jabeady
Elite Member
- Messages
- 313
- Reaction score
- 29
- Gender
- Male
- Religion
- Atheism
I am a white male, raised a fundamentalist Lutheran, but now I am an atheist. I prefer to call myself an Unbeliever because "atheist" is beginning to take on a meaning that I don't want to be associated with.
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I came looking for an Islamic forum because I have managed to live more than 66 years without ever meeting any followers of Islam . To my memory, by the time I graduated high school I had met one Roman Catholic, two Jews, one Chinese-American and one African-American. Otherwise, everyone in my world was White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. This, in one of the major industrial cities of America. Things improved when I enlisted and began to meet all kinds of ethnicities. Even then, however, no Muslims. Then came 9/11. At the time, I was living in Vermont, the whitest state in the nation. The Internet was becoming a major social presence, and I began to learn how perfectly sane people can turn into raving lunatics in times of crisis. Example, a friend of my mother forwarded to everyone in her address book an email that claimed to quote Surah 9, verse 11 (get it? 9/11), to the effect that the faithful would regret attacking "the Eagle." I did some Googling, found out what Surah 9, verse 11 actually said, and wrote back to her telling her exactly what I thought. My mother never heard from her friend again. Then I lost a few friends of my own when it seemed like I was the only one I knew who refused to hold all Muslims responsible for the acts of a comparative few. I really hate bigotry. Even now, 15 years later, I still run into idiots who want to know why Muslims haven't denounced terrorism, and refuse to believe me when I tell them the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other major Muslim organizations have done just that. When I point out that the terrorists have killed thousands more Muslims than non-Muslims, they often reply with "Serves them right." To be fair, however, I pay attention to the news and I've been reading this board for a couple of days now, and it seems there are a lot of Muslims who feel the same about the West in general, and America in particular (I also see similar attitudes regarding atheists). In all cases, Muslim, non-Muslim, whatever, these attitudes seem to be fueled by comparable amounts of ignorance, misinformation and misinterpretation (and the different languages don't help).
So here I am. I finally got around to seeking out the source, where I could ask questions and find out for myself. I did, way back when, locate a Muslim forum, but I guess it was too soon after 9/11. That attempt just didn't work out. Anyway, I've got lots of questions.
BTW, I'm writing this on a laptop, on the web site. Until now, I've been reading the forum on my phone via Tapatalk. I think I have two accounts, one for the computer and web site, and one for the phone and Tapatalk. The web site wouldn't let me log in with the phone's userid (jabeady1) and password, so I had to register again. Is this going to be a problem?
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I came looking for an Islamic forum because I have managed to live more than 66 years without ever meeting any followers of Islam . To my memory, by the time I graduated high school I had met one Roman Catholic, two Jews, one Chinese-American and one African-American. Otherwise, everyone in my world was White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. This, in one of the major industrial cities of America. Things improved when I enlisted and began to meet all kinds of ethnicities. Even then, however, no Muslims. Then came 9/11. At the time, I was living in Vermont, the whitest state in the nation. The Internet was becoming a major social presence, and I began to learn how perfectly sane people can turn into raving lunatics in times of crisis. Example, a friend of my mother forwarded to everyone in her address book an email that claimed to quote Surah 9, verse 11 (get it? 9/11), to the effect that the faithful would regret attacking "the Eagle." I did some Googling, found out what Surah 9, verse 11 actually said, and wrote back to her telling her exactly what I thought. My mother never heard from her friend again. Then I lost a few friends of my own when it seemed like I was the only one I knew who refused to hold all Muslims responsible for the acts of a comparative few. I really hate bigotry. Even now, 15 years later, I still run into idiots who want to know why Muslims haven't denounced terrorism, and refuse to believe me when I tell them the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other major Muslim organizations have done just that. When I point out that the terrorists have killed thousands more Muslims than non-Muslims, they often reply with "Serves them right." To be fair, however, I pay attention to the news and I've been reading this board for a couple of days now, and it seems there are a lot of Muslims who feel the same about the West in general, and America in particular (I also see similar attitudes regarding atheists). In all cases, Muslim, non-Muslim, whatever, these attitudes seem to be fueled by comparable amounts of ignorance, misinformation and misinterpretation (and the different languages don't help).
So here I am. I finally got around to seeking out the source, where I could ask questions and find out for myself. I did, way back when, locate a Muslim forum, but I guess it was too soon after 9/11. That attempt just didn't work out. Anyway, I've got lots of questions.
BTW, I'm writing this on a laptop, on the web site. Until now, I've been reading the forum on my phone via Tapatalk. I think I have two accounts, one for the computer and web site, and one for the phone and Tapatalk. The web site wouldn't let me log in with the phone's userid (jabeady1) and password, so I had to register again. Is this going to be a problem?
eace:
