Slashdot Mirror
Saudi Students In US Seek Segregation By Gender On Facebook
Beetle B. writes "A 22,000-member group for Saudis studying in the US on the social networking website Facebook has been split into two groups, one for women and one for men. The split follows a request from the group's female members who wanted extra privacy. The separate page for Saudi women is a valid decision. We took it to fulfill the wishes of the Saudi women in the US. We have been contacted by a lot of women asking for their private group,' Majed Aleid, media chair of the 'Saudis in the US' group, told Arab News in a letter."
Here's your burkha.
am i missing something - how is this news?
And Facebook is so the right place for that.
They aren't asking for segregation on facebook. They requested a group for female students (in addition to the main group).
Are people so uptight about everything that we need to freak out every time someone wants to mingle with a specific group?
What the fuck is this garbage doing on a site ostensibly about news for nerds??
Has slashdot sunk so low that any facebook related story, no matter how trivial becomes front page news? You've got to be kidding me. What is the tech/nerd angle here?
Timothy needs to be fired, pronto.
Why is this a /. article? Why would it even deserve a passing comment, other than within the groups it directly effects?
Has political correctness now reached the level where people aren't supposed to group together, even privately, by any of the traditional discrimination factors - ethnic or national origin, color, race, religion, or sex? They were already grouped by national origin (Saudi). How does further subdividing by sex change anything?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I submitted my article on earth-shaking breakthroughs in warp-drive physics that will change the world as you know it, and at the same time reveal who killed Kennedy, only to be rejected... and they publish this?
Or was it niqabbook?
hey it's me!!!:D:D:D btw this is gender bias! what does the feminist movement hhave to say on this???
One each for women and men who want to maintain their privacy from the other gender, and everyone else who doesn't care. Imposing a division on everyone seems a little unfair. It should be voluntary.
but I fail to see why I should care about this. It's not like they've been banned from each other's presence, it's just Facebook. Besides that, it's not like they can't be friends... it's just a Facebook Group that's been segregated.
Is this the same Facebook who is traditionally terrible about privacy settings? It is surprising to see they are helping a (probably large) group of their users gain extra privacy. Certainly, an action like this is an isolated incident and doesn't imply that Facebook is turning over a new leaf. Or maybe Facebook is beginning to take privacy more seriously?
This will only encourage those who think that women in general should not partake in "men" topics.
They needz it.
They want to avoid getting harrassed by male Saudis for not wearing the damn burkha, dumbass.
Look, I'm all for religious freedom and such, but I'm getting sick of this kind of bullshit. To be clear, I don't think FB did anything wrong here -- they're a business, and they listened to the wishes of their users (didn't say customers, 'cause their customers are the advertisers they sell your personal data to). What I'm sick of is seeing some people fighting and dying for freedom in one part of the world (lookin' at you, Egypt), and others digging themselves deeper into outdated, bullshit traditions and rules, and clinging to them because of propaganda from religious figures and tyrants that has them convinced that it makes them somehow superior or happier.
TL;DR: My sig is relevant as ever.
weinersmith
And why should you want to?
"Freeing somebody" does not work. Freedom implies, to a degree, independence. You can't be independent if someone else does the freeing for you.
The Saudi's funded terrorism now they're trying to normalise their divided society. They'll be demanding Sharia law next.
Fuck that.
Having a women's group and men's group is fine, but they are deluding themselves thinking that they can do without a mixed group... Girls wanting a place for girl talk happens a lot in all sorts of environments. Many social forums have female only and male only sub-forums. But splitting the bazaar down in the middle with a wall... Nobody is going to be content with that. In fact the whole idea is rather backwards and primitive. And checking ones gender on the internet is a bit tricky, so expect covert mixing. No wall is as attractive to climb over as the one with the opposite gender on the other side...
"A 22,000-member group for Saudis studying in the US on the social networking website Facebook has been split into two groups, one for women and one for men."
So a Facebook group, that I'm not in, did something?
Cool story.
What's next? Allow them to go Mosques on US soil and wear the hijab? Oh, wait. So, uh, what's the big deal?
I would suppose if they ask for it, it will fly in the supreme court. But this is why the constitution has that clause. They new immigration and time would allow groups to form and possibly try and interject there beliefs into everyone else's lives and possibly lead to drastic shifts in political policy based on religion. Oh wait.........
Freedom to end freedom and equality, cannot be a freedom.
Read radical news here
I guess.
Here's your burkha.
Do you feel the same the way about every Christian denomination that imposes a dress code and other restrictions on their congregation???
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
For maximum privacy: DO NOT USE FACEBOOK! You freaking morons.
Since they all wear the burka they can save on bandwidth by only needing one picture between them. Brilliant!
Dont get me wrong, I believe that everyone has a right to their own beliefs, but segregation is something that is not in keeping with the American spirit, a land where all men (as in the human race, not the gender) are created equal. If you want to segregate yourselves fine, but not in this country. I realize that people will say that they have freedom of religious beliefs; yes they do, they have the freedom to not be ridiculed for anything they believe. The segregation of women is NOT a religious obligation, it is a social choice.
Where has reason in the world gone? Have we abandoned it in favor of power and politics?
I call bullsnap.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
Culture determines what many consider freedoms let alone quality of life. What we may see as repressive others may see as comforting and safe. I am quite sure there are many rules in the good old U.S. of A. that are repressive to others in the world if not those who live here.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Yes. Now fuck off with your holier-than-thou self.
If Americans allow those foreigners to impose their culture then get ready for Sharia in America, it's coming...
To bad you were to much of a bitch to post this with your username in front of it. Because, I approve your message.
"We have been contacted by a lot of men (women) asking for their private group,' Majed Aleid, media chair of the 'Saudis in the US' group, told Arab News in a letter."
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
As a german happily living in a democratic and free Germany, I have to disagree. Most more recent "freeing" attempts may have been utter failures, but (proof by example) it is obviously possible to succeed.
Yes
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
The United States and Canada are secular societies. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, look it up here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_state .
The reason I bring this up with this posting about a Saudi Facebook posting is because of what really lies behind the action. Many of you said "Big Deal" or "This is a Story?"
It is. Particularily because more and more often, both the US and Canada have been bending over to religious-based demands that have nothing to do with how a country or corporation is being administered or should be run for that matter.
In Ontario, Canada, just a few years ago, the provnice outlawed the idea of Sharia law even though it had allowed Roman Catholic and Jewish family court tribunals over matters of divorce (http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20050912/mcguinty_shariah_050911/).
The issue here is how draconian Sharia intrepretation can become. Once you begin allowing these types of arbitrations and allowances in something as trivial as Facebook it will not be long before this "group" of Saudi students expects to have Sharia arbitration over their own religious "read personal" matters in the US and Canada or any country that is driven by a secular policy.
I am Roman Catholic, however I don't want my priest deciding on what happens between my wife and I should we ever file for divorce. I don't want my priest deciding who my daughter should marry and which caste our family belongs to in our neighborhood.
We live in countries (those of us in secular societies) who chose to live here after immigrating from different countries. We chose to accept a group of laws and representation and intrepretation of those laws by our courts. We elect those people every four years. This isn't Egypt and I don't want it to be either.
There are people in Canada and the US, for example, Indians who want to wear their ceremonial daggers and headgear while serving as members of the police force then TOO BAD. Police officers wear a uniform for a reason. A uniform is there for a purpose. Wearing your headdress and dagger does nothing but make that individual stick out like a sore thumb and is potentially dangerous to that individual should anyone harbour racist feeling toward that Indian culture. I don't and I'm simply trying to make a point.
Leave your religion where it belongs. At home, in your heart and teach it to your children if that is your desire but it has NO PLACE in government or the legal system.
Difference being, you are free to leave that denomination and many do. It is apostasy in Islam to leave...and the majority (read almost all) middle eastern countries have that particular infraction punishable by death.
YES I DO!!!
What Christian denomination imposes anything beyond that which is normally covered in our "indecent exposure" laws or a reasonably normal restaurant?
Are you speaking of the Amish or Mennonites? They're stuck in the dark ages just like the Muslims, but at least they aren't violent about it.
Or are you talking about that freakshow cult, the Fundamentalist Mormons?
