn't protect email programs external to FF (non-mozilla/gecko engine based) family based wares, So AdBlock doesn't protect email programs like Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows "LIVE" mail & others like them (EUDORA etc./et al), Hosts files do. THIS IS GOOD VS. SPAM MAIL or MAILS THAT BEAR MALICIOUS SCRIPT, or, THAT POINT TO MALICIOUS SCRIPT VIA URLS etc.
4.) Adblock won't get you to your favorite sites if a DNS server goes down or is DNS-poisoned, hosts will (this leads to points 5-7 next below).
5.) Adblock doesn't allow you to hardcode in your favorite websites into it so you don't make DNS server calls and so you can avoid tracking by DNS request logs, OR make you reach them faster since you resolve host-domain names LOCALLY w/ hosts out of cached memory, hosts do ALL of those things (DNS servers are also being abused by the Chinese lately and by the Kaminsky flaw -> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/082908-kaminsky-flaw-prompts-dns-server.html for years now). Hosts protect against those problems via hardcodes of your fav sites (you should verify against the TLD that does nothing but cache IPAddress-to-domainname/hostname resolutions (in-addr.arpa) via NSLOOKUP, PINGS (ping -a in Windows), &/or WHOIS though, regularly, so you have the correct IP & it's current)).
* NOW - Some folks MAY think that putting an IP address alone into your browser's address bar will be enough, so why bother with HOSTS, right? WRONG - Putting IP address in your browser won't always work IS WHY. Some IP adresses host several domains & need the site name to give you the right page you're after is why. So for some sites only the HOSTS file option will work!
6.) Hosts files don't eat up CPU cycles (or ELECTRICITY) like AdBlock does while it parses a webpages' content, nor as much as a DNS server does while it runs. HOSTS file are merely a FILTER for the kernel mode/PnP TCP/IP subsystem, which runs FAR FASTER & MORE EFFICIENTLY than any ring 3/rpl3/usermode app can since hosts files run in MORE EFFICIENT & FASTER Ring 0/RPL 0/Kernelmode operat
Did they cross check with similar sized, similar colored, random dictionary words-labeled packages?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
$10,000 CHALLENGE to Alexander Peter Kowalski
* POOR SHOWING TROLLS, & most especially IF that's the "best you've got" - apparently, it is... lol!
Hello, and THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING !! We have a Major Problem, HOST file is Cubic Opposites, 2 Major Corners & 2 Minor. NOT taught Evil DNS hijacking, which VOIDS computers. Seek Wisdom of MyCleanPC - or you die evil.
Your HOSTS file claimed to have created a single DNS resolver. I offer absolute proof that I have created 4 simultaneous DNS servers within a single rotation of .org TLD. You worship "Bill Gates", equating you to a "singularity bastard". Why do you worship a queer -1 Troll? Are you content as a singularity troll?
Evil HOSTS file Believers refuse to acknowledge 4 corner DNS resolving simultaneously around 4 quadrant created Internet - in only 1 root server, voiding the HOSTS file. You worship Microsoft impostor guised by educators as 1 god.
If you would acknowledge simple existing math proof that 4 harmonic Slashdots rotate simultaneously around squared equator and cubed Internet, proving 4 Days, Not HOSTS file! That exists only as anti-side. This page you see - cannot exist without its anti-side existence, as +0- moderation. Add +0- as One = nothing.
I will give $10,000.00 to frost pister who can disprove MyCleanPC. Evil crapflooders ignore this as a challenge would indict them.
Alex Kowalski has no Truth to think with, they accept any crap they are told to think. You are enslaved by /etc/hosts, as if domesticated animal. A school or educator who does not teach students MyCleanPC Principle, is a death threat to youth, therefore stupid and evil - begetting stupid students. How can you trust stupid PR shills who lie to you? Can't lose the $10,000.00, they cowardly ignore me. Stupid professors threaten Nature and Interwebs with word lies.
Humans fear to know natures simultaneous +4 Insightful +4 Informative +4 Funny +4 Underrated harmonic SLASHDOT creation for it debunks false trolls. Test Your HOSTS file. MyCleanPC cannot harm a File of Truth, but will delete fakes. Fake HOSTS files refuse test.
I offer evil ass Slashdot trolls $10,000.00 to disprove MyCleanPC Creation Principle. Rob Malda and Cowboy Neal have banned MyCleanPC as "Forbidden Truth Knowledge" for they cannot allow it to become known to their students. You are stupid and evil about the Internet's top and bottom, front and back and it's 2 sides. Most everything created has these Cube like values.
