The idea that you can be special without doing anything special, without any effort or thought, just by being, is one we have to credit religions with. After all it is the Jewish faith that explicitly tells Jewish believers that they are the “chosen people” and that god has a special relationship with them, this has spread more in the last couple of years and being used by religious Jews on non religious ones to try and get them closer to this organized religion. It is not surprising that these religious Jews use things like “you are the son/daughter of god/the king” or “we are the people of the book” to put non religious people to shame, to try and morally oppress people who do not register the faith and to make them think that they should act or be diferent because god has special plans for them.
And this includes everyone, that is the beauty of it, Jewish murderers, rapists, thieves and lie tellers are all included in this pact, it is a categorically choice of god and no one can be excluded from it, if you are Jewish you are a part of the chosen people and you should act like one. What that actually means I have no idea, but rest assure that the behavior that is expected of Jews by Jewish religious leaders changes from one branch of this faith to the other, from Ashkenazim to Sapharadic (Jews from Western Europe and from Africa and Arabia) and from one political party to the other.
Same with Islam, only not as explicit as in the Jewish example, Islam does not tell his believers that they are chosen, or that they have a special relationship from birth with the almighty, mainly because Islam is a religion that is propagated and spread, so telling people that only if they were born Muslim they have this bond with god would not help much – new people will not join for fear of being excluded on this one, so Islam simply tells its followers that they are the best of all people.
It is important to note that Islam does refer to the Jews as the chosen people from time to time (only to be followed by a “kill them all” notion in later episodes) but there is no doubt that Islam – to the Muslim – is much better than being Jewish, because Muslims are told that they are the best people on earth, and that there is no one better.
And once again this is applied on everyone, the killers and the terrorists, the child molesters and the rapists… only that in Islam law you need to adjust your dictionary and learn that a rape (for example) is not really a rape if it one on one, it needs to have a few participants in it, you will also learn that a Muslim is allowed to lie freely in certain situations, and that stealing is really a question of how what and when.
So the Jews are the chosen people, and Muslim are the best of people, god loves them both and somehow you are supposed to make an educated conclusion and join only one of the religions, I am confused. Christians make it much easier, Jesus loves you, he died on the cross for your sins, even though you were born 2,000 after his death, so that shows you how much he loves you, now you only need to walk around with that guilt for the rest of your life.