Freedom is about being empowered to make ones own decisions. If these wemon want to voluntarily segragate themselves I don't see any reason they should denied the right to chose not to interact with men. Now if they were being forced to move their profiles into a separate area that would be completely different, but this is something they are asking for.
You can unlock someone's cage, but if you force them out then you have taken their freedom.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Culture determines what many consider freedoms let alone quality of life. What we may see as repressive others may see as comforting and safe. I am quite sure there are many rules in the good old U.S. of A. that are repressive to others in the world if not those who live here.
Absolutely.
Many cultures are backwards in their own way. But, the Saudi people and every other patriarchal society are stuck in the Bronze age. The Saudis are one of the most backwards and repressive societies on Earth.
and where to put girls with dicks, dicks that are girls or just anybody who's a dick??
I hear this plan has a security hole where the men can see it all...
Than a story about women wanting men out of their business? Goes without saying, so why say it?
Sigh. Happy Valentine's day I guess.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Where do you think our indecent exposure laws came from?
Right, like Mormon law took over Utah, and Amish Law took over Pennsylvania... Oklahomans need to stand guard. While there are plenty of non-secular law encroachments to worry about, I don't think Sharia is in the top ten.
Gently reply
Difference being, you are free to leave that denomination and many do. It is apostasy in Islam to leave...and the majority (read almost all) middle eastern countries have that particular infraction punishable by death.
Thank you! I have learned a new word today!
/pstsi/ [uh-pos-tuh-see]
apostasy
–noun, plural -sies.
a total desertion of or departure from one's religion, principles, party, cause, etc.
And?
the catholic church used to punish/torture people for stupid things as well.
The Magdalene laundries weren't all that long ago.
And the catholic chruch simply maintains that you simply cannot leave. (there used to be a formal defection procedure but they removed it because people were using it after the whole international coverup of child rape thing)
After a person's basic Maslow-level needs are taken care of, finding a mate and mating are realllly strong drives. These drives are at the core of evolution... every function of every bit of DNA in every sexually reproducing organism is about successful sexual reproduction, indirectly at least.
So, people who seek to control humans.... and evolved systems that benefit from controlling humans... they have this easy as can be way of grabbing humans by the gonads: Claim to define proper and improper inter-gender relations. Act as an intermediary for the "proper" inter-gender relations, and condemn, attack, and fight "improper" inter-gender relations. Also condemn and attack anyone circumventing this control by way of a natural attraction to the same gender (yeah, they have a "legitimate" self-interest in the anti-gay stuff). Most religions, not just the Abrahamic ones are all about this, as are non-religious yet power-hungry organizations. If you're shopping for a religion, this is a quick and easy test to see if it is about empowering the individual or empowering the organization: does it seek to divide the genders? It doesn't have to divide physically either... if there is an encouraged "philosophy" that pits men against women, it's just more subtle and better competing against the option of "no religious affiliation" available in some countries.
If anyone thinks this sexual segregation thing is Muslim-specific, step back a bit. Sexually segregated schools were entirely common in the US for its first century, and they still exist in number today. Pay attention to the motivations of the big proponents: they seek to control other people, either personally, or to strengthen their favorite non-human entity/organization.
America, Home of the Brave.
What's the exact rationale for this I ask myself?
I have given the subject a lot more thought than apparent here. In my opinion a free society should refrain from facilitating religious costumes that can be used to potentially enforce limitations on groups.
E.g. wearing clothes that facilitate or even portray submissiveness, segregation, exclusion, etc...
The argument that women want these limitations themselves is invalid as it most likely an outcome of peer pressure. Freedom comes at the price that you have to learn to deal with interactions with a large variety of people of mixed backgrounds and of mixed gender. Shame on the body facilitating this separation!
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
The key difference is that Germany was already a democracy at the time. It would be more accurate to say that you can't bring democracy to people, they have to come to it themselves.
Liberation is one thing but as Iraq and Afghanistan have shown democracy doesn't work very well unless it comes from the people.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Only one big catholic freakshow cult comes to mind.
The biggest one.
The catholic church:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum
Please unplug the fox news feed from your cerebral cortex, often its the women that want segregation. I know, I know, you can't fathom why the women would ever want to have a social life of their own without god's gift to women, i.e. men.
What Christian denomination imposes anything beyond that which is normally covered in our "indecent exposure" laws or a reasonably normal restaurant?
Are you speaking of the Amish or Mennonites? They're stuck in the dark ages just like the Muslims, but at least they aren't violent about it.
Or are you talking about that freakshow cult, the Fundamentalist Mormons?
Pretty much every Western culture requires women to cover their breasts while men can leave theirs bare. I'm not sure of the anthropological history of this particular example, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had Judeo-Christian roots. All cultures have screwy social norms. Most members of that culture can't recognize them.
Do you consider drinking human blood and eating human flesh normal?
Have you seen the dress code at an Assembly of God dance?
Can't wait for the genetically modified human slave. I mean, they will be engineered to WANT to be slaves. But I'm guessing most of Slashdot will think that will be ethical based on the last pole.
Life is not for the lazy.
From the fact that leaving certain bodily parts uncovered at all times is unhygenic (e.g. "No shirt, no shoes, no service"... and they don't mention shorts/underwear only because someone walking around with that part uncovered would violate indecent exposure law anyways).
From the fact that we'd prefer that most of the population not to expose certain things at certain times (let's face it, some of the people who walk around in spandex... ewww).
And then of course, it's not just "Christian" religions that do this kind of thing. Take a look over at Japan if you will.
Of course, the Japanese didn't have a hang-up about boobs the way the Xtians do. Then again, when you get to anthropological study, you can determine that a society covers up what it considers "indecent." You were busy attacking christians, when female genital mutilation is amazingly common in Muslim society. And there can be NO purpose for the Burkha other than to dehumanize women by making them "unseen" in society.
Or maybe we should be a little clearer: A Burqa is a tool for dehumanizing the wearer. For making it difficult for them to have any individual interaction outside the home. This is not a bug, this is a feature. It depersonalizes women who wear it. It makes it difficult for them to work outside the home, to have a conversation with a stranger or to even be seen as an individual. And again, that is the entire point. Burqas are the product of a culture and religion in which women are not supposed to have any function outside the home. In which they are supposed to remain in Purdah, walled off inside the home.
ah, come on, "free" really. Isn't freedom what you want to do. How come you imposing your culture's point of view on another culture freedom. No wonder middle east is pissed with west, this exact problem. Stop the higher than thou attitude. Talk about true freedom.
Today's fashion industry has to certain extent objectified women, women are demoralized if they don't look pretty, billions spent on fashion. I can definitely imagine a society not wanting this.
Haha go tell a Chilean or a Peruvian, or anyone in Italy besides Sardinia-Piedmont, go tell France and Eastern Germany... you see my point?
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
I think the point is that there's a difference between making sure someone has their own choices and forcing the choices you think they should make upon them.
In canada a few years back it was ruled that women could go topless (equality thing because it was legal for men to walk round topless.). Women gained the freedom to go topless if they wanted.
If on the other hand the court had ruled that women *had* to go topless whether they wanted to or not then would they be more free?
of course not.
Similarly there's a difference between making sure women have the choice not to wear a burka and *forcing* them not to wear it.
Particularly for older women it can be essentially forcing them to expose parts of their body they consider private.
They should start their own. They could call it Muzzibook
I believe "property rights" are a mystical notion forming the basis for the religion that is "capitalism".
Just as Marx's theory of Revolution forms the basis for his religion.
In the end, any formally established moral code always ends up with some circular argument. The best you can do is follow your emotional sense of compassion, refine your ability to empathise, and not be a dick in life.
Wanting to be a slave based on "the last pole" sounds incredibly kinky. XD
isn't the whole indoctrination of "you're only as good as you pay for" doing that job, anyway?
The system works. So follow our orders or be nothing.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
anybody considered the fact the want their own page, to be able to talk freely about the men? To discuss things which may still be taboo in their community?
democratic and free Germany
Haha ... democratic ... what a hoot. You're a funny guy, you should do stand-up comedy!
From the fact that we find nudists weird?
