The movie My Name is Khan, like most Bollywood movies, the drama can be comical at times, but the meaning of the movie still comes across. One thing that Mozaffar asked us to think about was weather the people in the movie were good because of their religion or despite their religion. The message is pretty obvious: there are 2 kinds of people, good and bad. Religion makes no difference. Words can be twisted to justify any behavior a person could want to conduct. Religion cannot be the basis of morality because for every religion there are people on both sides arguing that they are right.

The essay One God, Many Names, brought up a question I had never really thought about. I had always just accepted the idea that the Judeo-Christian God and Islamic God were one in the same. I never thought about the semantics of Muslims saying Allah and Christians saying God. To argue that there is a difference is only bred from ignorance. (To be fair, the author quoted 2 people who are known for their outrageous statements. Pat Robertson claimed that the earthquake in Haiti was due to a deal with the devil 200 years ago).

One issue facing American Muslims, particularly teenagers, is the Christian centric education. Particularly in the month of Ramadan this becomes an issue. Christians have a month of school around a major holiday in their religion that really doesn’t require sacrifice (Christmas). Even during Lent. I never went to Catholic school, but it was very easy to observe “fasting” at school because there were always meatless options. Muslims don’t have the same amenities. In Saudi Arabia during Ramadan, night and day are basically flipped; making it easier to observe Ramadan (does this cancel out the point of fasting?).  In the United States, teenagers observing Ramadan still have to attend school for 8 hours a day and can only eat at night.

In response to wiseguy17, I don’t know if it is a fair assessment to judge the climate of the United States based on the articles in the New York Times. It is a news organization, and unfortunately we are still technically fighting what started out as the “War on Terror” in an Islamic country, so the news will be biased in that direction. I am not saying it is the apparent association is not an issue; just that this might not be the best place to look at it. For instance when you look up “Catholic” in New York Times there are many articles about Catholic’s desire to limit the civil rights of gay couples. This is not the feeling of every Catholic and not the association some want with their religion.