Just got in an email fight with my mom

The BBQ Pit
1

My mom has this email list which I unfortunately am on. Most of the stuff she sends is Christian happy glurgey stuff, or ProBush antiMuslim stuff. Well about an hour ago was the last fucking straw. My heart is still pounding because I haven’t argued with mom like this since I was a teenager. But this time I know I’m right and it truly truly angers, and saddens me at the same time, that she would send garbage like this:


Islam--from someone who lived there
After living in Saudi Arabia for almost four years and having learned all of this.  It scares me deeply that almost all of our countrymen have no idea of what Islam means to those who follow it.  So please read this and learn more so that you will know how it will affect your loved ones in the future if they grow in power around the world.

I was thinking about the Congressman in Minnesota who wants to put his hand on the Koran during his swearing in - and we think things are bad now. 
Can a good Muslim be a good American?

Doc, sent this to me......he sent that question to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. The following is his reply:

Theologically - no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.
Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)
Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).
Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.
Socially - no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.
Politically - no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and Destruction of America, the great Satan.
Domestically - no. Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).
Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.
Philosophically - no. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression.
Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.
Spiritually - no. Because when we declare "one nation under God," the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran's 99 excellent names.
Therefore after much study and deliberation.... perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both "good" Muslims and good Americans.
Call it what you wish.... it's still the truth.

If you find yourself intellectually in agreement with the above statements, perhaps you will share this with your friends. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future.
The religious war is bigger than we know or understand.

I usually delete her stuff. But I could not keep my mouth shut about this. To me this smacks of Japanese internment and Jewish Holocaust. I replied and I told her so. She sent me a fuming email right back that said she was sick and tired of my crap, and my flippant attitude (flippant? I assure you it’s anything but flippant), and how i jump down her throat everytime my opinion differs from hers. The email went on and on like that.

I don’t jump down her throat. Like i said, we haven’t argued like that in about 18 years. Sure, we have discussions in which our opinions differ, but I don’t “jump down her throat”. We always just agree to disagree and go on.

But I just CANNOT sit idly by while she spews this crap. I can’t.

So I replied back to this to take me off her list and don’t talk to me for awhile. Because if I know if I talked to her I’d either scream at her or cry. And I don’t want to do that to my mom. I blocked her email. Maybe I shouldn’t but I want her to cool off before she writes me another awful message.

2

I think it’s probably a good idea that your mother doesn’t send that kind of stuff on to you ever again, LorieSmurf. When you’ve had a chance to cool off and be somewhat less upset over this than you are now, contact her and talk it over. But – no. Don’t have yourself included on chain email stuff like that.

That thing is ugly. :frowning:

3

Don’t take this the wrong way, but people like your mother make me think I’ll have to eventually move to Canada.

4

I hate that too, getting hate mail forwarded. Only way to stop it is to block it out, or asking mom " Have you ever been to Saudi Arabia? Iran? Syria?" I for one have not. I am old enough that the friends of my sons have been, I trust their accounts. This "I got it in the email so it must be true " Is just idiocy. Tell her so. The ability to click and point idiocy and hatred is the bane of the internet. Ask her to come up with one , even one verifiable fact of the refuse she shovels on.

5

I feel your pain, LorieSmurf. It sounds like your mom may have had some resentment that’s been building up, as well. Sorry for the pain this is causing you, but I congratulate you on taking on a stand (that message is some seriously idiotic tripe).

6

I had this very argument with my BIL this week. We’re not speaking.

Sorry for your troubles. We can only hope that they come to their senses about these things, but somehow it always feels like we’re beating a dead horse. No advice. Just stick to your guns.

7

Anti-Muslim bigoted glurge is everywhere. My half-witted brother in law sent this gem:
*
The lady who wrote this letter is Pam Foster, of Pamela Foster and Associates, in Atlanta. She’s been in business since 1980, doing interior design and home planning. She recently wrote a letter to a family member serving in Iraq. Read it!

"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren’t we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001?

Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation’s capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania ?

Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn’t they?

And I’m supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was “desecrated” when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?

Well, I don’t. I don’t care at all.

I’ll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

I’ll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia.

I’ll care when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tells the world he is sorry for hacking off Nick Berg’s head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.

I’ll care when the cowardly so-called “insurgents” in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.

'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

I’ll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don’t care.

When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college-hazing incident, rest assured that I don’t care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank that I don’t care.

When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed “special” food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being “mishandled,” you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts that I don’t care.

And oh, by the way, I’ve noticed that sometimes it’s spelled “Koran” and other times “Quran.” Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and, you guessed it, I don’t care!

If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your E-mail friends. Sooner or later, it’ll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior!