Yes but as you have no doubt heard, 'Correlation does not imply causation'. It is just as likely that the only reason we find nudists weird is because of thousands of years of religious brainwashing.
Indecent exposure laws and reasonably normal restaurants get their rules from Christianity, largely. I can wander around outside without a shirt on, but my wife can't (despite, at this point in my old age, my having about the same boobies as she does). There are places that one can't go with short-shorts on. And I've definitely been kicked out of restaurants for wearing a tank top.
In the bible, women are forbidden from wearing men's clothing... Leading to things like Schwarzenegger's wife being forbidden from wearing pants. Men are forbidden from wearing women's clothing as well, though any man who would willingly subject himself to women's shoes is more of a masochist than I. The old testament forbids wearing wool and linen woven together, for some reason.
There are new testament passages that certain Christians interpret as meaning that women should never wear jewelry or makeup. Paul swore in the new testament that women had to wear head coverings while praying, which you see more often in South American Catholic communities. And of course, that men had to remove head coverings to pray.
And let's not get started on Catholic School dress requirements. Slashdot, after all, doesn't allow posting of photographs.
The ______ Agenda
Bob Jones University has a strict dress code amonst other things (I live and work near there).
Many independent churches down here in the South have strict dress codes that they impose on members.
So, no, it's not just the Amish, Mennonites (who are mostly harmless and usually pretty nice people from my experience), or Mormons. There are many Christian groups who impose dres codes such as skirts must be long enough to touch the floor when kneeling (BJU, for example), or slightly less restrictive but still modest (no two-piece bathing suits for ladies) requirements.
It's completely reasonable that women might want to self-segregate under some circumstances. I can totally see why they might want to form a second, subgroup for the main Saudi's in America page to discuss how the issues are relevant to them specifically. On the other hand, segregating the main page is clearly a religiously influenced decision (whether it was driven by the women themselves or not). OP was trolling, but it's true that the type of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia is *extremely* conservative and anti-female, and it's not parroting Fox News to say so. Like Christians, Muslim have a range of practice that are considered "Orthodox"; and just as some versions of Christianity are very sexist, so to are some versions of Islam. Tunisia, for instance, is completely different and very liberal in regard to relations between the sexes.
In short, choice to form a self-segregated group to discuss women's issues is a perfectly reasonable idea. A forced split of all men and women on the main page into separate groups is a symptom of what's wrong with Saudi Arabia from a human rights perspective. Even if the drive to segregate was from the women, you can see how this is a problem based on the reason.
There are a significant number of girls who do not yet feel confident enough to share their points of view and opinions in the same domain as men. In my opinion they need some time to adjust
In other words, these women have been beat down enough that they literally can't respond to a man in a disagreeable manner. So they want to segregate, as "training wheels". However since th whole site is segregated, I fail to see what they can do after they've "adjusted" to practice their new found confidence.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea have been good successes.
Do you consider drinking human blood and eating human flesh normal?
How else can you possess the deceased's talents and powers? Sheesh!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
That said, I suppose Democracy didn't come about in Korea and Taiwan for several decades.
Please unplug the fox news feed from your cerebral cortex, often its the women that want segregation. I know, I know, you can't fathom why the women would ever want to have a social life of their own without god's gift to women, i.e. men.
On the contrary, I think we all can fully understand why Middle East Women would like to keep Middle East Men away from them.
Pretty much every Western culture requires women to cover their breasts while men can leave theirs bare. I'm not sure of the anthropological history of this particular example, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had Judeo-Christian roots. All cultures have screwy social norms. Most members of that culture can't recognize them.
Yeah seriously, check out what the Chinese used to do to girls.
If you want REALLY weird, check out the Mormons and their Magic Underwear. These freaks also practice "baptism by proxy", wherein they "baptize" dead people using a "stand-in" so that every "family member of a Mormon" gets a "Mormon Baptism"... turns out every few years, some German Mormon nutter gets it into their head to baptize Hitler, then they excommunicate him, then the cycle repeats.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that "consumption, storage, and transfusion" of blood is 100% verboten. They won't even pre-donate their own blood if they have to go in for a surgery where there may be extra blood needed.
As for the whole deal about cultures and what they will sexualize... I hereby direct you to Rule 34. Or Rule 34. Or Rule 34. Rule 34. In other words, Rule 34.
Clear?
What Christian denomination imposes anything beyond that which is normally covered in our "indecent exposure" laws or a reasonably normal restaurant?
Are you speaking of the Amish or Mennonites? They're stuck in the dark ages just like the Muslims, but at least they aren't violent about it.
So you're suggesting that "muslims", with no further qualification, are "violent"? Riiight.
Sure you can handle that big, broad brush all by yourself there, Sparky?
Your definition of freedom doesn't match mine.
Nudity and jogging half naked in the morning while nipples are erected doesn't imply "free" for me.
You sound more like Bush. They hate our "freedom."
Bunch of retards.
How about Pentecostal? Some of the rules from the First United Pentecostal church I attended.
1) No jewelry, including wedding rings, ear rings, necklaces, etc.
2) Women had to have long hair.
3) Women had to wear skirts and dresses, no pants.
4) No shorts allowed.
Now just to clarify this, the rules were primarily held to the leadership. Anybody that went onto the stage or pulpit had to agree to live by these rules, and more. It also was not just for church, but everyday life. There are biblical references for all of these, but I do not remember them now. As an aside, I attended this church, and lived by these rules myself. It was a personal choice because this is the only church I had ever felt "at home" in up to this point. I now attend a 4 square church that has similar teachings to pentecostal but does not hold to these rules.
Befriended several wonderful muslim students in grad school. I soon realized several of the female muslim students would talk to me as long as none of the male muslim students were present. One female student was taking one class each semester,and working at the university diner. Apparently she was in no hurry to finish?
Can we photoshop off one of their hands?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Japan was a democracy before the war. Not a very good one perhaps, but it was none the less. Hong Kong was different because we didn't liberate them, we just loaned the place and set up our own system of government. Okay, they had more freedoms than before, but we there in there for 100 years.
Don't know off the top of my head about the other two.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
multiculturalism has failed
to be precise: it is still true that the west has no right to judge other cultures. however, from a HUMAN perspective, not a western one, it is entirely appropriate to criticize cultures, including western ones, that fail to live up to simple universal concepts of human decency. a japanese or a brazilian can find elements of saudi culture repulsive for the exact same reasons as a german or a swede can. therefore, its not about western cultural imperialism here, it is about saudi culture defiling universal HUMAN concepts of dignity, not western concepts
and this is not to say that german or brazilian or american cultures don't have problems. they do. but as a simple matter of proportionality, saudi culture is WAY out there in terms of completely unacceptable norms of behavior, and is most ripe for being called out on its truly heinous levels of transgression against human dignity
therefore, as a HUMAN BEING, not a westerner, i condemn saudi culture for being barbaric, cruel, and, as a matter of simple human morality, that it not be tolerated
not tolerated?
yes, tolerance of intolerance is intolerance by extension. intolerance of intolerance is the only logically coherent way to process true tolerance: you don't tolerate the kkk, you don't tolerate nazism, and you don't tolerate the rank disgusting medieval culture of saudi arabia
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously, fuck christianity, islam and any other primitive superstition, god is a construct of the human mind, invented as a means to explain the world around him. The gods used to be the sun, the fire,the wind, the rain, the summer and winter, the lightning bolt and the thunder, now the gods are just an excuse to cleave someone's head in two.
Yet even most aboriginal societies have some form of bodily covering - even if it's just loincloths.
Decent (i.e. non-prostitute) women were expected to cover their breasts in ancient Greek and Rome long before Judeo-Christian ideas came to Europe.
Although popularly associated with Ireland, there is nothing distinctly Irish or Roman Catholic about them, indeed a number of the asylums, including the first in Ireland, were founded and run by members of Protestant denominations.
You didn't even read your own fucking link, did you?
not agree.
They Germans have been turning a blind eye to the immigration of "lesser' people for sometime. The highly insular societies built up with in Germany are little better than those from the countries they fled. As with many societies, those of us who were born here (I am not from/in Germany - just a Western Country as in the US) tend to think many things are automatic. Instead we what happens is many of these groups get marginalized by government policies that are there to supposedly help them but keep them isolated instead. This opens up opportunity for some in those groups to enforce the old ways.
