Another Crazy Email Entitled “Hard To Believe In America”

And they’reeee back. Actually, they never went away: The writers of deliberately deceptive emails intended to enrage/terrify US citizens who are too gullible (or lazy) to fact-check. This one capitalizes on fears that in the United States, good upstanding (majority) Christians are somehow being discriminated against, while evil (minority) Muslims are getting coddled. Here it is, with the facts in bold. This was forwarded to me by a friend who got it from a family member.

Sorry about the capitalized YELLING, but I’ve pasted it intact, (and these kinds of emails seem to always include YELLING):

THIS IS ONE FOR CHRISTIANS TO READ AND FORWARD!

SOME STATES ARE ALLOWING MUSLIM STUDENTS TO PRAY DURING SCHOOL HOURS. IF THEY ALLOW THAT, THEN WE SHOULD BRING BACK OUR FLAGS IN THE CLASSROOMS AND ALLOW OTHERS TO PRAY TOO! TIME FOR THE CHRISTIANS TO SPEAK UP. DEMAND THEIR RIGHTS.

Let's start with the flag. Obviously flags have not been "banned" in schools. Kids still can say the pledge of allegiance. Flags fly over every school. (And the post office, and over stores and gas stations and car lots. Its as if we have to be reminded every two seconds which country we're in. But I digress.)

Also, ANY kid can pray at school. "Dear god, let me pass this test" is probably the most commonly prayed sentence in school for any teenager. The only prayer that isn't supposed to happen is an official-led prayer to any specific deity - which would be unfair, exclusive, and has no place in our secular constitutional democracy.

Now about the "praying during school hours". All organized religions have lame requirements that are, frankly, stupid. And they all have holidays that can help kids get out of class, which is nice for the kids. But if you're not Christian or Jewish, you don't get an automatic holiday in the U.S.

Christmas, although based upon ancient pre-christian celebrations, is generally today thought of as a "Christian holiday". Schools close down completely. Jewish kids are granted automatic absence on their holidays, although the school stays open. (I guess this makes them second class citizens? And what about Hindus? No vacation for you!)
At Ramadan, an Islamic holiday, the kids are required by their religion to pray at a certain time of day, which falls during school hours. Silly, right? Some schools have allowed these kids to use an empty room for the 5-10 minutes in which they are required to pray. (Let's just let the adults pretend the kids really do pray and aren't just using that time to play games on their phone.) There is no "special room" and it's only happening during the holiday of Ramadan.

I mean, I think it's dumb to force your kids to pray at all, much less during school hours - doesn't any adult remember being a self-conscious teenager? But parents are legally allowed to force religion on their kids, right?

Here's part of a school's explanation, from snopes:
Our schools celebrate our diversity, and we do NOT have any designated program or space for students of ANY specific religion. We are proud to celebrate each student and their unique background. This is why we have Fellowship of Christian Athletes groups, pray at the flag pole before school starts, and cultural diversity clubs.
At the high school level we allow students to use a designated space during their non-academic times, such as a study hall or lunch, if they simply need some quiet time. Sometimes students simply need a moment to walk away and meditate, chill-out or observe their cultural or religious practices to be able to focus better on their lessons. All of this allows us to better personalize the experience for our students and helps us to focus on the whole child in a more meaningful way.
-Snopes.com

Back to the madness:
When we get 100,000,000, that's one hundred million, willing Christians to BOND together, voice their concerns and vote, we can take back America with God's help.

Take back America? From whom? Enough already. First, America is a continent, not a country. I believe you meant to say The United States. And next, Take the country back from whom? The "scary" black president? Your friendly pagan neighbor? Immigrants from Mexico and South America? Buddhists? Athiests? Gay people? Exactly who do you guys think the U.S. "belongs" to? Hello coded xenophobia!

Become one of the One hundred million.. Then let's get 200 million. It can be done just by sending this email to your friends. Do the math. It only takes a single willing heart and a fed up SOUL.

Or complete and total ignorance, fear and bigotry, which now makes up about 25% of the U.S. citizenry. Thanks, Fox "news"!

God Bless America and Shine your light on Her!

Really? You want us to pass around an email that's almost 100% Bulls*it? And look like idiots to people who DO bother to fact-check? Perhaps the person who sent this didn't know it was lies, because they believe their sources, who manipulate them with no conscience. Or maybe they're just willing to spread lies in order to get the "not smart" people to vote republican by scaring them. Not cool.

In 1952 President Truman Established one day a year as a "National Day of Prayer."
In 1988 President Reagan Designated the first Thursday in May of each year as The National Day of Prayer.