If you don’t agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don’t complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great Country. *

So what do you do? Start a family fight? Let it pass? If a response would actually do any good, I’d say make a response. But if it would do nothing except make people angry, why bother?

8

It depends on the family member and how much trouble it would cause me in other aspects of familial harmony.

With my BIL, my husband thinks he’s kind of a jerk anyway. My SIL would rather keep harmony at this point, so she doesn’t take me to task on it.

Would I have this battle with my MIL? Prolly not. I’d make a single comment regarding my feelings and I’d drop it.

9

I’ve found that making them angry can sometimes work.

I’ve tended to be one of the people who would start a fight over this. As I’ve gotten older, people say this shit to me less and less. I don’t know if it’s because they just aren’t saying it to me, or if they aren’t saying it at all, but either way, I win.

10

Ask your mom how many Muslims she has actually met in her life.

11

While I can sympathise with the OP, and my own knee-jerk reaction is to damn critics of Islam as ignorant and bigotted, I watched an interesting interview just the other night with Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

She grew up in a devout Muslim family but has since shunned Islam, and is now an atheist activist. She also claims that one cannot be a ‘good’ (as in fully-observant) Muslim and a citizen of a western democracy for the very reasons that were elucidated in the OP.

Just as an interesting hypothetical, what would all of the thread-participants responses have been if it had been ***Hirsi Ali ***writing that email to you rather than your Western, Christian, living in a democracy family member or friend?

:wink:

12

Not much different since it would still be one person’s opinion (though I assume she wouldn’t make the mistake of conflating Allah with a moon god). Certainly not any more seriously than I would take certain Christians-turned-atheists who insist all Christians are a dangerous menace to society. Hell, most of the same “points” in the OP message could be made with Christianity, certain Christians, and/or the Bible. Yet somehow western civilization carries on.

13

I would still call it ugly, kambuckta. Interesting bit in that article you linked to:

14

It would be identical to my reactions to seeing something similar written by Gabriel Anthony Longo or Alberto Rivera. Any group has its collection of disgruntled people who have left, among that group will be people sufficiently upset to write about the “horrors” they experienced, and among that group there will always be a few who will make up terrible stories to justify just why they “had” to leave. Very rarely will such persons present anything resembling an accurate representation of the group and I see no reason to give them credit for “exposés” when there are far more adherents who are willing to provide a balanced view, even when it is critical.

This is not to say that I would dismiss everything an apostate had to say, but I would weigh their claims against other information presented by persons who had not left the group as well as observations by scholars from the outside who had studied the group.

(Longo was the author of Spoiled Priest many decades ago. He falls into the category of having a need to justify his actions. His autobiography of a man leaving the priesthood was filled with grand condemnations that amounted to little more than that he had not been paying much attention to his studies as he was going in and later felt the need to explain why felt trapped and had to get out.
Rivera is Jack Chick’s private character assassin who has invented all sorts of tales of treachery in the RCC even though everyone who has tried to confirm any of his “facts” has come away recognizing him as a charlatan who has invented most of his life story.)

15

Oh sure, the motivations and underlying prejudices of the email writer in the OP should be questioned and challenged (as perhaps should those of Hirsi Ali herself, but for different reasons I would moot).

But why is it now verboten to say that the ideals of Islam and Western Democracy (whether it be Christian, Jewish or atheist for the argument) are contrary? Why is it necessarily ugly? To acknowledge that there are fundamental differences in the life-views between devout Muslims and ‘everyone else’ seems commonsensical to me, and should be the starting point for discourse to resolve those differences.

Sticking ones fingers in ones ears and denying that differences exist is ugly (because in denial, it discounts everyones world view, but at least it doesn’t discriminate) and really, really stupid.

16

Yet again, you don’t read posts properly, kambuckta. Enjoy your views, as I know you do.

17

I had never heard of Hirsi Ali before the interview I saw on Aus telly the other night. She certainly did not come across as a ‘disgruntled’, nor did she provide any exposes as such. She very clearly and succinctly (without the usual verbose garbage that accompanies 'celebs on a mission) outlined why she had forsaken Islam and why she believes that fundamentalist Islamic beliefs are necessarily in disagreement with the aims and ideals of western democracies.
She might well be a nutjob, but from my one-off televisual experience of her, she seemed remarkably reasonable and was able to articulate her view without recourse to demeaning of the Islamic world-view (except for her condemnation of female subjugation).

18

At the time I posted MY post, your ‘edited’ version had not yet appeared.

So, please do not accuse me of not reading ‘posts’ properly. I was responding to your, “I would still call it ugly”.

19

My edit shows a timestamp of 6.07 (my time), while your post is 6.28. :confused:

20

Oh, and if you have been able to discern my ‘view’ about Muslims and Islam in general from this thread, you are a fucking psychic…in other words, full of shit.

:smiley: