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Piltdown
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
 Posted - 03/19/2002 : 10:52:26
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quote:
The Dr Pepper soft drink firm is drawing criticism from religious groups for omitting the phrase "under God" in an abbreviated version of the Pledge of Allegiance on its "patriot can."
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/pledge1.htm
This has also made an appearance in the Urban Legends file:
http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/outrage/drpepper.htm
There is some slightly weird background here. I've mentioned my crank evangelist friend, Rob S., several times on this board. He used to own a small bookstore down the street from my house in Lubbock. One of his crank disciples, an older man who happened to be related to a very famous celebrity (won't say which one here), was a fanatic about the evils of Dr. Pepper. He would lecture anyone who would listen, for as long as they would listen, on the godless and poisonous nature of this product.
Some of the claims he repeated are popular enough, and durable enough, to rate a mention in the Urban Legend Files: http://www.snopes2.com/business/secret/drpepper.htm
The Dr. Pepper crank cited prune juice as an aspect of the addictive nature of Dr. Pepper, that is, if you ever stopped consuming the evil brew, you would suffer from constipation.
http://www.snopes2.com/cokelore/sperm.htm
The crank elaborated this one into part of a worldwide plot to make birth-control more readily available to sinners and fornicators.
Both Dr. Pepper and fundyism are popular in the South. It is possible, therefore, that fundy activists were already finely tuned to any allegations involving Dr. Pepper well before the infidel-patriot can came out.
Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.
-Robert Lindner
Edited by - Piltdown on 03/19/2002 10:54:40
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