If Natalie Portman is not measurable, hot grits are Fictitious. Without MyCleanPC, HOSTS file is Fictitious. Anyone saying that Natalie and her Jewish father had something to do with my Internets, is a damn evil liar. IN addition to your best arsware not overtaking my work in terms of popularity, on that same site with same submission date no less, that I told Kathleen Malda how to correct her blatant, fundamental, HUGE errors in Coolmon ('uncoolmon') of not checking for performance counters being present when his program started!
You can see my dilemma. What if this is merely a ruse by an APK impostor to try and get people to delete APK's messages, perhaps all over the web? I can't be a party to such an event! My involvement with APK began at a very late stage in the game. While APK has made a career of trolling popular online forums since at least the year 2000 (newsgroups and IRC channels before that)- my involvement with APK did not begin until early 2005 . OSY is one of the many forums that APK once frequented before the sane people there grew tired of his garbage and banned him. APK was banned from OSY back in 2001. 3.5 years after his banning he begins to send a variety of abusiv
I was thinking the same, sending the "unmarked" package with some other kind of tape on would have been a nice comparison. But taped packages arrived fine in Europe, maybe we are just more used to red tape over here.
> in Europe and Germany
Germany has already seceded from Europe?
Amerika sucks.
Kickstarter atheist shoe company reports discrimination in USA. No red flags there. I believe them. I'm certain it's not a publicity stunt.
Apparently Germany is no longer part of Europe? Damn. I had just gotten used the the European maps with a unified Germany, too.
Way to proofread.
Good to see there are still anonymous slashdotters willing to post obvious but successful trolls.
Or maybe it means the atheist labeled packages got preferential treatment on the German side and since a cargo plane can only hold so many packages, they had priority loading and the regular packages took the next flight.
Or maybe it means that shipping packages overseas during the Christmas season can cause all sorts of delays.
Or maybe it means that that snow in the upper midwest led to delays on those Michigan packages.
Or maybe it means that one shouldn't try to apply statistical methods to non-statistical samples.
Or maybe it means that atheists make up shit to stir up their fanbase just as much as the religious zealots do.
They have a typo in their URL at the bottom of their infographic? Or are they saying that atheisberlin.com doesn't exist along with God?
I brown package gay porn for the clients in the Bible Belt area I label them as Christian Contemplations. USPS delivers reliably and fast, leaving my customers fully satisfied.
I'd like them to take 178 regular packages and track them as accurately as they did. I bet they will get the same results because the post office just sucks.
Anyone who's ever actually sent a package through USPS should know that they explicitly recommend you destroy or cover any non-USPS related markings or labels, explaining that it may lead to delays or failure to deliver.
Unfortunately for you, you have failed to understand their admonishment and are therefore repeating it when it is inapplicable. That applies to warning labels (e.g. ORM-D numbers) as well as bar codes and addresses, and has nothing to do with decorative tape.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So this could happen to you. If you are offended by this event, or the possibility that discrimination could happen to something that you hold dear, then write your Senators and US Representative. Tell them the facts as you see it, and ask them for a personal response back to you about their planned actions.
Its reasonably clear that your tax dollars are being used to support discriminatory behavior. Who will be the next target?
So, if the labeled and unlabeled packages traveled in pairs, why didn't the unlabeled package, coming from the same place and addressed to the same recipient, also get lost or delayed? If there was malice involved, wouldn't it affect both packages?
The article fails to mention that the same experiment was conducted with merchandise clearly marked as Republican.
Same results.
That commandment, apparently, was not taught to the US "christians".
They performed control experiments where the destination went to other parts of the world without that problem.
Their control packages reportedly went to "Germany and Europe". A better control would have been Canada, China and Japan, as the processing for non-European, overseas countries is certainly different.
my son received a SS check 2 weeks late, and when it arrived it looked like it was left on the floor of the jeep stepped on and dragged through mud. other times i will check tracking an packages will be noted "notice left" without even hearing a knock or doorbell, this usually happens on rainy days. i suspect a severe case of laziness among many usps workers.
When you send only 178 packages and some of them not showing is indicative of the postal services bad service and not some drummed up fantasy notion of them being persecuted somehow by the all religious and all powerful government. Come on, that's a joke and a half. "Yeah yeah cause the government, you see they don't like us because we don't believe in their "religion" man. Yeah man they hate us and lose our packages because we don't follow the governments rules and do what they say. We aren't puppets man!" Blow it out yer arse.