Fun Fact:
There have been 67 Presidential Proclamations for a National Day of Prayer (1952 – 2015). Gerald R. Ford (1976), George H. Bush (1989 – 91) and Barack H. Obama (2012) are the only U.S. Presidents to sign multiple National Day of Prayer Proclamations in the same year. Yes, you read that right. Obama signed MULTIPLE National Day of Prayer Proclamations in the same year.

In June 2007 (then) Presidential Candidate Barack Obama Declared that the USA "Was no longer a Christian nation.
Q: Did Obama say we "are no longer a Christian nation"?
A: He said we are no longer "JUST" a Christian nation, but a nation of many other faiths as well. A chain e-mail drops that key word and thus deliberately changes the meaning.

This is an example of how omitting a single word from an otherwise accurate quote can twist the meaning so completely as to reverse it. Here's what Obama meant to say, during his keynote address to a "Call to Renewal" conference sponsored by the progressive Christian magazine Sojourners two years ago:

Obama, June 28, 2006 (prepared remarks): Given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
-FactCheck.org

In 2009 President Obama Canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House under the ruse of "not wanting to offend anyone"
HOWEVER... On September 25, 2009 From 4 AM until 7 PM, A National Day of Prayer FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION Was Held on Capitol Hill, inside the White our House.
The Capitol Hill is NOT "inside the White our House"(whatever they meant by that.) It's about a mile away, and by tradition, is often used by religious groups for events. These events are not any official government activity. This particular event was "Jummah Prayer on Capitol Hill" a one-time only activity coordinated by a mosque in Elizabeth to "clear up myths about Muslims". It drew about 3,000 people. The President did not attend.

Other recent religious events at the Capitol steps include the 58th annual National Day of Prayer observance on May 7, 2009 which included a Bible reading marathon. 90 continuous hours of reading from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation has taken place on the Capitol steps every year since 1979. The Promise Keeper Organization of Christian Men also have met at the Capitol steps to pray.

There were over 50,000 Muslims In D.C. that day. PRESIDENT OBAMA PRAYED WITH THE MUSLIMS!
Ooh, dude. 50,000 Muslims? 3,000 Muslims attended the one-time event. President Obama did NOT attend, much less "pray with the Muslims!" Come on, at least get some facts right.

I guess it doesn't matter if "Christians" were offended by this event - We obviously don't count as "anyone" anymore.
Christians are still the dominant majority religion in the US, at about 70.6%.

Now President Obama is encouraging schools to teach the Quran for extra credit, while at the same time, they cannot even talk about the Bible, God, pray, or salute the American Flag.

What? We have religious history classes where the bible, as well as other religious texts are most certainly "talked about". Kids still do the pledge to the flag. But what about this Quran for extra credit stuff? The most amusing explanation was from Politifact:
This all sounded fishy to us, so we checked with the White House, which confirmed that no such press conference had ever happened. Nor was there any such program.

We also rooted around the Internet and discovered that a portion of the text originated with an "article" in the National Report, a SATIRE website. In fact, when we fact-checked the previous iteration of the claim from National Report in October 2013 -- that "Obama Declares November National Muslim Appreciation Month" -- we rated that Pants on Fire.
Hilariously, the original article gave a "hot line"phone number for all Muslims who might want to get involved: The number belongs to the Republican National Committee.

The direction this country is headed should strike fear in the heart of every Christian, especially knowing that the Muslim religion believes that if Christians cannot be converted, they should be annihilated.
Sigh. I don't like organized religion. Its been a huge obstacle to progress of civilization and the evolution of humanity. By professing to have all the answers, it stops people from asking questions, presenting the world as black and white, when it is indeed nuances and requires actual thinking to come up with real solutions. It has been successfully used by despots and crackpots to incite violence and incredible ignorance. And I'm certainly not going to be baited into defending Islam any more than Christianity. Obviously not all Muslims want to annihilate non-believers, but radical fundamentalist Muslims do. Obviously not all Christians want to bring back biblical-based law, where gays and adulterers would be publicly stoned, but Dominionists do. And a few of them are running for President in the GOP primaries, like Ted Cruz. Religious people can be manipulated into acts of unbelievable cruelty and violence. We've all heard about strict Muslims shunning or even killing their own daughters who've been raped, or fallen in love with the wrong guy. And we also hear about Christian parents torturing and killing their kids when they believe them to be "devil possessed", not to mention the whole Crusades and Witchburning times.

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