First female Muslim member of Pennsylvania House offended by GOP member's prayer before swearing-in

The Barbarian said:

Crying doesn't seem like "poking fun." I was just asking if you held yourself to the same standard. You responded: "WAAAHH."

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I don't know if I'm having some sort of computer problem or something, but from what I can see on my side of this conversation these were two separate posts I was responding to that you seem to be conflating my responses to. The one where you asked me about Native Americans was post #131, and I responded to it with post #134. The one where you brought up Christianity apropos of nothing was post #132, and my reply (with the mocking "Waaah" that seems to have really deeply irritated you) was #135. So I'm not seeing where you were asking me if I held myself to the same standard in post #132, which was all your "But what about Christianity?"-type non-reply and some equally irrelevant thing about Jefferson.

I already replied about the standard to which I hold myself in post #134, and again in #138.

Abbasi points to statistics that show young Muslims are feeling more alienated. Muslim parents report bullying in K-12 school at nearly double the rate of Jewish kids and at more than double and triple the rates of Protestant and Catholic school-age children, respectively. In some cases that bullying is coming from teachers. A survey from the Pew Research Center found that about two-thirds of Muslims don't think other Americans see them as mainstream.
Coping With The Persistent Trauma Of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric And Violence

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Not to make light in any way of the alienation these kids feel (and certainly any bullying form teachers should result in immediate discipline/suspension, and -- depending on what it actually entails -- probably firing; there's no excuse for adults picking on children for the child's or the child's family's religious belief), but my question was: "How is Islam suppressed in the United States? Is conversion to Islam illegal, like conversion from it to anything else is in a lot of the forced-to-be-Muslim world? Are converts to Islam whipped, jailed, and/or threatened with execution, as converts to Christianity are in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Iran?" (The answer to all of these is obviously no, because thanks be to God we live in a secular republic, so it is not true that Islam is suppressed; things like these incidents, no matter how terrible they may be, are not comparable to the official steps taken by governments of several Muslim-majority countries to officially criminalize apostasy from Islam/the growth or embracing of non-Muslim religions in those countries.)

News of arrests in an alleged terrorist plot to attack their small village has sent “shock waves” through Islamberg, a predominantly black Muslim community in upstate New York, residents say.

Now, members of the beleaguered community say they want real action after learning that four young men had allegedly planned to attack their community with homemade explosives and guns.

“We are in shock. Just imagine waking up and having to tell your children about this plot, that their lives are in danger,” Islamberg Mayor Rashid Clark said in a news conference Wednesday (Jan. 23). “If our families are to be safe, we want all suspects caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

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I remember reading about this at the time. It's a horrible (and horribly stupid) thing to see happening on American soil (or anywhere, of course), and the plotters against the peaceful people of Islamberg deserve the harshest punishment that the law allows. I may hate the religion of Islam more than I'm probably allowed to say on this message board, but it is absolutely unacceptable that anyone should ever plot to harm any Muslim for the non-crime of being Muslim, or carry out any violence or threaten violence against them in any way. The Middle Eastern people I know, the vast majority of whom are of various types of Christian minorities (and a few Jews, too), came to this country to escape extremist violence and sectarianism in their homelands, so they don't want to see it repeated here. Protecting religious minorities doesn't mean much if your commitment to the principle stops with regard to those who practice a religion you don't like.

Students reported the comment to authorities, who investigated and found that the 16-year-old was communicating with three other people, identified as fellow Boy Scouts, on the chat service Discord to coordinate an attack.

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I'm very happy and relieved to see that it was fellow students who reported this lowlife to the police.

When the president of the United States is a bigot who pushed for what he called a Muslim ban, it's not surprising that there will be stupid people who act on it.

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I don't disagree, and I'm glad Trump's "Muslim ban" was declared unconstitutional.

In just the first two months of the year, at least four mosques have gone up in flames as attacks against religious minorities have surged.
Those fires follow "the worst year on record for incidents in which mosques were targets of bias," according to the Council of American-Islamic Relations.
CAIR documented 139 incidents of "damage/destruction/vandalism" at mosques last year -- the most since record-keeping began in 2009. It does not track fires separately.
"Islamophobic bias continues its trend toward increasing violence," said Corey Saylor, director of CAIR's Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia.

