by americans who were born say in the 80s or 90s?

I was just reading about it for the first time. Wow. Did you know that there were public Beatles album and memorabilia burnings in the South?

(where i come from and with my ethnic background people don't know much about american and pop culture)

At face value his comments were definitely quite arrogant and somewhat over the top, as well as displaying disrespect (and im not a christian), but i still think that the response in the US (caused in a large part by the kkk) was even more uncalled for then Lennon's original comments. [In England, also a preomanantly christian country, his remarks were published months before, and there was no reaction at all.]

And btw, what did the Beatles do when in memphis they thought that they were being shot at? Did they run off the stage with their guitars still strapped on? mustve been scary
actually its 'more popular than jesus', here is the wikipedia article -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus