Ahh, those crazy Muslims
I recently received an email imploring me not to buy a certain "muslim stamp" from the post office. Snopes.com has the original email and the breakdown of what is and isn’t true (please be careful if you don’t have an ad blocker installed, snopes has these crazy popups that are very difficult to shut down on my machine).
For the first time in forever, a giant forward started up an actual conversation in email. The first reply laid out that they may be confusing "muslim" with "terrorist", as well as the countless times throughout history that Christians have been involved in murder and terror. I thought it was a pretty good e-mail pointing out the distinction between an entire religions viewpoint and the ravings of violent lunatics (to paraphrase), and figured that was that.
It so wasn’t over.
There was a reply from someone else on this huge list of email addresses (let’s not get started about forwarding things without using Blind Carbon Copy, or BCC). Reproduced in its entirety for shock factor:
You need to slow down and review the facts of history. Yes, Christians have made some mistakes, but Jesus gave solid guidance for people to live a happy life. Most just don’t want to follow his directions.
So, if you think the Muslim way of life is so good, why don’t you relocate to the Middle East, just buy a round trip ticket, because you will be wanting to return to the good ole USA. The Muslim people have one goal, destroy all that believe in Jesus Christ. If they reach a level of power where they can use force to achieve that goal then they will use force. The only reason the USA exist is because they know the cost for a major strike on our country. They only understand strength, that is why they will agree to almost anything, but do exactly what they had planned to do in the beginning.
The American Constitution was written by Christian people so as to provide for a free place to live and worship or not worship, ones choice. There is not one article based on Muslim belief or practice. It is most important we protect our Constitution even though it is under attach by some in Congress and the White House.
I can not imagine a female thinking the Muslim way of life has anything to offer them. Have a great year and make sure you are getting facts when you are trying to make a decision. Don’t buy the Muslim Stamp!
Wow, really? This was a special, special email. I could sense the spittle on her screen.
At this point, I felt like I had to weigh in.
I didn’t ask to be on this list, but if you’re going to email me with your horrible biases, I will not let it pass.
"The Muslim people have one goal, destroy all that believe in Jesus Christ."
Do you know any muslims? Becuase I do – friends of mine who have American families, American children, American businesses, and otherwise both live and believe in the American way of life, if you can call it that. They’re capitalists, they set off fireworks on the fourth of july, and they are devout believers of a religion that is not yours. When you say that all muslim people want to kill people who believe in Jesus Christ, you offend me and every other rational person out there who has taken a moment to actually educate themselves on what other people believe.
Or did you just mean Middle-eastern muslims? Maybe, specifically, Islamic fundamentalists? Because I’ll remind you that it was a christian fundamentalist who recently murdered a doctor in the name of God. He shot and killed another human being in the middle of –church-, and assaulted others who tried to stop him.
The stamp you saw is a ZAZZLE stamp. Not a US Postal Service stamp – you can’t even buy this stamp at the USPS office. Check snopes.com for "muslim stamp".
Muslim Americans are no less American than you are just because their skin isn’t as white as yours, or because their religious establishment doesn’t have a cross upon it.
If you think there’s a giant unspoken conspiracy amongst muslims across the world to destroy christians, I would call you dangerously psychotic. I would point out also that Osama bin Laden had very little to say about the United States being "christian" – he wants to destroy us because of the way we live and the way he thinks we treat others and for our support of Israel. You know, that other religion that doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. That’s right, they want to destroy us because we support another country that doesn’t believe in Jesus (as such).
When you say "they only understand strength" you sound like the white folk of the south from fifty years ago who thought everyone who wasn’t like them were nothing but savages who needed to be beaten into line.
The United States was colonized by people who fled religious persecution in europe because their beliefs were different from others. The people who write the Constitution were Christian, Athiest, and various degrees of non-religious, and while they spoke of God, they did not speak of specific religions. In fact, they made it a point to give us the freedom to believe what we want to believe, and the freedom not to be oppressed by our government into believing whatever the people in power believed, because no one wanted the horrors of the Inquisition to return.
Before you tell everyone to "review the facts of history", I implore you, please, PLEASE pick up a history book, or at least do the basic (flawed, but better than nothing) effort of going to wikipedia.com .
Thanks and cheers,
Scott
I applaud you and your response. People like you give me hope.
Bravo!
*wild applause*
That is awesome. Well done!
Awesome!
Nicely done.
Nicely said.
I’ve also had some limited success with pointing out that, in fact, Muslims do believe in Jesus. And while they may not believe in the crucifixion, they do believe that he was born from the Virgin Mary and that he performed many miracles including rising into heaven. They also believe that he’ll return at the end of days. In many ways, Muslim belief is much more similar to Christianity than Judaism and it goes beyond the three religions all worshiping the same God. Depending on the conversation, it can also be helpful to point out that Christ would probably be quite disgusted if he knew how we were treating his other followers… What Would Jesus Do? Persecute them?
(this tends to work best on the “we don’t say in Allah we Trust” arguments, but has also worked well with the stamp hysteria)
Hmm sounds like the same tune, just with different lyrics ie. a conversation I had w/ a family member a few weeks ago.
Nicely batted! I once took on someone in a mass email and it worked surprisingly well, so there’s hope. (Not much, but more than, say, the likelihood of a Second Coming. ;)
Pure WIN there, Skennedy. Bravo.
Re: Muslims
*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*