TOLERANCE

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

So "bigotry" is now just defined as seeing the world through the lens of your own culture, rather than an alien one. Funny, but Muslims do the same thing.

I was a Muslim. Grace was a Muslim when I married her. Now, neither of us would trust a Muslim as far as we could throw him. If that is "bigotry", then sign me up.

Once upon a time, being a bigot meant you were wrong about something. That no longer seems to be the case. Welcome to the 21st century, where old words mean new things.

When them good ol' boys start shooting at the minarets, tell them to aim for the speakers rather than the Muezzins. the Muezzins are useless without the speaker amplification... and there is less jail time connected with just destroying the magnet in a speaker versus punching a hole through a pet Muezzin.

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Another advantage of the internet.

There are enough different dictionaries available on the internet that you can find the one that has the definition that suits your way of thinking, when it come to just about anything.

I don't know any Islam practicing Muslims. If I have ever known any, they have not shared that information with me.

It is not out of prejudice or bigotry that I have never socialized with Muslims, it is strictly due to where I have lived, how I have lived, that has probably prevented us from crossing paths, on a social level.

In my younger years, I was in the military, stateside. Even though I am a female, my social activities were no different than those of my male counterparts. None of which would make me friends with a good Muslim. Today, almost all of my socialization, outside of the internet, is spent in communal or church activities.

I do have a family member that was involved with a fellow that we learned much later, was supposed to be a Muslim, but he drank like a fish, and ate pork regularly, though you can't fault the man for liking ham and bacon. So I am pretty sure if he was a Muslim, he did not practice Islam.

I have a dear friend that was born and raised in India. She came here when she was in her early twenties. She grew up in an area that had a large Islamist population, but her family were Christians and they were viewed as odd.

She shared a funny story about how fate intervened in her life, because her parents were afraid that she would not be able to marry, because there were no Christian young men in the area where she lived. They took there concerns to the pastor of their church. The pastor told them he knew of a pastor in another region that had a son that they also were concerned about his finding a mate.

The son was away in America in medical school. He came home a brief time. They met and married. They have been happily married for almost 40 years. An amazingly beautiful couple, both inside and out. But I digress.

I have not avoided Muslims or Islamist. There just is not a large population of Muslims in the area where I live. We have a fair amount of Hispanics but they are still very much a minority. That does not mean we don't have other races and cultures, we do. This area was once the heart of KKK country. New cities are popping up yearly, the sleepy area where you could sleep in the middle of the road and only have to move two or three times in a 24 hour period, looks like rush hour every hour of the day and night.

With such a huge influx of people to the area, we have to accept the fact that more than the landscape will change. I am sure we will one day have a large enough population of people that practice the Islamist faith, that a mosque will one day be built.

As far as for our target shooting residents, I have enough trouble keeping them off my property. They have a poor understanding of boundaries, and even a poorer response to attempts of conversation and reason. I will let the sheriff deal with that.

I am pretty good at learning vicariously. I have no history to use in this area, but I will take your word on it. Until I have enough personal experience to go on.