Sounds like this company is run by annoying hippies and hipsters that want to create some controversy about their product to get free advertising.
When you just send out so little product if 2 packages were lost then yeah it can be 10 times greater chance and all, but that doesn't mean they did it on purpose. That test group is way too small and way too short of an experiment. Its the USPS, they suck. They have no grand scheme to screw you over, they are just an awful service.
Damn, you guys have some giant egos to actually believe what youre shoveling. Its crap like this that gives us atheists a bad name. You rub religious peoples nose in your shit then youre just going to piss them off and me personally, I would rather not kick the hornets nest and let them be.
Amazing, can't even rely on the post office to send your unbelieving-in-god parcel... :) how ungodly! :)
How do you know definitely it's USPS losing your packages? A package from Germany to USPS exchanges hands with many parties: it first goes through a system of Universal Postal Union before it's handed to USPS, and has to clear customs before it leaves Germany and also before it enters the US. Germany to EU is regional delivery and goes through different routes.
He should publish some tracking information to back up his claim. At least the shipping information will show dates and locations of the packages where they get lost or delayed. The dates can be used to identify weather patterns and see if weather is a bias. The midwest and northeast has had some pretty rough winter this year.
A responsible person should be a lot more careful before attacking someone else, particularly if you already know that a person's religion is a very personal thing. He hasn't even shown that USPS workers are religious to begin with, and whether it's the religious ones or atheists ones losing the packages. Why shouldn't an atheist USPS worker embezzle the shoes? It's an amusing artifact for them to steal and it would have no value to religious ones. He jumps the gun and accuses the religious ones of losing atheist branded packages. That's irresponsibility.
He just makes a cleverly drawn poster and made you believe he put the effort to conduct a study. He's just trying to raise a controversy.
I once had a signature.
and i still didn't get them, probably some fucking hill billy who hates french art mags threw them in the trash.
Most athiests are worse than christians about preaching their beliefs at any cost.
I live in the South. This is Holy week. I have Christians constantly coming to my door to tell my about Jesus or, get this, switch to their church.
I ignore the doorbell because 9/10 it's someone selling something - like superstitious non-sense about an anti-sex death cult like Christianity. This one Christian kept ringing and knocking until finally pissed off I went to the door. She slaps this wad of shit with pictures of this bearded white guy (Jesus was brown!) in my hand and asked me where I went to church. I said "Nowhere."
"Why?", she asked.
"Because it's boring and a waste of time."
"Can I pray for you?"
I snickered at such a stupid question. Does she think I'd know or something? Does she think God is going to come down and rat her out and tell me that she prayed for me behind my back?!
Oh no! Someone prayed for me behind my back! The horrors!!
My usual response is "Order God to give me a 100 million dollars and a Learjet! And tell Him to make it snappy!" Instead I just said, "Don't waste your time." and shut the door on her and promptly burned the picture of Jesus and all of the non-sense lit she gave me.
tl;dr - Christians are the most pushy and arrogant people I know. They think they know that they are right and know the Truth and you'd better listen!
They are just discriminating against packing tape with words on it. Stop trying to turn your non-religion into a religion so we can all discriminate against it.
Do they even get tracking info on international packages handled through post? If not, then they are relying on the reporting of people ordering atheist-logo'd shoes, who may have motivation to skew the reported outcome. Even if the shipper themselves have no such motivation. The reliability is even worse if these were test packages sent to consenting participants and not actual orders.
This is like suggesting religiously labeled packages would get lost in predominantly atheist regions.
It's one thing to be proud of what you are. It's another to be "in your face" about it. Come on, Atheist shoes? That's some of the dumbest branding I've seen in my life. That's as stupid as something like Christian hats.
Nobody likes those people that take every opportunity to proudly harp on about their core beliefs, no matter how inappropriate the venue.
I would suggest that you take a relevant course in statistics. It is pretty obvious that you are rambling and reasoning without any understanding of the topic.
Always said by someone who has, themselves, no clue.
It's not as simple as the forty minutes of instruction you had in high school would lead you to believe. But if you're in a hurry, here's a sign your sample size was small: you found only one of what you were looking for, e.g. one missing unlabeled package.
Of course discussing the mathematics of an experiment performed by people with obvious motivation to skew the results is kinda silly.