Simply google Turkish Immigrants Germany and you can find many articles, some very recent on the problems faced by them, especially women. Even over there people turn away from the particularly awful problems while talking up all the good that has been done
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Actually it's probably good to be able to cover up your "erectile tissues" to avoid unnecessary conflicts and/or misunderstandings.
:) ).
Just because you feel attracted to someone doesn't mean you're going to ever do anything about it... And just because you have an erection doesn't mean you're actually thinking of someone around you (you could be thinking of someone else).
Imagine if everyone was nude and you were thinking of your sexy girlfriend, then someone and their preteen daughter walks past you at the wrong moment. Suddenly everyone thinks of you differently... Doubleplus ungood.
Nudity is fine alone or amongst people who you can really trust (or have no choice but to trust
Trusting random strangers that much seems silly to me.
Do you consider drinking human blood and eating human flesh normal?
No, I sure don't. As an atheist I haven't been conditioned to ritual cannibalism like Catholics have. It is actually hilarious how many of them profess not to understand / believe that the "wafer and wine" or "wafer and water" are supposed to be the flesh and blood of someone important to their religion. Transubstantiation and all that. But no, I don't consider it normal myself.
Similarly there's a difference between making sure women have the choice not to wear a burka and *forcing* them not to wear it.
I think the more important concern when dealing with wahhabism, radicalized islam, and sharia law, is keeping women free and equal who do NOT want to wear a burka or go back to being a second class citizen. not to mention, keeping our heads attached to our bodies if we choose not to follow their belief system.
The difference is in the 'used to' and the fact that currently, the Catholic church, or Catholic followers, do not kill those who wish to leave it. Sometimes questions of degree matter, you know - you can't be 'a bit dead'.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Where is that restaurant? Florida and Georgia have very different ideas of what is indecent exposure, from what I have heard. I'm in Buenos Aires right now and using a bikini in a plaza is just fine (no bikinis in restaurants, but that's because of AC).
The German people in east Germany wanted to be freed.
big difference.
Sigs are for the weak.
Guess he refers to mormons. We have them in my city, too. I live in Resistencia, Argentina, a city that easily hits 40C in summer, and it's not unusual to see the mormons roaming around their church in full dress (suits for men and boys, dresses and hats for women and girls). They're obviously forced to wear that, as this is not the usual clothing for people here. Especially for women. Very, very few women wear dresses here, most do with jeans or skirts and blouses and shirts.
Also, I'm a catholic, I go to church, and I wear shorts and a t-shirt to church. Never had a problem with that.
Isn't freedom about getting to make you own choices?
Is a woman that wants to go to an all women's college not free?
Are their not other women's groups on Facebook?
The women asked for this I do not think that they are being forced to join this group. For all we know they could be talking about women's rights issues and do not want to have to deal with a bunch of closed minded Saudi men trying to shout them down.
I think you are making judgements based on your own bias.
Remember you can not fee anyone you can only enslave them. Freedom is always their choice.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I now attend a 4 square church that has similar teachings to pentecostal but does not hold to these rules.
Last week I was talking to a customer and he explained how he, his wife, his brother-in-law and his wife, had left their southern baptist church because his brother-in-law's wife had the temerity to suggest that she could teach Sunday school - due to having assisted the male teacher, who had since left. It was "suggested" by the church that the brother-in-law should "control his woman"
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
is this even news?
$x = ($x * 10) % 10 >= 5 ? 1 + int $x : int $x
Why is one okay, and not the other?
Segregation is segregation.
Why does one of the groups wanting segregation make it suddenly okay?
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
"used to" is only a few decades ago in this case.
It wasn't the middle ages it was the mid 60's.
That some countries and religions are a mere few decades behind our own isn't all that surprising.
Go back a mere handful of generations more and people were still being executed for heracy.
Not all muslim countries are equal, not all are equally extreme.
some are mere decades behind, others as much as a couple of centuries.
Yes but look what it took, the nation was reduced to rubble. Had the western powers actually followed Wilson's plan for a just peace things might have been a lot better. At lest after WWII the US could force the issue.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
There are the Pentecostals. Some female Pentecostals worked with me during my night job during college. The girls must wear long skirts, don't cut their hair, and cannot wear jewelry other than a cross. I don't think they were allowed make-up, so they spend an inordinate amout of time and effort on their hair, near as I could tell. No hair decorations, but lots of curls, bobby pins, that sort of things. And they're allowed to use computers and buttons. At first glance, they kind of looked like Fundamentalist Mormons, but monogamous and less sheltered. They could see the real world, but worked to convert it.
Hey Jackass, maybe the women wanted to avoid being harassed by shitheaded Muslim men. Muslim men are notoriously violent and misogynistic. Spend some time googling for "female circumcision" and "honor killing."
There are places that one can't go with short-shorts on. And I've definitely been kicked out of restaurants for wearing a tank top.
If you tried to walk into a suit-and-tie restaurant, I'd rather expect that.
Different social situations call for different levels of attire. If a restaurant wants to portray an image of being more upscale, you can bet they're going to have some form of a dress code posted. I doubt it has anything to do with religion.
There are new testament passages that certain Christians interpret as meaning that women should never wear jewelry or makeup.
Reverend Lovejoy: "Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not even supposed to go to the bathroom."
Paul swore in the new testament that women had to wear head coverings while praying, which you see more often in South American Catholic communities.
Which may have little to nothing to do with christianity - Greek and Roman and Jewish cultures at the time all prescribed head coverings for women, especially in religious events.
And let's not get started on Catholic School dress requirements.
Or the Japanese uniforms? Or are you referring to Rule 34 fetishizations? Seems that school uniforms are rather ubiquitous - and downright similar - throughout the world. As if the arguments had been gone round and round quite a few times...
Of course, you're right.
It wasn't *only* the catholic church that ran them.
a number of the other crazy christian cults were in on it too.
Do you consider drinking human blood and eating human flesh normal?
No, and I wouldn't suspect most Catholics do either (I'm not Catholic, but I can see where you're obviously aiming that). If someone somewhere was to put actual human flesh and blood in the communion trays, I doubt that any Catholic would eat or drink it. It's not normal.
In fact, I'm not sure how many of the rank-and-file Catholics actually know that the wafer and wine are "literally" the flesh and blood of Jesus, but I am quite sure that just about all of them know that however "literal" it might be, it's still a wafer and wine that has been mystically turned into something that's "literally" something different than what it obviously literally is.
And just because you have an erection doesn't mean you're actually thinking of someone around you (you could be thinking of someone else).
You don't have to be (consciously at least) thinking of anyone at all. Those things have minds of their own.
We still practice segregation in America. Its called public restrooms, would you like to get rid of those too?
Segregation is perfectly fine in some situations. When it isn't being forced on people unwillingly and enforced by the government. If a group wants to self-segregate you have no business crying foul.
Don't forget their courage! Their rich, tasty courage...
There are also a few other groups like some Pentecostal groups that want women to be covered from ankel to neck and not cut their hair. The major difference in most religions is those that do not follow the suggested dress tend to be at worst shrugged at. Some more extreme church might shun or excommunicate people for it which I must say that I find really wrong as well. As far as I know no Christian church will stone you or put you in jail for wearing a mini skirt. If there is then they are wrong as well.
I know I will get really flamed for this but those groups you call Fundamentalist Mormons are not Fundamentalist at all. If anything they are actually really breaking several of the fundamentalist rules of the church. They are more radical offshoots of Mormonism.
And yes I am a practicing Mormon so let the flames start.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
^Part of the reason I left the congregation. However I think the forced BELIEFS were a bigger problem for me.
The split follows a request from the group's female members who wanted extra privacy.
Seriously...saying they wanted "extra privacy" on Facebook? I just thought that statement was a bit funny.
Restaurants have those minimal shirt and shoe requirements because of health codes, not because of indecent exposure laws.
I tried looking for the 22000-member "Saudis in US" group and couldn't find it. There are lots of Saudi groups. Saudis with Cats has ~700 members etc. etc. Maybe my Facebook skills are lacking.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
This is the same argument that crops up periodically with GPL vs BSD nonsense. Why cant you understand that freedom isnt defined by you? That actual freedom means the freedom to do things that you think arent freedom?
