A Simple Rule

[Mister Agenda]

Because when someone born into a Muslim society stops being a Muslim, they no longer have a Muslim heritage? How does that work? I'm no longer a Christian but I certainly still have a Christian heritage.

...and THIS is the point where our communication breaks down.

There is no such thing as a Christian "heritage" or a Muslim "heritage". You can have an Arabic, Persian, Egyptian, North African, Bosnian, Somalian, Chechen or Indonesian heritage but not a "Muslim heritage".

Ideas are not a heritage. Religion is a collection of ideas. It can be adopted, changed or abandoned at will. Genetic makeup cannot.

I recently took a test that used my genetic material to determine my "heritage" to certain parts of the world. There is no such test for a religious heritage. Neither do I feel any affiliation with "Christianity" simply on the basis of my heritage.

Yes, one of the points where our communication breaks down is where you fail to understand what the word 'heritage' means.

[her-i-tij] /ˈhɛr ɪ tɪdʒ/ IPASyllables Synonyms Examples Word Origin noun
1.
something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion:
"a heritage of poverty and suffering; a national heritage of honor, pride, and courage."
2.
something reserved for one:
"the heritage of the righteous."
3.
Law.
a.something that has been or may be inherited by legal descent or succession.
b.any property, especially land, that devolves by right of inheritance.

Ideas must be subjected to inspection, criticism and ridicule with bad ideas tossed aside and good ideas needing no protection.

It doesn't seem to operate in the real world that often for something that 'must be'. Perhaps 'should be' would be more accurate.

People of genetic backgrounds, on the other hand, do need to be protected by society from discrimination or abuses on that basis.

But it's okay to discriminate against them or abuse them on other bases? I don't think you believe that. I just think you're not taking much care with what you post.

To describe religion as a heritage is to conflate these unrelated categories and offer protection to certain ideas.

It's not conflation to use the plain meaning of the word. 'Heritage' is what you inherit. There is no requirement that the word be applied solely to genetic inheritance. It's not like we were talking about evolution and I suddenly started using a word that we had been using all along to indicate genetic inheritence in a new way. People rarely make up entirely new religions out of whole cloth, they usually practice the culture and religion they inherited from their parents, almost universally before they've been exposed to the idea of critically evaluating claims.

You're usually the last person to make a bad argument. Maybe should should think about why you resort to them so quickly when talking about Islam.

He was conflating Islam with "German", that just as it is unfair to criticize Germans for Nazism, it is unfair to criticize Islam for radical Islam. Please correct me if I misunderstood.

Apparently among the mental tools you discard in this disxussion is the difference between conflation and analogy.

I am saying that German, as a heritage, is a genetic matter.

You shouldn't say that, unless you misunderstand the analogy. Genetics or not, the main thing that makes someone German is being born in Germany. You wouldn't say someone born in Germany to naturalized citizens (say, an Italian father and Russian mother) isn't German. Would you? It would be fairer to accuse you of doing the conflating, since it's obvious from context that I was not talking about genetic inheritance. But I think that what is actually happening is that your Islam blinders are preventing you from processing the words you are reading as what they plainly mean.

Islam is a religion. The two are separate.

Yes, they are. If they were exactly the same, it wouldn't be an analogy. In an analogy, one compares things that are different in some ways and similar in others. For instance, DNA is somewhat analogous to a code and is often described that way, but it is not actually a code. To think that DNA is actually a code is to over-extend the analogy. Being Muslim and being German are similar in both being largely a circumstance of birth.

Which I also contend it is not. You may indoctrinate a child to a Islam but there is no such thing as a "Muslim baby".

Yet a baby born to Muslim parents is almost as likely to wind up Muslim as a baby born to German parents is to wind up speaking German.

I'm drawing a subtle but important distinction.

It's neither subtle nor is it important. For practical purposes, a baby born to a Palestinian family has little more choice in their early years about becoming a Muslim than they do about speaking Arabic. Small children absorb their culture, language, and religion so readily that it's tempting to conclude that the few exceptions are due to unusual brain wiring.

One is indoctrinated to a religion but not born into it. I think we agree on the main points but I don't agree that any ideas are part of a protected identity.

So only people with ideas of which you approve deserve protection? Again, I don't think you really believe this, but it's only because I think well of you from past experience, not because the things you are saying don't imply it. Muslims, particularly in Western secular States, deserve protection from having their mosques vandalized, from being accosted (or worse) in the street for dressing differently, and from being treated as though they are guilty until proven innocent in the eyes of the law. They do not, of course, have protection from criticism. No group does. But you insist that everyone accept your characterization of Islam as accurate and fair a priori or complain that we're 'shutting you down' before you can get to your substantive criticism. Perhaps you should consider opening with substance and saving the caricatures for last.

Otherwise, any idea might be regarded as a "heritage" since children can be indoctrinated into any collection of ideas.

It seems that this is the first conversation in your entire life in which the idea of cultural heritage has been introduced to you. I find that hard to believe. I really do.