Notes

Alright here it is. So the debate started just between me and Moussa, who's a Muslim. So eventually a bunch of people gathered around and listened to a few of us speak about Islam and stuff. Ya know your classic, "Is Islam a religion of peace?" and, "Sharia vs. Secular governance," blah blah ya know classic controversies. I was talking about PEW polls of the muslim world and how they show that huge amounts of people believe in crazy stuff like cutting off thieves' hands and killing apostates. Then, the teacher walks in. Her name is Ms. Zahner. Here is basically what was said:

Brian: 84% of Egyptians believe that apostates should get the death penalty. I'm not saying every muslim believes that but its a result of the doctrine that so many of them do.

Zahner: You know that is a racist argument right? I hope you're just playing devils advocate and you know thats completely racist.

Brian: How on earth is that racist? What the heck?

Zahner: You're taking a huge group of people and putting them all together in the same pot and saying they all have something in common!!!! Thats racist!!

Brian: Uh.. They DO have something in common. They share a belief system.

Zahner: Well Christians all share a belief system! So if you're going to group all muslims together, you have to do the same with every christian.

Brian: Well, actually there is far more diversity in the Christianity than in Islam, but you're right that most Christians do have beliefs in common. So yes, I am comfortable grouping them all together. The big difference, however, is that Christians take their religion far less seriously and don't actually believe in the majority of immoral things in their holy book. Muslims currently take their religion extremely seriously and believe every word of the Quran. Christians went through the Enlightenment and abandoned many of their crazy beliefs. Jews did the same. Muslims were not part of the enlightenment, so they still believe these things.

Zahner: Muslims didn't go through the enlightenment!?!?! HAA!! They created things that we have today like algebra and optics!!!

Brian: Yeah that's true and that's great, but the state of California, during its short existence, has contributed more to science and human progress than muslims have over their entire existence as a people.

Zahner (Super triggered and yelling at me): YOU ARE RACIST! THAT IS RACIST AND THIS CONVERSATION NEEDS TO END RIGHT NOW ON A PERSONAL LEVEL!!!!

Then she walked over to her desk and just graded papers or whatever. So yeah thats the story.