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That's terrible. Acts against Muslims' property and places of worship are absolutely not acceptable. Again, this is exactly the kind of thing tears people's hearts out when we see it happening again in Egypt at the hands of the Muslim majority there, so we can relate to how this must feel. A burnt down church and a burnt down mosque are both signals of unchecked and dangerous hatred that needs to be addressed immediately.

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he wave of hostility comes as President Donald Trump campaigned on -- then enacted -- a temporary ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries entering the United States. He is said to be drafting a new version after the first was struck down in court.

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I hope his new one fails too.

Here's a look at the mosque fires so far this year:
Spate of mosque fires stretches across the country - CNN

For a Christian, it's not baffling at all. It's what we are called to do.

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I maintain it is baffling in the context of the western world where (a) mosques are freely built (yes, the neighbors will complain on occasion or attempt to get them shut down, but so long as all permits are in places and the proper channels have been gone through to make sure that the operators can care for the building as they are required to, then the legal right is maintained, as is right, and the neighbors simply have to live with it), and (b) when such horrible acts as the mosque burnings or other threats to Muslims' right to first amendment protection do occur, the perpetrators are actually found and punished, rather than exonerated in a case of country-wide 'jury nullification'. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to underplay the very serious reality of anti-Muslim bigotry in the world (these fires did really happen, after all), but the point is more in the state's response than in the fact that the violence happens in the first place.. because it's more the state that decides equal citizenship than whatever fringe of extremist lunatics acting out violent fantasies (whether we're talking about "alt-right" lunatics in the West, or Salafi types in the East) may be able to do.

There's simply no comparison between the response of the Western world in the wake of anti-Muslim violence (where arrests are swiftly made and the guilty go to jail after trials that meet standards of international scrutiny) and the response of the organs of the state in the Muslim world in the wake of anti-Christian violence. For example, in 2000 when 21 Christians got murdered in anti-Christian violence in the village of El Kosheh in Egypt, the only one who went to jail is the one Muslim who accidentally killed a fellow Muslim in the melee. That's second-class citizenship in action, and you know, if the same were to happen to Muslims on a regular basis in the West as it does to Christians and other non-Muslims in the Muslim world, it would probably be the Middle Eastern Christians who would most loudly decry it, since they're the ones who know what it feels like much more than others who would be happy to see Muslims 'getting theirs' or whatever (an attitude that is sadly all too common in the wake of the NZ shooting; I've even asked on this website that people please stop rationalizing or minimalizing the NZ shooting by referencing what Christians in Egypt go through, which is plainly disrespectful to memories of both Muslim and Christian victims of extremist violence). Injustice is injustice, no matter who it may happen to.

Yes, the Supreme Court slapped Trump down on his "Muslim ban." Yes, we don't kill people for being Muslims (although some of us do). And right-wing terrorists aren't burning as many mosques as burn in some countries.

Still, leaves a bad taste in the mouth for anyone who is Christian or American. You can do better than this. You are an American; you're expected to do better than you are doing. If you're a Christian, even more so.

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Of course acts of terrorism ought to leave more than a bad taste in everyone's mouth. I'm not sure how/if this is related to what I've written. I would hope that nothing I've written appears to be pro-terrorism!

Shortly after 9/11, I was in a video store with my daughter. A young woman said to me "I hear this is a very good movie." It was a way to start talking to me. She was Muslim, had a bad experience with someone that day, and was terrified that she was going to be harmed for what the terrorists did.

She sounded like the interviews with Jews who were running from the Holocaust. It was unnerving. I tried to reassure her that most Americans knew the difference between Muslims generally and Islamic militants, but I told her that there were stupid or evil people who might not.

