I would vote for a ban on regular church bell noise as well if I had the choice. In Germany they also ring at ungodly hours in the morning for most programmers. Just as you wouldn't be able to pass a ban on a mosque's call for prayer in Turkey, you'll have a hard time enforcing a ban on church bells in Europe. That's the reality and I wish religious freedom would extend to not being bothered by any other religion's ritualistic call for prayer/mass.

How is this in the USA? Outside certain districts in Boston, NY or the bible belt, I have this feeling there isn't regular church bell ringing going on, is there? Given the many flavors of Christianity in the US and their possibly differing schedule, this could easily turn into an annoyance, I would guess.

I'm an atheist and I personally don't mind the sound of church bells. As part of general western culture, we associate them with certain things. Stuff like weddings, and to me, I always think of medieval Europe when I hear them. Monasteries, monks, those sorts of things.

However, in contrast, a giant megaphone blaring quite "whiny" or "whingy" (for lack of a better way of describing it) gibberish doesn't evoke anything remotely that normal. The sound itself, without any sort of religious connotation is annoying. I suppose I would find it just as annoying if the sound of church-bells were played over a megaphone, 5 times a day.

I have experience with both and I certainly don't find anything comforting in church bell ringing, and frankly I'm sure people in Turkey (atheists included) are used to muezzins and generally not annoyed by it, just as I am to church bells and live with it because I have no choice. That said, I believe that the way you describe it is how you perceive it, but from my experience I wouldn't call it whiny/whingy. It's short, in Arabic, and basically a singing version of call to prayer. Just as church bells have some form of tune to them, so does the muezzin's call to prayer. If we are to name what one might find personally comforting, I wouldn't mind daily gospel music played for the neighborhood by the local church, but I'm sure someone will find that discomforting as well. And to be clear, I am not a Christian.

My main objection is that if you have religious freedom, then either all churches/mosques/temples get the same freedom to call to prayer or none does. The exclusivity of church bells in Europe and muezzins east of Europe is the basic conflict of fairness here. So, realistically, given that we cannot allow them all, including pagans, satanists (death metal?), the most logical conclusion would be to generally disallow, with exceptions where the population insists on it.

Spain is a quite religious country as far as western Europe goes, and problems with church bells are rare. Most cities and towns I know have by-laws prohibiting noise over a certain amounts of dB during the night (typically 0:00 to 8:00 or so), churches just respect it and don't ring bells during that time. There have been cases of some churches insisting on ringing bells in the night, losing in court and being forced to stop.

In the Bible Belt, at least, I'd suspect that the majority of the population does not live close enough to a church to hear its bells.

While I agree about the howling, that was already not allowed. The referendum was only about the physical minarets. Unfortunately the church clocks make just as much noise in Switzerland.

At least both are short noises at predictable times. I'm very sensitive to noise, but neither church bells here nor the muezzin calling for prayer five times a day in my vacations in islamic countries have ever bothered me.

On the other hand, I wish somebody would actually enforce anti-noise laws against my trash-techno neighbor at night ;)

* > I'm very sensitive to noise, but neither church bells here nor the muezzin calling for prayer five times a day in my vacations in islamic countries have ever bothered me.*

Then I don't think you can characterise yourself as "very sensitive to noise". Perhaps very sensitive to certain kinds of noise, but not noise in general?

I think that's obviously implied. If there was a general sensitivity to every kind of noise anywhere, you wouldn't be able to live. If I said "I have a food allergy", you wouldn't assume I don't eat because I'm allergic to food in general, or would you?

So what did you mean by saying "I'm very sensitive to noise [but not noises of type X and Y]"? How does that not imply a general issue with obtrusive noises?

I've heard of plenty of people who don't have particular sensitivities to noise but find those two types of noise obtrusive.

Not sure "ungodly" is the mot juste here... :p

Anyway I've personally always found the call to prayer quite musical and beautiful.

It's not funny or considerate to assume that there are no Muslims in the HN community...

Or that he's not polite enough to be considerate.