Religious hatred?

A couple of days ago I received an email that had been forwarded many times. The text of this email is as follows:

-Begin email;

This is short...please read.

A really pretty stamp with butterfly & hearts... they didn't have heart when they bombed us. Did they?

USPS New 44 -Cent Stamp Celebrates a Muslim holiday.

If there is only ONE thing you forward today... let it be this!

President Obama has directed the United States Postal Service to REMEMBER and HONOR the EID MUSLIM holiday season with a new commemorative 44-Cent First Class Holiday Postage Stamp.

REMEMBER to adamantly & vocally BOYCOTT this stamp, when you are purchasing your stamps at the post office.
All you have to say is " No thank you, I do not want that Muslim Stamp on my letters! "

To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of Pan Am Flight 103!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Military Barracks in Saudi Arabia !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the American Embassies in Africa !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the USS COLE!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on 9/11/2001 !

REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in those vicious MUSLIM attacks!

Pass this along to every Patriotic American that you know and get the word out! Honor the United States of America !

-End of email.

I am angered by this email. I like to think that I was raised with a great concept of racial and religious tolerance (thanks Ma & Pa!). I want to address the anger I feel in this entry.

First off, all Muslim's are not terrorists! Most of them are not. The Muslim religion teaches that there is one God (like the Christian churches teach) and that religion started with Adam (like Christians). The word "Muslim" literally means "One who submits (to God)". Do Christians not believe in submitting to the will of God? It seems to me that the root of each of our religions are very much the same.

The email makes the argument that Muslims were responsible for all these terrorist attacks on the US. I disagree this these claims. The terrorist attacks were carried out by Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization that is against Christianity and anything American. There are some Muslim oraganizations that Al-Qaeda considers "too American" and they are against those Muslim organizations as well. My point; Just because they are Muslim doesn't mean they are Al-Qaeda.

Secondly, If we expect the world's population to be tolerant of our religious beliefs, are we not expected to tolerate theirs as well? What if the President decided to print a series of stamps featuring great authors such as C.S. Lewis and Dan Brown? C.S. Lewis was known for his conversion to Christianity and his writings that suggest Christian themes. Dan Brown is known for his writings of a certain symbologist who does not believe in God. Would the Christian population refuse to buy these stamps because of Dan Brown? Would the Atheist population refuse to buy these stamps because of C.S. Lewis? I think not.

Last of all, we cannot refuse to purchase these stamps just because the Muslim religion is Islamic and not American. In 2008, the USPS started printing a series of Chinese New Year stamps. Were there any emails going around telling us to refuse to put these stamps on our envelopes because they were Chinese?



I suppose you may argue that the stamps are different because one is racial and one is religious or because the Chinese haven't hurt us like the Islamic group has; my position on that argument is that we need to love everyone, regardless of their race or religion. I'm sure there's something in the US Constitution that supports my stance on that, but I haven't read it through yet.

Did you happen to notice the stamp has the website "zazzle.com" prnted on it? Zazzle.com is a place that you can custom design t-shirts, stamps, postcards, and the like. The stamp in that email was a custom designed stamp (not officially commissioned by the President of the USA). In 2001, Pres. Bush did commission a stamp to commemorate the Eid Muslim Holiday. This was done a month before the Sept 11 attacks. Someone had taken an email written years ago and re-wrote it to apply to the current President.

This is the real stamp, reprinted several times as the postage rates went up:



Link for reference: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/muslim-stamp/

Thus concludes my real thoughts about the email I found in my inbox. If I have been horribly misled or need to reconfigure my feelings on this issue, please leave a comment and let me know what you think. The same goes for those who agree with me. I am open to learning new things every day.