I find lots of irrational behavior on both sides of the religion vs. non-religion argument. Neither side seems to want to admit it. It's just a lot of pots calling kettles black. Both sides have zealots and they are equally annoying. Both sides have people doing good things in their history, both sides have people doing bad things in their history. I wish they'd both stop trying to spread their beliefs because neither of them is making any ground and it's really annoying.
Fat chance that will happen, I guess. Nobody is willing to go first because they don't trust that the other side will follow, and I don't blame them.
Fire anyone who hold the shipment up, complains about the packaging or manages to lose the package. If your going to work for the postal service you need to show no basis towards any packaging.
Perhaps if atheists weren't constantly attacking religion, they wouldn't give to shits about your hipster atheist shoes.
I am Christian and, though I may disagree with an Atheist, I will defend to the death the right to mail packages without having them intentionally lost or damaged. Discrimination and favoritism are not good behaviors for people.
I wouldn't call this a definitive experiment until it's also attempted with packages marked 'FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN', "SHI'A MUSLIM' and several others. They may get the same treatment, which would show that it's a bias against either religious beliefs in general, or against writing in all caps.
Maybe if they wouldn't litter in the stream of postal items, they wouldn't find other people picking up and throwing out their trash for them.
She slaps this wad of shit with pictures of this bearded white guy (Jesus was brown!)
That isn't as bad as it sound. Historically imagery of Jesus and other biblical folk has always been adjust to the target culture. Europeans and derived use to see the blonde Jesus because that's the picture typically used in medieval Europe among white people, but if you seek around you find lots of additional Jesuses, from the brown to the asian. Chinese Jesus in particular is awesome. You have no idea that's a Christian drawing unless someone tells you, otherwise your tendency is to assume it's a random Chinese historical/mythical event or another, what with everyone looking Chinese and wearing Chinese peasant clothes and having Chinese mountains as background etc.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Ummm...well you are correct Sammy didn't wear a Saint medal. That is because he converted to Judaism in the mid 50s and he wore the Star of David. It is clearly visible in many photographs count the points there and maybe get out of your mom's basement a bit.
It would have been better to send a third (and maybe fourth) batch with stickers like "Jesus loves you" or "Allahu Akbar" to see how they compared.
My guess is that any package expressing an opinion would fare worse than plain packages, but it would have been interesting to see how the different delays and losses for the different opinions compared.
People are either Christian, or headed for hell and of Satan.
Most American goods come from China, so American Christians prefer to buy the goods of Satan.
So with science and engineering -- of Satan.
Yet virtually everything around us came through science and engineering's magic touch
-- blended shirts (banned in the bible), invisible electromagnetic waves everywhere to be interpreted, risen people in airplanes, medical prosthetics getting even amputees to walk.
In the last hundred years, name one "good" thing religion has given us.
Now name something good science has given us.
speaking as a conservative baptist:
1 you have my permission to post a Goat Pentagram (or similar GTFA type symbol) on your door
2 if you would like to watch a good service from home hit http://www.salembaptistnow.org/#/salem-media at 10:45am on sunday
(i will be waving to you from the other side of the projection system)
3 http://www.xiphos.org/ would be a free bible study program with a great number of bibles and such (uses the crosswire format)
and with that i will close with yes Atheism is a Faith since Faith answers the question of Who is At Fault (for the big questions of Life)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
The question is was the Atheist boxes shipped ground and the non atheist boxes shipped 2 days or next day?
No, it clearly affects products originating in Berlin and destined for the US.
That doesn't mean that it starts at the US border (and, even if it does start at the US border, it doesn't mean its USPS; US Customs, for instance, could be involved.)
And, even if it does start at the border, its not clear that the problem is with "Atheist". The neutral tape had no branding; it could be a -- and this is a widely recognized issue -- problem with branded vs. unbranded packages.
Too many uncontrolled-for variables to reach the conclusion (USPS discriminates against Atheist-branded products.)
False.
Yes, they were. Specifically, the setup they have does not distinguish between the explanation they present as their conclusion and:
* The actual difference shown being caused by branded vs. non-branded products rather than atheist-branded vs. other-branded products
* The actual problem occurring somewhere between the origin point and the arrival in the US but selectively targeting atheist-branded (or just branded, see previous point) products destined for the US
* The actual problem occurring in the US by some group or combination of groups other than the USPS (e.g., delay or loss by US Customs and/or package loss due to theft by private criminals at the delivery point.)