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We are always told or warned, of course, that there is going to be this massive bloodletting. It didn't happen after 9/11 except to some Sikhs (RIP) who were mistaken for Muslims by the usual type of brain surgeon who deals with his emotions by shooting things, which is certainly not nothing, but also hardly Beirut 1982 all over again. What seems to be coming next, however...well, it doesn't look good, I'll agree with you there. My personal take would be to open up previously closed avenues of conversation so as to reduce the amount of 'thought crime' out there that makes criticism of Islam the religion akin to hatred towards people, and let those who truly cannot distinguish between the two educate themselves, because I will never, ever stop criticizing the religion of Islam, because I truly believe it to be evil and a cancer upon humanity. At the same time, I can name several Muslims who I would trust with my life, and I would not hesitate to sacrifice my own life for them or any of their compatriots, should it come to that. No man is my enemy, but sometimes his religion tells him that I am his, and so I hate his religion, but I still love the man.

Refusing to see these kinds of distinctions is just intellectual and moral laziness that will come back to bite us in our collective behind over and over if we do not wise up soon enough.

We talked a while, and parted, with each of us asking for God's blessing on the other. My daughter and I talked a very long time, that night. It's tough explaining how religion can turn some people to evil, but she learned all about it that evening.

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God bless all three of you in this story. I can think of several parallel stories from my own life around that time and since then, but this isn't a storytime thread.

Instead of self-pity, remember what Jesus said.

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Who is self-pitying? Me? I love being Coptic Orthodox. I willingly chose it. I wouldn't be anything else. One hour spent in prayer in the Agpeya or in liturgy or in Tasbeha over the Agape meal or doing anything else in my religion is worth every second I've ever wasted on this website, a million times over...and not for those things in themselves, but for Christ, and for our faith in Him, the Lover of Mankind.

Matthew 5:44 But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you:

There are Muslims doing that for you, right now. Can you do less and call yourself a Christian?

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I think I know what you are trying to do here, but this is really a tremendous misstep if you think that because I hate Islam and vociferously disagree with the way that things are politically and socially handled in this area in Western societies (making Islam politically and socially untouchable and turning everything back on Christianity and Christians, as we have seen here several times) that this therefore means I do not love my enemies.

I don't actually believe that orthodox Muslims would necessarily find it all that acceptable to pray for non-Muslims (from what I've seen, it really depends on the type of prayer that is offered, and when: some say prayers for non-Muslims who do not outwardly deny anything that Islam commands may be acceptable, but that prayers after their deaths for their souls are not permissible...either way, I obviously deny Islam, so I'd be out), but at any rate, this is what my religion teaches me to about how I am to deal with those who have decided that they are my enemy or that I am theirs on account of my faith in Christ:


This sermon was delivered by Fr. Boules George of St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo on the Paschal Monday after the Palm Sunday bombings of the churches in Tanta and Cairo, April 2017.

The Barbarian said:

You seem to have become really upset that I asked you if you had applied the same standards to yourself. Your cry of "WAAAAH" seemed to be sort of self-pitying in that context.

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I don't really know what sort of problem you're having understanding the explanation that this reply of yours is supposed to be addressing, but the "Waaah" was part of a reply mocking a different reply of yours (not the one about the standard of apologizing for past wrongs, which I still maintain is right to do in both the Native American case and the MENA non-Muslim case), because that's how it sounds to me whenever anyone who cannot handle the truth about Islam brings up Christianity instead. It wasn't just "Waaah", it was "Waaaah, but what about Christians?" That's what people who bring up Christianity to deflect criticism about Islam sound like to me, so I said it.

It is in your brain only that it's me expressing self-pity.

Kids being bullied in schools, terrorists planning to attack them, and in some cases, actually doing attacks, burning down mosques. Deranged politicians trying to implement laws to restrict them. That sort of thing.

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None of this is Islam being suppressed. It's people breaking the law in some cases (burning down mosques, trying to implement laws to restrict their coming here, physically attacking them), or being jerks in other cases (school bullying), but again it's not comparable at all to the actual laws against other religions in Islamic countries that criminalize apostasy or conversion to another religion.

When kids getting bullied in school results in deaths in which the teachers themselves participate (as actually happens in Islamic countries to non-Muslims), then you can bring that up as evidence of Islam itself being suppressed by the society. As it is, as I've already pointed out in another reply, thankfully in the West we deal with sectarian violence by arresting and prosecuting those who do it: arresting people who firebomb mosques, arresting people who attack Muslims, etc. Muslims are much safer and more respected by the law here in the West than any non-Muslim is in Islamic countries. It's just that you can't write a law that forces anyone to like Islam or Muslims.

