[Gunner]

I find this kind of "hidden message" crap offensive on so many levels, and I am always amazed when believers think it's a good thing. So you're, let's say, a truly faithful Christian. Do you REALLY think it's appropriate to put a reference to the words of your savior on an implement designed to enhance the job of killing people? So this week it's killing heathen Muslims... I'm sure it will be drawing a big clear bead on other Christians someday, too. How... Christian of the makers and admirers.

At least when I bought a Buck knife years back it was just a slip of paper in the box that professed their belief that "Jesus was their business partner" - it wasn't engraved on the knife. Or too bad it wasn't - it might have been very comforting to Sharon Tate.

So if the maker was run by a Muslim family and had, say, a little line from the Qu'ran or a crescent-and-star on it, for exactly the equivalent reasons that this maker puts their little scriptural reference on it... would that be okay?

Or let's say some seriously bad-ass types start turning out military hardware, and in support of their faith they put a pentagram or broken cross on every item. Would that be okay?

Nah. I went through this a couple of years ago in the Mustang forums, over my Vintage Wheel Works TTD clones. The makers saw fit to cast a little icthys on the inside lip, which I found inappropriate and offensive on all these same levels. The Mustang crowd, redneck as it gets, called me every name in the book and gave patently stupid answers to questions like the ones above ("If some raghead put his symbol on my wheels I'd go burn down his warehouse!!!")

So I content myself that with every turn of the wheel I drag their precious symbol through the dirt and the mud and brake dust and whatever other crap is on the road. None of them saw anything wrong with that, either - which tells me a lot about their notions of faith.

Believing that the one true god is on your side and in favor of killing those heathens over there is contrary to the expressed spirit of every major religion, and the cause of most conflicts of the last 20 years. Not that any side is capable of learning better...