A Simple Rule

[Thumpalumpacus]

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.

Ideas must be subjected to inspection, criticism and ridicule with bad ideas tossed aside and good ideas needing no protection. People of genetic backgrounds, on the other hand, do need to be protected by society from discrimination or abuses on that basis. To describe religion as a heritage is to conflate these unrelated categories and offer protection to certain ideas.

Do you think heritage can only be genetic? Is evolution only genetic?

Anthropologists have long understood that humanity's biggest leap was the leap to cultural evolution. Because the human mind is a blank slate at birth, culture is more important than genetics when it comes to matters like outlook. To think that you can simply shuck off the weight of years that went into one's upbringing on a decision, without carrying baggage from that upbringing around, is unrealistic.

He didn't say it was a race, or genetic;

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.

I am saying that German, as a heritage, is a genetic matter. Islam is a religion. The two are separate.

Of course they don't share the same cause; one is genetic, the other, ideological. But they both share the fact that each is terribly hard to escape. That was his point. If you read the definition of heritage in the OED, you will not see the mention of genetics at all. He is using the word correctly; you are not.

We inherit much more than genes from our parents, and from our cultures.

he said it was an accident 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".

You're being obtuse. The fact is that a person born in Saudi Arabia is much more likely to be indoctrinated into Islam and thus become a "Muslim baby" than a person born in Alaska. Given that babies typically cannot decide where they are born and into which faith, and given the fact that faith is handed down from parents, "accident of birth" is exact wording.