But no, clearly if they want freedom, they have to take it on YOUR terms.
I don't think he's "attacking" anyone. He's pointing the fact that while no current version of Christianity requires the Burqa, per se, the impulse that drives the Burqa is definitely present in Christianity. Witness the many forms of Methodist and AoG denominations that require women to wear exclusively floor length dresses or skirts and arm covering shirts, many of which entirely forbid make-up. Most of these also stress submission of women to men, and men to only God. In the last hundred years Christianity in general has loosened up on the whole "Men before women, God before men" attitude, but it was more or less the norm until the last century and still persists in more conservative denominations.
Similarly, few Muslims take the hard line on women's submission that the Taliban or the Saudi's take. When I was in Iraq it was perfectly common to see women in everything from a full Burqa to jeans and a t-shirt, with various levels of "modesty" in between. The most common was regular comfortable clothes (jeans most often) with some sort of head covering as a nod to their faith. Reports I've seen out of Tunisia indicate that women have parity or near parity with men there, and many were leaders in the the recent revolution.
GP's entirely valid point is that attacking "Muslims" for how they treat women is no more valid than attacking "Christians" for how they treat women. Both groups have extremely conservative wings that treat women very badly. Both groups have more liberal wings that treat women and men as equal (though obviously occasionally different) people. Islam is, in general, not as far along the transition that Christianity began a hundred or so years ago; but there are forward looking groups that have completed it. Similarly, there are backward looking Christian groups that have hardly begun.
I am by the way, neither Christian nor Muslim, and make these comments as an "outside" observer.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Most likely as a form of protection rather than to 'hide' anything.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
"I believe "property rights" are a mystical notion forming the basis for the religion that is "capitalism"."
You're right, the concept of ownership was nonexistent until Americans invented it! Please, tell me more, oh wise one!
As far as I know no Christian church will stone you or put you in jail for wearing a mini skirt. If there is then they are wrong as well.
Precisely. As opposed to Muslims, who will let girls burn to death in a building fire rather than let them be seen in public without a burkha.
I know I will get really flamed for this but those groups you call Fundamentalist Mormons are not Fundamentalist at all. If anything they are actually really breaking several of the fundamentalist rules of the church. They are more radical offshoots of Mormonism. And yes I am a practicing Mormon so let the flames start.
I have nothing serious against Mormonism. I wish you'd grow up about all the fucking tribalism, and I really wish you'd stop the practice of sending your kids all over the world to annoy the piss out of people trying to show them your fairy-tale book during dinnertime, but other than that, I wish more families were as tight-knit as most Mormons I've known, so apparently something there is working in some regard.
That being said - no, they are not "radical offshoots of Mormonism." The various polygamist communities that get called "Fundamentalist Mormons" are precisely what you get when a church has a religious doctrine split, quite similar to the split in the Anglican church when a bunch of congregations ran back to Catholicism on the announcement that the Anglicans were going to ordain women priests (for the record, I think the Catholics have their heads up their asses on this one, and on the whole celibate-priesthood thing too).
You can say they're the result of a doctrinal split, but to call them a "radical offshoot" is disingenuous. They split off because they didn't like a supposed "revelation" (from the "Continuing Revelations", a.k.a. "the book of making this shit up as we go along") by LDS President Wilford Woodruff in 1890.
The odd thing is if you compare the Mormon "prophets" like Smith, Woodruff, Young to other so-called "prophets" like Mohammed and Brian David Mitchell, or if you go back to a large number of "prophets" of other religions/cults (judeo-christian or otherwise), you find out that usually, these "revelations" are just someone making shit up and saying "do it because the cult deity says so." In other words, religion is just another way for crappy, charismatic people to control gullible sheeple.
Bullshit.
The procedure the become an official ex-catholic is alive and well. There is a long way between retaining someone on the list as 'lapsed catholic' and having enforced law that requires you be killed for leaving.
Ex-catholics were killed, but that was far before the '60s.
I challenge you to name one 'muslim' nation (that has a specific definition) that is only decades behind. Not a nation with many muslims, a muslim nation.
The mere fact that one religion has that much secular power puts them centuries behind.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They have to go back to Saudi Arabia at some point, it's not a decision which will stay private ... they won't live in a culture where making a choice outside of the societal norm is tolerated, they are hardly empowered.
Wouldn't that then be Burkabook?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_toilet
A gender-neutral toilet, also known as a unisex toilet or a gender-free toilet, is a public restroom or toilet that is available for use by either the male or female gender, and includes family restrooms.
Sex-separated public toilets are a source of difficulty for some people. For example, people with children of the opposite sex must choose between bringing the child into a toilet not designated for the child's gender, or entering a toilet not designated for one's own. Men caring for babies often find that only the women's washroom has been fitted with a change table. People with disabilities who need assistance to use the restroom have an additional problem if their helper is the opposite sex.
Some public places (such as facilities targeted to the transgender or LGBT communities, and a few universities and offices) provide individual washrooms that are not gender-specified, specifically in order to respond to the concerns of gender-variant people; but this remains very rare and often controversial.[1] Various courts have ruled on whether transgender people have the right to use the washroom of their gender of identification.[2]
Gender neutral toilets at Gothenburg University, Sweden.
Transgender advocacy groups in the United States have taken up the cause of unisex toilets. They see unisex toilets as a solution to eliminate harassment and other inconveniences for trans people in using conventional toilets. In 2005 there were 5 American cities, including San Francisco and New York, with regulations for public restroom access based on person's perceived gender identity rather than their birth sex.
A significant number of facilities have additional gender-neutral public toilets for a different reason — they are marked not for being for females or males, but as being accessible to persons with disabilities, and are adequately equipped to allow a person using a wheelchair and/or with mobility concerns to use them. Some buildings have restrooms with a single toilet each, and these could be redesignated as gender-neutral without requiring people of different genders to share them at the same time.
There are several ways to add gender neutral toilets to existing restroom provision without building new toilet blocks. One is to simply designate disabled toilets as gender neutral, as disabled users of both genders use them anyway. Under this model, University of Bradford Union became the first university student union in the United Kingdom to institute gender neutral toilets in 2008 after campaigning by the student union's welfare officer. Another option is to make all toilets unisex, regardless of previous designation. Sussex University has been trialling this. Several other universities have instituted gender neutral toilets after campaigning by union LGBT groups, most notably Manchester University, who faced an international media furor in September 2008 after they designated one set of their four toilets as gender neutral. The BBC mistakenly reported that the entire union had been made gender neutral against the wishes of the student population, and several other media outlets picked up the story. Media coverage spread as far as India and Brazil, but also spurred other student groups to press for gender neutral toilets in their own unions.[citation needed]
On Tuesday 27 October 2009, Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA) appeared on the front page of The Student after having decided that week to introduce gender neutral toilets. This was done at the joint request of EUSA's Welfare Committee and LGBT Action Group. Again, EUSA did not spend any money on building new toilet blocks, but simply located a facility within the union building which only contained one toilet and designated this a gender neutral toilet. A sign was changed from reading, 'Gents' to one simply reading, 'toilet', a move which Kate Harris, EUSA's LGBT Actio
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Next time you walk down your garden path on the way to the newsagents to collect your Daily Mail, take a look under your hedge - there's a paedophile hiding there.
Bah, lack of editing sucks sometimes. I meant "Pentecostal" not "Methodist". Methodists may have strict dress codes too, but I know little about the sect and couldn't say one way or the other.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
actually they did remove the procedure:
"In April of this year[2010], the Catholic Church modified the Code of Canon Law to remove all references to the act of formal defection, the process used by those who wish to formally renounce their membership of the Church"
And yes you have to go back further to find people actually being killed for heracy or for abandoning the catholic church.
The 60's were just the easiest recent example of the church treating women in an utterly barbaric manner.
If I list any country with fairly moderate laws you'll just declare that they're not muslim enough no matter if the laws in the country are strongly shaped by the religion with a massive muslim majority in the population.
