Coffee talk
A lot of people like to get together at coffee shops for casual or business conversation, or casual business conversation. They want their coffee in the cup and their talk with friends and colleagues. Starbucks has started a dialogue on its cups, and not everyone like what they’re saying.
An Ohio woman is steaming after reading an anti-God message published on the side of a Starbucks coffee cup.
The message that got Michelle Incanno’s blood boiling reads:
“Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.”
There you go. We’re causing catastrophes and dreaming up God, according to this guy, and Starbucks has a (let’s hope) momentary lapse of sense and puts his musings on its ubiquitous corporate cups.
The quote was written by Bill Schell, a Starbucks customer from London, Ontario, Canada, and was included as part of an effort by the Seattle-based coffee giant to collect different viewpoints and spur discussion.Â
“As someone who loves God, I was so offended by that,” Michelle Incanno, a married mother of three who is Catholic, told the Dayton Daily News. “I don’t think there needs to be religious dialogue on it. I just want coffee.”
Note that she didn’t say she would prefer Scripture quotes on it, though she is Catholic.
The paper says Incanno wasn’t satisfied with a company disclaimer saying the quote is the author’s opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks, which invites customers to respond on its websiteÂ
Starbucks spokeswoman Sanja Gould said the collection of thoughts and opinions is a “way to promote open, respectful conversation among a wide variety of individuals. “
Starbucks wasn’t so open and respectful last year when I tried to contact them as a radio show host about a news story that some of the troops in Iraq or Afghanistan had requested Starbucks over there, for one of their favorite tastes of home, and were rejected because of the corporation’s dissent against the war. They never responded to me.
Yesterday, I received an email from Paul, a young adult Catholic campus missionary, who is concerned about Starbucks again, and it wasn’t over this new cup dialogue. In part, he wrote:
I just now learned that Starbucks, after backing off of support for abortion and gay rights due to pressure from conservative groups, is now quietly beginning to support them again.
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This is big news to me, being an incredible coffee junkie! I must say, I love Starbucks’ coffee, but now I’ll never be able to enjoy another cup of coffee there.
America is about 86 percent Christian, and I would bet that a huge amount of that population frequents Starbucks. Many of my friends – good Catholic, Christian friends – are daily customers. They are active in the faith and culture, and work to create unity, peace and goodwill wherever they are….which is frequently at a Starbucks, over conversation. It would be hard for them (myself included, for all the times I go there for tea) to give it up. Imagine if all those people felt like Michelle Incanno and Paul, and took their business to a different coffee shop. One with cups that say someting like “warning, contents may be very hot”, instead of paying Starbucks for cups that ask people to consider that God doesn’t exist, or that quote a man saying that life is too short not to enjoy his homosexuality openly, which was on another Starbucks cup.
They want dialogue? Give them one. They want viewpoints? Give them yours. Make it civil, respectful, and unapologetic about not wanting moral relativism with our cup of coffee. Or tea.
0 Comment
Did you even bother to read the comments on the Starbuck’s cups? The quotes on the Starbucks site have great diversity – neither for nor against any one point of view. Are you so afraid of different viewpoints that you can’t be exposed to them? And, believe it or not, many people are deeply offended by having to pass religious displays on public property or hear prayers before public events a far more overt suggestion of how one should believe than a collection of quotes from differing perspectives.
Engaging different viewpoints in the arena of ideas is the foundation of a great society. Before taking on this story, I looked over the site because I do think great and inspiring thoughts quoted in a place that people gather for conversation is a good idea. Imagine the possibilities to elevate human dignity, ennoble people, promote peace. Some of the quotes on the Starbucks cups are terrific, and some funny, but the issue at hand here is that they cross over into the realm of moral relativism. If some of the cups carried a quote about marriage being definitively between one man and one woman, even the Starbucks disclaimer couldn\’t prevent the uproar that would ensue. If it quoted Scripture, same thing. You don\’t have to pay for religious displays on public property, or look at them. People do pay for the very popular Starbucks drinks and shoud be aware of this new campaign.
I do have to look at them if it is a religious Christmas display on my town square – if I am Jewish or a non-believer, this is a direct challenge to my beliefs by my government. I do pay for them with my tax dollars – even if a private entity puts up the display, public officials become responsible for them. The same goes with a prayer before a public school graduation – I would be forced to sit through it. By the way, I am a regular church goer – but I do strongly believe that one’s own religious beliefs should be a matter of individual discretion.
Why is it that whenever someone mentions Christians (or rather, people against Christians) they always talk about Jews and non-believers. What about Muslims, Hindis, or Daoists? If you are for one’s own religious beliefs, then you should include everyone! What about satan-worshippers?
This can all get out of hand. A government that started with a trust in God should continue that, or they should re-write the Constitution. Seeing as how that’s not possible, people should just calm down and think about the good morals the 10 Commandments ensue, or be happy that Christmas trees are entirely secular.