This has been buzzing around for a few days.  Here is the gist of it, from WND.

Anti-God Starbucks cup has customer steaming

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.”

Michelle Incanno of Springboro, Ohio, holds a cup part of Starbucks’ ‘The Way I See It’ campaign (Dayton Daily News)

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.

“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.”

I want to say a few things.  First, until this bruhaha I don’t think I had ever really paid attention to the cup sayings.  heck, most times my coffee has one of those cardboard wimp sleeves on it because it is hot, so I don’t even see the quotes.  I think the today is the first time I have ever removed the sleeve to read it.

And yes, the comment above and some of the others *are* anti god in the sense that they represent the view point of people not interested in God or who don’t believe in God.

Like it or not, those people exist in our world and if Starbucks is true in their claim that no particular issue is a focus, then all issues become open for debate on the cups.

I did look at the Starbucks site, and I admit that from the limited sample I viewed, the comments are somewhat weighted to a secular view.  One was a direct attack on Intelligent Design in fact.

But at the same time another was an attack on Darwinism, and Starbucks has provided more faith traditional examples:

Starbucks provided WND with some cup messages that could be viewed as “pro-God,” including:

The Way I See It #92:

You are not an accident. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wanted you alive and created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal your purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. — Dr. Rick Warren, author of “The Purpose-Driven Life.”

This one is what I would call spiritual without being linked to a particular faith representation.

The Way I See It #158:

It’s tragic that extremists co-opt the notion of God, and that hipsters and artists reject spirituality out of hand. I don’t have a fixed idea of God. But I feel that it’s us – the messed-up, the half-crazy, the burning, the questing – that need God, a lot more than the goody-two-shoes do. — Mike Doughty, musician.

Warren’s clip it should be noted has generated complaints.

I truly enjoy reading the quotes on your cups, as they do spark thought, conversation and debate. Recently my husband and I purchased two drinks, and on his cup was The Way I See It #92. Although I know that these writings are not necessarily the viewpoints of your company, I’m disappointed to see this one on your cup.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully believe that it’s an inspirational and thought-provoking comment, but I am not a Christian, and I don’t appreciate having God’s Plan preached to me via my coffee cup. It’s one thing to read about someone’s point of view, but it’s quite another to read a blatantly religious statement informing me that my purpose is to serve God.

Please know that I am a die-hard Starbucks fan, and I enjoy your products several times a week, and have for over 15 years. This misstep will not change that. I just ask that you consider your “The Way I See It” contributions a little more carefully. My concern is not that it may be offensive to folks like me (that’s my issue to resolve), but that it may be misconstrued to those who do agree with it – they may mistakenly promote your company to be a proponent of their specific agenda, therefore distancing those who do not share the same viewpoints (members of other religions, agnostics, pagans, and so on). I appreciate your time and consideration, and I am inspired by your willingness to not just sell the world a cup of coffee, but to urge people to think and discuss the issues important to them. — Denice Paxton, Santa Ana CA

So my final assessment is that the quotes are diverse because Starbucks represents a diverse customer base.

In the end the enemy here is not Starbucks, it is uber hyper sensitivity and the “don’t offend me” culture that our society has slipped into.  People are too quick to look for offense in any forum, whether intended or not. 

We have become a culture of people afraid to speak lest we offend someone, and a society that spends more time apologizing for perceived offenses then it does anything else.

When did people become so thin skinned?  Why is it right to make assumptions of the worst?

We are a culture of cry baby wimps.

Starbucks has two choices, as I see it.  They can either remove all the quotes and end the program to keep from offending someone, or they should make the quotes so diverse in opinion that they could potentially offend anyone.

Either way, I am more concerned about the liquid in it then the word on it.

People need to get over it.

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