Well, we could have way more efficient queues if we had unisex bathrooms. Are there any objections that wouldn't be satisfied by having isolated stalls (i.e. floor-to-ceiling walls and doors without cracks to see through and which lock reliably)? I'd be totally in favor of that. Does anyone have a problem with washing their hands in view of someone of the opposite gender?
A more general comment on "self segregation": isn't all segregation "self segregation"? What's the difference between "We want to keep them away from us" and "We want to keep ourselves away from them"? The obvious distinction is majority vs. minority -- when the minority does it it's "self segregation" -- but if you're still looking at the granularity of an ethnic group or similar, it's no better.
If an individual wants to join a private group, that's totally fine and reasonable. If a group of Saudis decide that all Saudis should be segregated by gender, is it ethical to force that on the rest of them?
(Answer: No.)
The key difference is that Germany was already a democracy at the time.
No. It wasn't. Germany had rejected the Weimar Republic in 1933.
Last week I was talking to a customer and he explained how he, his wife, his brother-in-law and his wife, had left their southern baptist church because his brother-in-law's wife had the temerity to suggest that she could teach Sunday school - due to having assisted the male teacher, who had since left. It was "suggested" by the church that the brother-in-law should "control his woman"
The Southern Baptist Convention is more like a coalition of somewhat similarly-believing churches. Each member church is wholly autonomous, hires (and sometimes fires) their own pastor, elects their own Board of Deacons (which actually governs the church), and generally does whatever they want in whatever way they see fit. The whole SBC system is basically a federation of democratic republics with a very weak central government, the main purpose being to band together to support missionaries and some colleges, etc.
The Southern Baptist church I grew up in was the exact opposite of what you're describing. Specifically, my mom taught Sunday School for many years. Although we wore the traditional business-casual to business-formal clothes on Sunday morning, any other meetings or services you might go to were "come as you are", and in hot months you could just about guarantee that 90% of kids would be in shorts and t-shirts. The youth groups had summer camps where girls swam in bikinis if they wanted to, we went on ski trips, and one time we went on a national tour to perform a rock musical.
I don't consider myself a Southern Baptist anymore because of doctrinal differences, but they're certainly not collectively the way you describe that one particular church. Now, that church may very well be exactly like that, but that's because its own members choose to be. Other SBC churches would have very little patience with those artificial restrictions, and would in fact see them as ranking piety more importantly than an honest relationship with God.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The babysitter that I use for my kids is Muslim, and I've been learning a lot about their culture and customs for the last three years or so. Of course, I've only been learning the views of one person, who's from Bangladesh, and part of a specific sect of Islam.
From what she's told me, the only time she truly feels free is when she's with a group of women in a private setting. She has a bit of a fear of men, and said that most women she knows share this fear. She doesn't trust men, and doesn't like being alone with them because she was always taught that she will get raped the moment no one is watching.
She keeps her hair covered at all times in public, and being a man, I've never been allowed to see her "topless." (This is the word she used to use for going without her head scarf, until I told her what it meant in the U.S.)
The perverse thing is that this behavior has caused her hair to take on a quality of sexuality. I was doing some work on her laptop and during the back-up found some pictures of her at her daughter's wedding party. While she was fully dressed from neck to ankle her hair was uncovered and it caused the same reaction in me that seeing bare breasts usually causes. It was the oddest damn thing, but it really illustrated the power of taboo.
Can we please stop excusing the excesses of one group by mentioning that some other group did the same thing, usually many, many years ago? For pity's sake, it's like a little kid excusing his loutish behavior by saying, "All the guys were doing it!" If a woman is executed today for the "crime" of being raped in a muslim culture, the fact that some woman was burned at the stake for being a witch 400 years ago doesn't mean fuck all for anything.
Just for reference:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Table4_reprint.pdf
USA rank for gender inequality:35th
Tunisia :rank 56: 99.5% muslim.
Maldives:rank 59: 99% muslim.
Libya: rank 52: 96.6% muslim.
Kuwait: rank 43: 95% muslim.
but I'm guessing none of them are muslim enough for you.
What a strange post. The women asked for this. It is what they want. Do you feel that women only gyms oppress women?
it doesn't excuse it but it does matter when racist dickheads are trying to paint a culture or religious group as subhuman for doing what our own ancestors did only a handful of generations ago.
it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to change it.
Actually Missionaries almost are never out knocking doors at dinner time. It would be odd for one to be there at dinner time. BTW the missionaries do not like to knock on doors and they are easy to deal with if you are not interested. Frankly I find the fear and annoyance with them odd since they it seems to be in large part fear.
To not be bothered by them again it is simple. Answer the door and say this. Thank you but I am really not interested. They will mark your address as not interested and will not bother you again. Going door to door is the thing they hate to do the most. Just a good mannered no thank you is good enough. But if you don't open the door they will come back and if you are mean to them. Well that is just being mean for no good reason.
Sorry if you feel that way about us as a whole. I would not classify my self as gullible or sheeple. I doubt that if you knew me you would feel that way about me as well. You see I am the guy that a friend from another church invited to a lecture on creationism because I was good at science. I was also the guy that stood up in the lecture during the QnA and told him where he was wrong.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The key difference is that Germany was already a democracy at the time. It would be more accurate to say that you can't bring democracy to people, they have to come to it themselves.
Liberation is one thing but as Iraq and Afghanistan have shown democracy doesn't work very well unless it comes from the people.
Interesting. My first thought was that the o.p. referred to freeing Germany from the Nazis. That actually went pretty well.
-Gareth
Do you think women would be asking to wear a burka if it wasn't for pressure from men to wear them?
It might seem like women are repressing themselves, but that's simply not the case.
MABASPLOOM!
You know, I have wondered about that. Even in gender-specific toilets, there is sufficient privacy for the individual. Non-co-ed bathrooms strike me as something of a cultural vestige that is kept out of tradition more than any innate utility.
Can anyone think of reasons why they should remain segregated in the modern world?
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
An asylum seeker behind the bins, too.
In my experience, the Gulf women tend to be very immature. They can be 30 years old and still as immature as a British teen. Most of them really need to be protected and shielded from the wild wild world. It is like they grow old before they grow up.
Nudity and jogging half naked in the morning while nipples are erected doesn't imply "free" for me.
Depends on who's erecting the nipples. (ding ding) Thank you!
And real freedom means I don't have to give a shit what implies "free" to you.
why is there a "chairman" involved here, and the news media? can't they just create their own facebook group and join it? and unjoin the other one?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
So go into your garage, dust off your time machine, set the dial for a few decades back, and press the button. Then bitch about Catholicism, and you'll be helping. Bitch about it today, though, and you're only bitching. Lame. Bitch about Islam today, though, and you're doing more than bitching; you're helping.
What?!
Hong Kong is not a democracy by any western standards. Half of the legislature is what we call the "functional constituency", which has a voter base of about 3% of the whole population. A few of those seats are exclusively selected by "corporate votes", no real people voting. For example, the legislator in the "finance" constituency only has to secure votes from a few dozen BANKS to get a seat. (You thought just lobbying by corporations was bad enough?)
The government directly reports to the Central Government of the People's Republic of China, and the head of government in Hong Kong is elected by a small group of about 800 people. Note, you're talking about a city of 7+ million people.
Not that the state of affairs was any better under British rule -- for a long time, the legislature was appointed until it switched to a system similar to that of today, and the Governor of Hong Kong was appointed by the British government.
In short, Hong Kong is not, and was never a democracy.
---
As for Taiwan, I am less familiar with its political history. But I am not aware that there was significant "outside" help. The people in Taiwan wanted democracy, and the then president Lee Teng-Hui gave what they wanted, and now they are pretty proud to be the only place in "China" where democracy is practiced.
Don't quote me on this.
I guess.
Here's your burkha.
Do you feel the same the way about every Christian denomination that imposes a dress code and other restrictions on their congregation???
they have the freedom to leave that denomination
Que? The concept of (absolute) ownership (in the sense that you may dispose of certain things as you please) predates the idea of capitalism ("forming the basis") and both these predate "Americas". While possessing the strength to keep something for yourself predates Man (although what is prevalent in nature is not necessarily right), it's a far simpler concept to that of an absolute and necessarily protected right to dispose of something ("property right"). The latter is mystical nonsense.