It seems to really chap you guys

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Who is "you guys"? How many people do you think I am?

that we have a nation based on religious freedom, and you can't legally oppress them.

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What? This is just bizarre. I don't know where you're getting this from, but we don't seem to be having the same conversation. I've said several times in this thread that I am glad that we have a secular republic with religious freedom. You must have me confused with someone else.

Of course, that doesn't stop terrorists from killing them or burning down their places of worship; it just means they go to jail if we catch them.

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What else can any law do? If the law could stop terrorism before it occurs, then there wouldn't be any terrorism.

You either don't understand what terrorism is, or don't understand what law is, or both.

That is like saying we had the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment so black people and native Americans were never suppressed. Not legally, but people like that don't really care about the law or basic decency.

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No it isn't. It just isn't. It's like you're deliberately misunderstanding the different standards at play, wherein in the Islamic case there are official rules suppressing everything that isn't Islam, whereas in the West, some people don't like Islam or don't like Muslims, but if they do anything to actually restrict the peaceful practice of Islam the law itself comes down on them (and rightly so). It doesn't say that Muslims are treated as equals socially by everyone, because again you can't write a law demanding that anyone like a particular group of people, and you certainly can't write a law demanding that everyone treat Islam as equal to every other religion theologically/religiously, because such a law would itself violate the first amendment (since, yes, it is part of the Christian religion to not consider itself equal to other religions).

You're trying to make it as though social discrimination which the law can't do anything about or religious discrimination which the law is actually forbidden from doing anything about (in the sense of being unable to interfere with the doctrine of any religion so long as it isn't literally involving criminal acts which pose physical risk to others) is somehow equal to legal discrimination against non-Islamic religions and their followers (and atheists) in the Muslim world.

They're quite simply not the same thing, and the reason why they're not the same thing is precisely because we live in a secular republic (which you and I both agree is a good thing), so the religious and the legal cannot be combined.

Now if you want to have Islam-favoring laws because you think without them Muslims are actually being legally discriminated against (this would be a more direct comparison to the discrimination faced by Native Americans and black people in the USA), that's a fine position to take (assuming you're right...which you aren't, but clearly you've left reality aside a long time ago on this topic), but you can't take that position while also accusing me or others of being anti-secular society. Having laws that favor Islam over everything else would be anti-secular society. I am pro-secular society. If you go through this very thread, you will see I've liked/agreed with virtually every post that said "Why don't we just get rid of these prayers in government functions?", because that's a point I actually made on the first page of this thread: "At this point I'm tempted to join the atheists and say how's about we just get rid of pre-swearing in prayers altogether"

The official steps taken by our current president, who admitted they were targeting Muslims, shows otherwise. Yes, the courts slapped him down on much of it. But again, the fact of the law doesn't seem to be much of an impediment for the terrorists killing Muslims and burning down their mosques.

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That's the funny thing about terrorists: they don't tend to care about the law...

The guy who responded to disagreement with "WHAAA."

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You didn't read that reply properly and are now doubling down on your wrong interpretation of it. I don't know what more I can do but repeat myself: I'm not self-pitying. I thought your reply was pathetic, just like it is always pathetic to read another Christian answer criticism of Islam with "WAAAAAH! BUT WHAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY?"

Hatred is the practice of the weak. It corrupts everything else within. If you profess to follow Jesus, follow Him.

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So you didn't watch abouna's sermon, then? Sad. There's some good stuff in there.

Anyway, the question of whether hatred is ever appropriate is an interesting philosophical one. I would say that the Bible supports it as being so, but only in very limited contexts that are usually not met by the people who would invoke it in order to justify their own hatred of others. Nevertheless, I'm not sure it's wise to make a blanket statement about hatred itself as a thing, as God Himself hates certain things in the Bible (Proverbs 6), and there is at least implied justifiable hatred in some renderings of the Pslams (e.g., Psalm 69: "they have hated me with an unjust hatred", or in some translations "they have hated me without a cause").