Religion

I went to an amazing panel discussion tonight about Islam. I loved it so much. I really enjoy intellectual conversations about Religion, it makes me happy. I also got one of the speakers to ask my name after I asked some very pressing questions at the end of the talk...this possibly made my night (there are other things that sort of ruined that...but we'll not talk about those). It brought up questions to me about how well you know someone. According to some poll 62% of Americans don't know muslims. I find this very hard to believe and I think that my parents would have said the same thing. Now there is a lot of ignorance in this. First for not knowing a muslim and second for thinking that you don't know a muslim. I was thinking about how my parents probably would think they fall into that percentage when in actuality they know one of my best friends who happens to be a muslim, but seeing as she is also hispanic she instantly thought to be catholic. I was wondering how many people actually don't know muslims and how many just think they don't. I also find that silly, that perhaps you are unwilling to know some one well enough to know if they are muslim. I also started thinking about whether or not (in some cases) it had to do with the fact that the muslims wanted to hide their religious affiliation, because of fear of discrimination, condemnation, or some other reason... I like when I go to these talks because they really help me grow more (I think) than a lot of other things and they bring out new ideas and interests that I didn't know I had in me.