One should not use a broad brush, yes, but the actions of long dead people are irrelevant. That borders on the whole "we're guilty of the crimes of our ancestors" piffle that no sane person accepts.
And speak for your *own* ancestors, thank you very much. ;-)
The *individuals* involved are either acting atrociously or not. Someone else's atrocious actions 100 years ago are a complete non sequitur.
there are millions of fundamentalists in schools, colleges and churches that have strict dress and behavior codes. No skirts on or above the knee, no "mixed bathing" (men and women swimming together), no slacks/pants for women, no "worldly phrases or pictures on clothes", no listening to "worldly music", no watching "hollywood movies", etc. I know from experience.
Can anyone think of reasons why they should remain segregated in the modern world?
urinals.
MEN ! DO NOT BE TAKEN IN BY THIS!
We all know how long and slow lines at the womens' room is for busy events. Do YOU want to suffer the same inconvenience ?!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Actually Missionaries almost are never out knocking doors at dinner time. It would be odd for one to be there at dinner time.
Strange. Every year when they come around, the new crop hits my neighborhood between 5 and 7 pm. Standard Mormon Missionary dress, packing Books of Mormon to give away, pamphlets, the works.
It's the Jehovah's Witnesses who show up at 11AM. Which has led to some interesting deals when some well-meaning neighbors reported our local black JW's to the cops fearing that they were casing houses to find out who was in or out (our city, sadly, has had a problem with a burglary ring consisting mostly of Guatemalan illegal immigrants).
To not be bothered by them again it is simple. Answer the door and say this. Thank you but I am really not interested. They will mark your address as not interested and will not bother you again.
They've been told that. They keep coming, about every 3 months a new crop. You're either a liar or just clueless.
Sorry if you feel that way about us as a whole. I would not classify my self as gullible or sheeple. I doubt that if you knew me you would feel that way about me as well. You see I am the guy that a friend from another church invited to a lecture on creationism because I was good at science. I was also the guy that stood up in the lecture during the QnA and told him where he was wrong.
I have no -personal- problems with Mormons. Most of them I have met have been very polite, nice people. They can tend to be easier to get along with than, say, the no-fun (e.g. "no dancing, no alcohol, no fun of any sort") Baptists that pervade my locality.
That being said, I find religion itself to be as I described it: for the most part, a method by which control freaks do their best to control the sheeple of the world, under the function of "some intangible parent figure who, who shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says, and says, "Do it... do it and I'll fuckin' spank you."" And yes, I'm aware of the irony of the quote itself, as well as the movie from which it comes.
The irony is that religion doesn't end with people developing rational thinking skills. The more religious someone is, the more stunted their mental growth, because they never get past the "it is because the authority figure says it is" state of thinking. And when you get to Islam, especially the really crazy shit and the "hate what allah hates" crap preached all over the middle east, it's truly frightening.
Yeah, atheists are all kind and compassionate like Mussolini, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Lenin. Religion is not the evil. True evil is when "good folks" don't fight the bad ones.
You're wrong, though.
When Germany was freed from Hitler, this worked because Germans had ALREADY freed themselves before. And it also worked because Germans were, in the end, fed up with Hitler and the nazis. And finally, it worked because with all the financial, military and economic aid they received from the USA, they actually had a perspective.
If everyone was naked all the time, it wouldn't be a problem at all. Erections do not have to be something shameful, it is just our current way of thinking. Also, I don't see the connection with trust you make at the end.
Yet when we MEN want to do the same thing...say for instance, a MEN's ONLY golf club or any other club, women bitch and moan, and often even try for legal action that this is sexist and can't be allowed...
Double standard a little bit here?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Given that many common diseases are spread through the mouth and nose, some kind of facial covering does make some hygienic sense. And Muslims take hygiene very seriously, even if much of what they do is based on ritual rather than actual hygiene.
You also have to take into account that, when your society is based on the culture of desert-inhabiting tribes, some kind of full-body covering, including facial covering, is almost inevitable.
Only the ugly ones...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It might seem like women are repressing themselves, but that's simply not the case.
Women in sexually repressive societies are almost always one of the major vectors of repression.
But here's the thing: a woman telling another woman she must wear a burka is just as repressive as a man telling a woman she must wear a burka.
See, the thing that matters is that the two women involved--and I know this is a difficult concept so please bear with me--ARE DIFFERENT PEOPLE.
Only a gibbering idiot would suggest that it's ok to repress someone if they happen to belong to the same socially-constructed abstract category as you.
It would make no more sense to say, "It's ok for women to repress other women" than it would to say, "It's ok for humans to repress other humans." The reification of one particular abstract category does nothing but announce the political agenda of the reifier. It adds nothing but noise to the discourse.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
any sort of religion/political or whatever rules/views cannot demand anything from facebook. if they want segragation they oughta make their own facebook and fuck off with their stupid limited ideas. the fact they want to make a social network LESS SOCIAL goes against the main idea. 22,000 people are being retarded and should probably re-think their values.
George Carlin said that church is where we go to compare clothing.
If they oppress anyone, they oppress men. It all depends on how you'd answer the question, "Do you feel that men-only gyms oppress women?"
And, of course, whether there are many more of one kind than the other. Male-only swimming pools in Saudi Arabia (of which there are many) could be said to oppress women there because of the almost total lack of female-only or mixed-gender pools.
ah, come on, "free" really.
Yes, really.
Isn't freedom what you want to do. How come you imposing your culture's point of view on another culture freedom.
See, this right here is why all the apologists sound like idiots. Yes, freedom is what you want to do. No, freedom is not what "your culture" forces you to do. If I step in and tell your neighbours that they can't murder you for wearing a dress, I'm not "imposing my cultures point of view" - I'm giving you the freedom to decide what you want to do.
How in the world can you have it so completely ass-backwards?
I must have missed all those stories about Mormon men killing their women for not wearing the magic Mormon underwear.
There is only one religious group in Western Countries actively trying to impose their religious laws on the rest of the country...and it's not Christians, no matter how devoutly feminists and liberals insist that The Handmaiden's Tale is just around the corner.
The whole Sharia law in the US thing is what the Christian Right wants you to believe. What new laws would you be willing to accept to stop Sharia ?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"Do you think women would be asking to wear a burka if it wasn't for pressure from men to wear them?"
Yes. In the conversations I've had with Muslim women in my neighborhood (not to say that we're real good friends or anything, but sometimes I'll be at the coffee shop or something and get to talking with folks), the consensus that I've heard is "It's not about the men, it's about us."
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
And more and more the "bad ones" are christianity, islam, and other primitive superstitions. I've got nothing against Deism, and generic spirituality as long as you don't pull in crazy woo woo faith healing or whatnot. But organized religion, for all the good it does of keeping people in line, appears to have increasing detrimental effect on society.
And let me be clear here. You are advocating war. You're definition of "true evil" is PEACE. You know, when people DON'T FIGHT. So, as a peace-loving atheist to a war-mongering theist, fuck you.
Note that the person saying that the women want this is a man. Typical.
For many young Saudi women, an education in the US is their one time of freedom in life. Some years ago, I was chatting with a Saudi woman about to finish Stanford, and she mentioned that she was going to drive across the United States, then fly back to Saudi Arabia from the East Coast. I asked her why the long drive, and she said it was the only time in her life she'd be allowed to do something like that. (In Saudi Arabia, women aren't allowed to drive.)
I like the red-state solution to this problem. Someone at a Texas company wrote that an Islamic female co-worker was being harassed by an Islamic male employee who just assumed that, since he was male. he had the right to her if he wanted. So the Texan took the woman to a shooting range and taught her how to use a 9mm pistol. "You taught her how to shoot?" the annoying guy said when he found out about this. "Yes, and she's good at it, too". No more problems.
Fighting evil sometimes takes the form of wars. And those are GOOD WARS. You're a coward if you think peace is more important than fighting evil.
Better yet, fuck everything that you don't believe, because you must be right.
It is odd that they keep coming back. Unless you live in a really super LDS area they tend to have to much area to come back every 3 months. It could happen because every three months you get in your new batch. If you live in Provo Utah well there is only so many people that are not members. It isn't anything formal but I do find it odd they keep coming back.