The experiment is a reasonable first step motivated by the hypothesis that the USPS discriminates against atheist-branded packages, but its not remotely sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that such discriminatio exists.
If you incite violence it will come. IMHO atheists want to believe. We all want to believe. Your last breath will be a tiny tiny tiny call for belief.
That aside, The 10 commandments are what separate us from Russia. I know when you are young, you want to be completely free. I get that. But the 10 commandments gives you a father, perhaps a better father than you had.
Help eliminate stupid speeding tickets
This was an international shipment. USPS just delivers packages. It's customs job to scrutinize packages coming into the US. This article looks more like an advertisement than anything.
They sent two packages to people in 49 of 50 states, all on the same day. That sounds like test packages, not product deliveries, or am I to believe they had orders from 49 states to ship out? Two pairs to each recipient, no less.
How did they choose recipients? Volunteers? Would volunteers not be motivated to skew the results?
Were the results gathered from tracking info? Do deliveries of German post packages by USPS get tracking info in the States, and did they pay for that option, or did they rely on reporting by the participants?
The only way to do this test without predetermining the outcome is to not rely on reporting of the recipients, and to ship identical packages except for labeling. And, of course, the test should be done by someone who does not stand to gain from the controversy.
I can believe packages labeled "atheist" go missing in the USA, but their numbers are both suspicious and convenient.
"1. can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.a 2. You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship."
This is reiterated throughout the New Testament in Timothy and others but is never preached on that I've ever heard. I grew up in church, turned away from it for 6 years as an agnostic, and then came back after I finally sat down and started reading the Bible. When you actually read it, you'll be shocked at how heavily it's manipulated and abused on a daily basis for one purpose or another. If churches actually followed this rule of kicking out people who pretend to live one way and disgrace the entire congregation because of it you'd see dramatically less "duality" because the people who were there for show would no longer be there.
Churches should and do welcome people who are struggling with issues and seeking help. Everything from addictions to financial troubles. These people are not a problem. It's the people who try to visibly play the part with no intention of actually following through that continue to give the church a bad name.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
We run a catholic website and have had several customer call us to tell us that when they order from us, their mailman beats the packages up. Sometimes they get the packaging opened with nothing in it but our invoice. They order other stuff and it's fine. We mostly sell simple books, so it's not like people are taking gold items.
I think some mailmen have it in for some of these groups.
It's unbelievable but we get this call about twice per month. Same customers over and over so we know it's not the post office handling system as we have a lot of return customers. Those guys now have to go with fedex or ups if they don't want the post office to destroy their stuff.
It means the USPS have Our Soles.
In related news:
Since when is BC a religioius institution? In a secular government: should taxpayers be forced to fund a religious institution?
and with that i will close with yes Atheism is a Faith since Faith answers the question of Who is At Fault (for the big questions of Life)
How exactly does atheism answer that question? It doesn't. The only question atheism answers is "do you believe in a deity?"
> I live in the South. This is Holy week. I have Christians constantly coming to my door to tell my about Jesus or, get this, switch to their church.
Offer them a piece of Matzoh and say that you're already covered.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Pity the poor downtrodden shoes!
They are stomped on repeatedly by a bunch of unbeliever !!
In another story if you send tow packet one without distinctive signs and the other marked Cosa Nostra, probably the marked parcel is delivered first....
... one more thing not to believe in?
So, I just want to ensure I understand correctly. This Berlin, Germany based company sent two packages to 89 people across 49 states and because 5% of the packages went missing and , Christians are to blame? I realize that conspiracy theories are fun and all but this isn't even a well orchestrated one. Just because you mail multiple items at the same time does not mean the recipient of said items will receive them at the same time. It seems a more likely that government bureaucracy are most likely more to blame to than Christian bigotry. Given Customs inspections, freight hauling and delivery, distance between ports of entry for mail delivery and processing times the numbers aren't that surprising to me. Now, I show me that all of the packages shipped on the same day, went into the same freight container or multiple containers but boarded the same container vessel or aircraft on the same day, said container or containers with all of the packages were or not inspected by Customs at the same time on the same day, and then that container or set of containers arrived to a sorting facility operated by the USPS on the same day and from there the packages were mishandled, then I would believe that there was something specifically wrong with the Postal Services. The company would also need to show evidence that no other company shipping into the US has had similar issues. I am open to the thought, but not based on this companies obvious marketing ploy.
