Aya, I'm sorry I offended you

Submitted by JustMe (United States), Feb 8, 2006 at 20:57

Dear Aya,

I'm not trying to make you so upset. I was just pointing out what we see on our television sets day in and day out. Aren't these Islamic Muslims? They seem to fill your streets with the violence I talked about. Maybe it's not your religion which tells them to be this way, but I know I see unhappy people in very poor conditions. People suffering under bad leaders are probably unable to see a hopeful future and are more easily convinced to be violent and feel okay about beheading others and bombing innocent children.

You keep saying that you can't see why I believe things like this. That's all the world really sees from Muslims. Even your clerics encourage violence. I forgot the name of the cleric that was held up in a mosque for a long time, but he's a good example of this. In Europe, Muslims preach death and destruction on their street corners. We don't allow that in our country, even with our freedom of speech, we have laws about inciting riots and violence against others.

I agree that whoever was making fun of your prophet by drawing a stupid cartoon about him was rude, disrespectful, harsh and uncivilized. It's not right and I can feel the hurt you have in your heart over this cartoon. We also love our God and our Jesus and that's pretty bad and ignorant to do such a thing. I guess we've learned in America that you have to grin and bear it because we're used to the freedom of speech in our country and sometimes it sucks to have to listen to someone else's opinions, especially opinions that assault your very core of beliefs and are blasphemy towards your God.

I'm not sure why you act as if someone is not letting you practice your religion freely. I'm not sure where you are from, but I'd be interested to know. As long as it's not hurting someone else, most people really respect the rights of others to practice their religion freely in our country. I know the cartoonist who drew that picture was not following your religion because you're not supposed to make an image of your God. It's actually in the Christian bible too, but many people don't follow that or remember that rule. But people are always going to break God's laws every day, and I'm glad God is loving and forgiving and patient with us while we learn.

Just one last comment...you wrote that "Just as we respect others, we DEMAND respect!" That just sounds like pride to a Christian. Jesus was humble. Honestly, demanding respect isn't really an American idea-- unless you're in the mob or something. We just try to treat others how we want to be treated. Yes, you can find examples in our society of idiots like the KKK or other extremists like David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh. But it just sounds a bit uptight to go around DEMANDING respect. I hope I haven't offended you any further. I am truely trying to understand you and trying to give you an understanding of me. Remember, you asked me to try to understand Islam. Maybe people on these sites should try not to offend eachother and do some reaching out to eachother as human beings. If our governments can't talk to eachother and work things out, I think the people should communicate and solve the problem. Tonight I'm going to pray for this.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".