Cortona Coffee Now Open

I was in at 8:30, only one other customer was there. So, not an Evangelical hangout then- not even the owner was there.

Hey, we were passing by the shop as we were picking up trash around the neighborhood this morning, and they offered us free coffee. It's a nice gesture.

If Satan gave you free coffee would you be singing his praises too?

When did you give me free coffee?

If Satan had a car, his license plate frame would read

"Gas, grass, or a**, nobody rides for free"

Cortona is now an advertiser on CDNews, with a campaign that began this morning, and which we welcome as we do all advertisers that support community news.

While we always note "a CDNews sponsor" when we mention an advertiser in any editorial or news context, this story was posted by a CDNews member, not CDNews staff, and we're not in the habit of adding that disclaimer to contributions that come from the public.

I can see how your explanation would occur and not much you can do about it.

Just to be clear, I don't know the owners and am not associated with Cortona or Mars Hill in any way shape or form. I just like good coffee close(r) to home.

I checked it out Saturday mid afternoon - coffee was very good, as was the service. This coffee shop is the most convenient (ie walking distance) to me, but leery of the Mars Hill connection, I'm not sure if I will frequent the place . . .

his name is Barry, he's a character

You'd have to boycott a lot more than those if you didn't want to shop anywhere whose owners opposed gay marriage. To be clear I am strongly pro, but you have to realize we live in our little Seattle bubble here, and even here the recent vote was relatively close. As a nation the approval rating as a whole is probably well below 50%, good luck surviving without using any of the services or products from anybody with that opinion.

Excellent observation, Perez. Here are some comments. While I try to pick apart your logic, I think you make a basic point that is very interesting.

1. Your argument assumes that the issue is whether or not to boycott or refuse to patronize Cortona. There's a broader issue of how Cortona, owned by a leader of a very conservative church, will fit within the context of this very diverse, very liberal community. And by "liberal" I'll offer up a single data point of debatable validity: 94% of my precinct voted for Obama.

2. You seem to be making the argument that others have made in previous posts, which is "It's impossible/impractical to make decisions about where to do business based soley on the religious beliefs of business owners". This argument contains a potential flaw. Let's say that Domino's is owned by hard core Catholics, and I am personally opposed to the beliefs of the owners. If I am a regular Domino's customer, regardless of whether or not I'm aware of the owner's beliefs, that doesn't disqualify me from being able to make other decisions about how to spend my money based on the beliefs of business owners.

3. You may also be making the argument that a single person's spending decisions are irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. You seem to be making this point with your example of Israel and Gaza. It's not a valid argument (Israel is a state, so an effective boycott would be one of Israel and not of Jewish-owned businesses. That argument also relies on the unproveable premise that all Jews support Israel's policies regarding Gaza). There's also... read more e example of the boycott of companies that did business with the apartheid regime in South Africa during the late 1980's. That boycott was generally believed to be successful.

4. You and other commentors may be making a companion argument (one that I'm not sure has been clearly articulated on CD News) that one danger inherent in responding to intolerance is that we become intolerant ourselves. This is the strongest argument of the bunch, but only if you're assuming that a boycott is the primary issue, and only if you're evaluating solely the owner's beliefs and not his position of leadership in a church that advocates views that are likely in direct opposition to views held by a vast majority of residents of this community, and has stated ambitions of influencing public policy in Seattle.

not really taking sides here, but isn't "liberal" also supposed to mean "tolerant" and "open-minded". I know, Mars Hill church is homophobic, racist, sexist, says female prostitution is a strong career path depending on your locale, etc, but have you had a conversation with Will? Have you asked him his views?

Or, as I suspect is the case, have you made up your mind about him (see above) and just enjoy stirring the pot?

Elvis, this is a great response.

I'll take your questions in reverse order:

1. To say that I enjoy stirring the pot is like saying you savored popping a Quaalude now and then. On this site as well as on most other news sites, there's a lot of opinion but not a lot of evidence of rigorous thought. Who cares about hearing someone say "I believe X" when the far more interesting thing is to understand "Why do you believe X?"

2. I haven't made up my mind about Cortona, it's owners, or Mars Hill. I think my own visceral response to the Salon/NYTimes articles says far more about me than it does about Will. So a big part of my comments are aimed at organizing my own thinking.

3. I haven't had a conversation with Will.

Let me just say that your three questions appear to be an "ad hominem" response to the arguments previously laid out. In other words, you may be attempting to disqualify the arguments by attacking the credibility of the speakers instead of countering the arguments themselves. In the study of logic, the argument is examined independently of the speaker's subject knowledge, credibility, or motivation.

4. In your remaining question, about the definition of "liberalism", you're starting to target the meat of the arguments themselves. The flip side of "Who is Will?" and "What are his motives?" is "Who are we?" and "What are our motives or predjudices?" You're hitting a vein of thinking that is worthy of further examination. I think one valid question you could ask is "Are we indeed a liberal community, and by what definition"?

You'll notice I tried to leave myself... read more "out" by qualifying my definition of "liberal" in Commment 1 and by addressing the issue of liberal intolerance in Comment 4 of my previous post.

i didn't know we were deploying the socratic method here.

actually, i never questioned a commenter's credibility, and i certainly didn't attack anybody, although I know you would like folks to believe that so they'll read more of your meanderings.

but alas, you digress, and before you do why don't you go meet the guy who so easily spout off about.

Don't take my comments personally.

I admit that I like the stir the pot, but I'm mainly interested in picking apart the logic of myself and anyone else who comments about this issue.

Instead of "attack", I guess I could have used the word "counter". I certainly didn't mean to infer that you were attacking me personally.

Regarding the questioning of my credibility (or "shortcomings")...there were several replies to the original post, so if you were making a blanket response, then I'd have to agree that you might not have been taking my specific credibility into question. The formation of your response, however, leads me to believe that you were employing an ad hominem argument across all responders, myself included. It seems to me that you were making the argument, "You haven't talked to Will", therefore "Your argument lacks merit".

That argument is clearly an ad hominem argument. You're addressing the shortcomings of the speaker(s) instead of addressing the shortcomings of his or her argument. That's a logical flaw. I don't need to meet Will or gather information from him in order to make a valid argument.

Thanks, Spud! You should come by and see the new store on Thursday 6-9pm during the Cap Hill Art Walk. Free cupcakes and beer and music! :)

How is it an analogy to compare the Wright/Obama fiasco to this? For it to be a relevant analogy, you would have needed to vote for Obama after the news came out that HE made those statements, not his pastor. Or you'd have to be going to Jeremiah Wright's coffee shop after learning that news. But to say voting for Obama after his pastor said some really, really stupid racist shit is the same as buying coffee from the guy who says some really, really stupid misogynistic and homophobic shit just shows ignorance. That being said, enjoy your coffee! :)

Thanks for pointing out my ignorance. I see now that guilt-by-association has nothing to do with this topic. Now please direct me to the "really, really stupid misogynistic and homophobic shit" that this owner / pastor has said. Or are you assuming he has said these things because of this association with that church?