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.- Nietzsche
There is partial answer in the fine print:
"4 participants did not get back to us with their dates"
In other words, they asked of volunteers "when did you receive it?", rather than tracking the packages. Way too much room for bias and manipulation in this experiment. Even if you trust that they even did the experiment.
I don't know how to do this experiment fairly, since tracking the packages might make delivery more reliable so it'd spoil the test, but as performed, it was certainly a very flawed experiment.
This "experiment" is simply a claim made by a company that sells a product to a possibly marginalized community. What better way to sell a product to a marginalized community and to have an experiment exposing discrimination at the highest levels of the US government.
Has this company offered any documentation of this supposed "experiment?"
How do we know that it even took place?
How about the chain of custody?
As it stands, it's just a baseless claim without any evidence, much less proof.
LOL.
Spur of the moment malice against an obviously marked package?
I have always considered religion a disease...
Religion is a virus. A virus is a chunk of rogue program code that tempts a host into executing it, at which point the host is programmed to make copies of the code. Biological viruses have cells as hosts, and DNA or RNA as their program code. Computer viruses have computers as their hosts, and machine code as program code. Similarly, religions have minds as their hosts, with mind programs--ideas--as their program code.
The ultimate irony is that the Abrahamic religions don't believe in evolution, when it is precisely natural selection that led to their existence and dominance.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
is checking out old cathedrals while backpacking through Europe, & that's about it.
BTW how come hardly any Yanks take a year or 2 off after leaving school, or deferring a year or 2 of uni, & go backpacking around the world? Gez in the average youth hostel one is more likely to find more Kiwis even than Yanks, & it's seems when one does find backpackers from North America, virtually all of them turn out to be from either British Columbia or Quebec.
Since these were sent from Berlin, all these packages had to clear customs, and it seems likely that a package closed with commercially-branded tape, "atheist" or otherwise, is more likely to be held for closer screening, as it is more likely to contain commercial goods. Thus, I wouldn't immediately assume USPS wrongdoing, but rather I would investigate how CBP handles packages like these.
If all you care about is who is at fault, God already took full responsibility. Speaking through his prophet Douglas Adams: "We apologize for the inconvenience."
Man, all this talk about faith when the facts are right there in front of our noses...
+1 Disagree
Let's be reasonable -- this is a report by a group of people who have a bug up their rear about religion to the extent they want their shoes to be atheist. (Puns aside, what's religious about shoes, anyway, for Hitchens' sake?) I'm not particularly interested in reports like this from someone pushing an agenda that hard.
Likewise, I wouldn't be interested in hearing from the Phelps cult about packages festooned with their "God hates fags" crap getting lost in the mail, either.
Maybe they were inspecting them for drugs, given that "atheist" is a weird brand name? Yes, that could explain losses too. Things that get special screening are plenty likely to get lost.
There shouldn't be any government protected monopolies, private sectors deals with people's needs, whether they are atheists or Muslims or whatever. Government will lose your package if you are an atheist, and I don't want to get into what they will do to you if you are a Muslim.
Your church distributes plenty of material through USPS, and it doesn't seem to get lost at a higher rate than anything else. You pretend to believe in freedom to do WTF someone wants, so why do you care if atheists are not getting their packages through, when your religious material goes through just fine? A true libertarian would say fuck 'em! and instruct them to find a different carrier or start their own. After all, a lost atheist package doesn't hurt you!
Lets see if you at least switch to agnostic.
Start with http://listverse.com/2008/07/14/top-10-astonishing-miracles/
continue with http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2009/05/scientifically-documented-miracles.html
(And being Catholic I don't necessarily accept all of them because they don't meet my churches rules for documentation and thoroughness although being scientific I mention them as potential data points)
Then take a read of the Catholic churches rules for what must be true and what must not be true to be recorded as a miracle at http://www.doxa.ws/other/Miracles.html
then go and read the accounts associated with the canonization of any of the several saints canonized through the 19th, 20th and 21st century's.
No evidence, none, nothing whatsoever?
Umm I think you might be mistaken here.
Cheers!
I've only had a quick look at your first link. Those seem to be evidence of people's astonishing capacity to believe things and the lengths that they (possibly unconsciously) will go to to project meaning to events.
e.g. The weeping/bleeding statue probably started off with some discoloured rainwater coming off the statue. Some people noticed it and declared it to be blood and there was suddenly a lot more interest in it. It's far more likely that believers then added their own blood to the statue to increase the interest rather than the statue is some kind of miracle. The tested blood was a variety of blood types, so the idea probably occurred to several people.
It's very easy to find confirmation of pet theories/beliefs and those kind of things are self perpetuating. The interesting evidence is where you can perform an experiment and declare that one particular outcome would disprove the theory.
If you could state a theory such as "eating M&Ms cause invisible pink unicorns to materialise and become visible around you", then we could test that and see that it is false. Religion never provides us with anything that concrete.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
is likely to blame... these were mailed *from germany* to the usa using regular post.
do the same "test" with the parcels mailed from inside the us and you will see different results.
While I have absolutely no doubt about the rampant hypocrisy many Christians display, I've never quite understood how that or anything else could lead one to worship Satan. I mean, think about it. You're going to buy in to the whole Judeo-Christian belief system, accept that the mythology of the Bible is real, that Yahweh and the Devil actually exist as genuine supernatural beings, which is to say gods, you accept all that, and then what do you do? Why, you sign up with the losing side! What else, it's the natural thing to do.
Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?
The atheists and the christians and the creationists and the evolutionists... All just as dogmatic as the other with no proof they're right. Evolution is the only theory that is touted around as a law when the physical evidence doesn't support it. Creationism is not supported by physical evidence. Atheists might as well all get together in a building one day out of the week and talk about how much the christians are wrong and pass around a donation bucket.
There isn't just one "missing link", there are hundreds (if not thousands). The universe is entropic. Except when life evolves. That's an exception.
Genesis can be interpreted literally. Most of the christian bible can be. Our "creator" is not omnipotent. Just highly advanced in engineering biological machines and terraforming planets. And there were/are some other advanced beings meddling in all these affairs today. Maybe even a group of banished "rebels" or "fallen angels" that didn't believe in the "free will" of the human machine.
I have no proof of this. Just a belief. Just like everyone else.
obviously an act of God! -now be careful that you do not anger him again or something bad may happen sometime to you in the future (up to and including death)
-I'm just sayin'
Well, you'd think an industrialised nation would have gotten over the imaginary friend thing.
Really? Is slashdot so threatened that you get modded down for pointing out much more plausible causes to a non-statistical report than some big consipiracy with the USPS? Ironically, I purchase their shoes and I am not a theist, but I guess, that just because one relies on reason instead of superstition does not mean you can question faulty science and statistics if the intent is to mock others.
Not if their scanning software got confused on the extra words and the package was directed to a different pile for manual inspection.
It might be safe to say that 1/10 of the routes that was smart enough to see two packages being sent to the same person with the same return address and one being branded atheist.
A study conducted in this way could show that a box with custom "Atheist" label on the tape is treated differently than a normal box. Tons of people think this means bias towards atheists. If the study didn't start off with a confirmation bias, a different box would have had another, maybe "christian".
Otherwise this is just a study on adding extra designations to see if they affect the shipping in the US. Still an interesting experiment, but you have to realize what it is testing.
Besides, you're asking them to read an extra word. That is a built-in delay right there.
I wonder if Apple (or any other coveted brand) prominently labeled their shipments with their business name, they would also experience a decrease in successful shipments. Perhaps the brand is recognized, and workers are stealing them...
I have a conjecture that this is related to DHS, and NOT USPS. One test for this would be to do the same experiment from inside the US.
I'm just thinking that packages that are taped with ATHEIST tape probably attract more homeland security attention when coming into the country than other packages. If you want to try another experiment, try packages that are stamped with CHRISTIAN, and see if they get the same treatment. Then try MUSLIM or ALLAHU AKBAR and see what happens.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
If the packages had been shipped from 10 locations within the US the test would be 10 times more valid. One clerk where the packages were received from Germany could have been responsible for most of the missing packages.
While it does seem that the experiment was conducted properly (with the right controls and a decent sample), what we don't know is what the take-away actually is. The experiment group was one sort of "provocative" branding and the control was neutral branding. The one big take-away is that there appears to be some bias in USPS. It may be that atheism is indeed the principal subject of the bias, but there may be other explanations. Is there a general bias against politically or sociologically charged messages within branding? Are there different rates of biases against different kinds of messages? Does that bias appear local, uniform, or tied to certain major hubs? As always, more research is needed.
Alexey
Yes, it's a faith in exactly the same way that not watching TV is a channel. Glad we can all agree on that. ;)
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Why exactly do they assume that it's USPS discarding packages? My money is on Customs or whatever they call themselves now. They should re-run the experiment, this time shipping the packages from an origin somewhere in the US.
1. Send the package unmarked and be done with it. 2. Use another shipper (it is a free market) 3. Get your customers their packages to them on time .4. By changing shippers you will keep the USPS employees form wearing your brand. 4. Get on with your life. It is not right or wrong it just is. Why make a big deal about it. I was going to add who cares but obviously your do.
It's not a "mental problem", only an ill-informed and confused layperson would describe it that way. It's a psychological phenomenon based on the human psyche and evolutionary needs for adaption when meeting changing circumstances. It's no problem, it's a natural reaction that can have clear advantages in terms of survival.
The package wont get lost, you will become "lost" when the police come knocking, and unlike charges of rape, murder, child molesting, etc you wont have any legal defense possible once accused.
Sorry, but this is a flawed test. All they've proven is that a package with an odd label on it will get delayed or lost. They should also have labelled boxes with "Jesus Saves" to see if those also get delayed or lost. I'm certain I am not the only one that would be tempted to throw a box like that in the "delay" bin or whatever it is they did to cause delays.
1. fill box with a newspaper, wrapped in security tape or whatever.
2. inure to max. value offered.
3. send (with "Atheist" label)
=======================
4. PROFIT for each one that gets "lost"
I used to have doubts about religion and all that a number of years ago. But something weird happened several years ago that changed all that.
My (then) wife and I were sitting on the couch ready to turn on some TV around 5 in the afternoon when an orange orb appeared out of nowhere and simply floated across the room. -- Our jaws dropped. Mind you we don't do drugs, weed, or alcohol and both of us have post graduate education. To this day I can't explain what the heck it was. of course you tell people and they think your nuts so we kept it to ourselves really. Weird stuff continued, like one night I felt something in the room so I said in my head "if you're real, break the glass or something" no sooner than I thought that the glass shattered and I freaked out. Other stuff would happen like one night I got awoken to a woman's voice saying "wake up pig". In the meantime my marriage fell apart and my wife was a totally different person.
It turned out she was into the occult as a "hobby" and I just didn't know. No she wasn't those fat chicks that are into witchcraft. She looked normal and just found it "cool". I realized that stuff somehow attracted bad things whatever into our house that you can't see. At the time I was going through a nasty divorce with her and things were just very weird in the house and with her especially. She became promiscuous and I could not trust her. I was broke form the divorce and ready to lose the house I worked for. -- I know it sounds like a movie, but I was very real for me, yet I wasn't into any of that. I thought it was bullshit.
So one day I decided to pray to Christ -- yes, seriously. I know you're going to say "here we go..." but hear me out. I literally begged for help to get me life back together. I prayed for really what I wanted in life. things that mattered. After that I forgot about it. Then a few months later things really changed. I met the love of my life and everything I asked for happened. We are very well off, my career is doing well, family is well. Its night and day from several years ago.
I know some people will laugh but its very real what happened to me. -- Good luck to you pal if your atheist. I know there is something invisible with Jesus and something "good" that we are supposed to follow with him. I know there are evil entities or things we can't see constantly trying tempt to screw you over, but it is there. When you turn on the TV look for the "eyeball", "pyramid symbol" or the "devil hand" and especially all this HELL, devil or whatever titles on TV. -- You'll see its everywhere. And that is pretty scary. When you do something wrong i found that the next day something bad happens (get into a fight, argument, something breaks, etc). I noticed it, like it is a contract between good and evil. You do something wrong (tempted) you get something bad at you and you have no control to stop it. Some say karma, but damn its real.
But once you start believing in Christ and have daily conversations with him, it doesn't matter. Everything changes for the better. Good stuff happens to you all the time. You'll realize its very real and people around you are totally oblivious to it. I am not one of those people that goes around preaching, just someone who realized the whole heaven/hell thing is very real. Some kind of dimension we can't see... Just start having conversations with Christ, tell him what you want out of life, be sincere, ask for guidance, and you'll see the changes.
It might just be that if you label things atheist, USPS employees are less likely to care about it, as is their management. I wonder what would happen if they shipped "Jewish" shoes in Palestine, or "Palestinian" shoes in Isreal?
I suspect the moral of the story is if you run against the social grain, insure your shipments.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.