The problem at this point is that you still insist on being rude and insulting. You keep using derogatory terms like Sheeple. At no time did I use any negative terms in reference to what you believe in or don't. The rest of your statements are at best generalizations. Many scientists are members of the LDS church as are many engineers and computer scientists. Intel, Micron, and several other large tech companies send recruiters to BYU. I could go on and try to explain that freedom of choice is a vital part of LDS theology but since you choose to keep using negative terms I know that it isn't worth the effort.
I am sorry that you are annoyed at the once every three months knock. If I was in your area I would be happy to prevent it for you but I am not.
Have a good day.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This argument is the same one made by those trying to defend female circumcision. Or stoning people to death.
Just because they come from a different geographical location does not make them different from you or I. Repression is repression, zeitgeist be damned.
MABASPLOOM!
Right, because at no point in their life were they raised to believe that they should cover themselves.
You really think they came to this conclusion on their own? You're deluding yourself.
MABASPLOOM!
Actually, it gives us more license to disparage them for doing these things. We did "Horrible Thing X" many, many years ago. We no longer do it today. However, the record of us doing "Horrible Thing X" is freely available. Now, the people in the other group were also around many, many years ago. Not only are they now guilty of also doing "Horrible Thing X", but they also were given the opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Failing to do that, is even worse.
"Difference being, you are free to leave that denomination and many do. It is apostasy in Islam to leave"
You are really unaware of things like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many parts of the evangelical Christian movement?
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
In the example given, its not the erection itself that is shameful, but rather the perceived trigger for the erection, in this case, the preteen daughter.
Now, if everyone was naked all the time, perhaps people would make the connection that erections happen for any and all reasons, including no reason whatsoever.
That's wrong in so many ways. Most Arab societies are have preserved a lot of primitive 'cultural' ideas which all basically say that a woman must have a father or a husband who governs her. If the father or husband does not do their job, the woman will lose her honor and become more or less free game for raping and killing. The authorities are not happy about the raping and killing since it adds a workload on the police and justice system, but they're not exactly fighting it either.
Now, imagine that you're a woman growing up under this system. You're smart. You know that your father or husband is basically your owner. You know that they are not infallible. You know that anything you say to your girl friends and sisters could be misinterpreted by your owner, causing you to lose your honor and be killed. Any random man molesting you, raping you or kidnapping you could make you ,ose your honor and cause you to be killed. What do you do?
The burka is beginning to look pretty damn attractive now, doesn't it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilla_Watson
"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
And let's not get started on Catholic School dress requirements.
Really? I went to Catholic School, and the uniform code there was actually much more relaxed than at some secular private schools. For one, we didn't wear blazers and ties. Just slacks, and either a button down shirt or a polo. Girls had the option of wearing a skirt as well. That's about it.
That's just he thing. What is the difference between self-segregation and segregation?
In the case of men and women, if only the men want to segregate, is that okay?
What about if only the women do?
What if both genders want to segregate, but it's not unanimous? Is it majority rule? Unanimous consent?
What defines "Self segregation" for a group of 20,000?
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
reify (rifa)
— vb , -fies , -fying , -fied
( tr ) to consider or make (an abstract idea or concept) real or concrete.
It means quite the opposite of what you think.
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Text version of Flickr
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I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
If you intend to not be Catholic, why would you care if Catholics consider you Catholic or not?
What's wrong with segregating Blacks and Whites? What if only the Whites want to self-segregate? The facilities will be separate but equal, so no problem, right?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"Right, because at no point in their life were they raised to believe that they should cover themselves."
Yeah, and you were probably raised to believe you should cover your genitals when you go to the grocery store. What are you getting at?
Is it something to the effect of "Muslim women are downtrodden and oppressed drones who can do nothing that a man does not allow?" Because that's a bunch of bullshit. There is a Muslim woman who wears the veil in my neighborhood...and is our city council representative. I don't think her man's telling her to do it.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Pretty much every Western culture requires women to cover their breasts while men can leave theirs bare.
And there's ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE between male breasts and female breasts, right? NONE AT ALL. RIGHT?
I'm not sure of the anthropological history of this particular example, but I'm going to take a crazy, anti-religious stab at it anyway and say: but I wouldn't be surprised if it had Judeo-Christian roots.
Fixed that for ya.
So the young Saudi men are considered behaving badly in the US as well. Perhaps the Saudi mothers could increase their role in the upbringing of their sons.. I would probably lose my head for pushing such heretical ideas in the conservative areas.
Democracy and personal freedoms often go hand in hand, but you don't strictly need one to have the other. There are a few non-democratic countries in the world which, nonetheless, provide a high degree of personal freedoms.
None of the religions you've listed classify apostasy as a capital offense, however.
If on the other hand the court had ruled that women *had* to go topless whether they wanted to or not then would they be more free?
I can't decide what you're arguing for.
Yes, exactly. I almost made that point, but then refrained. You said it better than I could have though.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
What pole, the 10-foot one no one will be touching your argument with?
Do you post "islam does it too" in threads criticizing christianity ?
No no no, you got it wrong.
Just for the sake of correctnes. Burkhas are not used in Saudi. Women in Saudi wear there* garment which is called Abaya and weil their face with cloth named Niqab. And yes, burkha and abaya are different.
*) most of them don't wear those clotes while traveling abroad.
You're right. People in the West really have deluded themselves into thinking that they don't have an arbitrary culture, it's everyone else that does. Of course you cover your penis, testicles, vagina and anus: that's just natural! Of course only women cover their breasts, unless on a beach in France or on spring break in Mexico - that's reasonable and natural! But that women should have their hair covered - well, that's repression! Oh, and men will need to shave for at least the first 10 to 15 years of their careers if they want to be taken seriously in the corporate world - that's just normal... etc.
In fact, many of the things we take as conventional have "repressive" origins, but we've integrated them into everyday life as simple conventions and habits of basic modesty. That so many people don't understand how this could possibly be the case for Muslims is discouraging.
There are many spheres of life, too, where women do better when they segregate themselves from men. Because of the tendency of boys to monopolize attention and resources in K-8 math and sciences education, girls do much better in those subjects when taught in all-girl environments. Unsurprisingly, then, a disproportionate number of women scientists and engineers went to all-girl schools: the shocker is that there are more women (by percentage) studying engineering in the Arab world than in the US! (Recognizing the reality of discrimination in the job markets in those countries, however: most come to Europe or the US to work.)
Maldives: it is compulsory for maldives citizens to be sunni muslims http://www.maldivesinfo.gov.mv/home/upload/downloads/Compilation.pdf
I guess.
Here's your burkha.
Do you feel the same the way about every Christian denomination that imposes a dress code and other restrictions on their congregation???
Sorry, a burkha or any of the veils for islamic women are designed to rob them of their identity. That's a long fucking stretch from a dress code.
However, I admit to being human, and as such being prone to making mistakes. Perhaps there is a Christian branch that hide's people's faces specifically to make them less human, and thus more prone to subjugation?
Perhaps that is because they are shielded. The caged bird will never learn to fly.
It is odd that they keep coming back. Unless you live in a really super LDS area they tend to have to much area to come back every 3 months. It could happen because every three months you get in your new batch. If you live in Provo Utah well there is only so many people that are not members. It isn't anything formal but I do find it odd they keep coming back.
In every area I've lived in - and I've moved a few times in my life - the LDS "missionaries" have behaved the same way. So on this point I, following the observations of Mormon Missionary Behavior that I have made thus far, must call you either clueless or a liar. I suspect you are one of the Mormons who never went on "Missionary work" and that you simply have been told something untrue (among the many untruths they have doubtless told you) by your church administration/elders.
Keep in mind that it is possible to lie through ignorance. You may well believe that "all it should take" to get the LDS missionaries to stop annoying people in my area at dinnertime would be to politely tell them to come back, but the reality is that your belief is factually wrong in this regard.
The problem at this point is that you still insist on being rude and insulting. You keep using derogatory terms like Sheeple.
You are correct that the term Sheeple has taken on a derogatory meaning. However, it is an accurate meaning. I do not just use it for the religious, but for any group of human beings who follow "leaders" in a cultlike trance. Followers of various Hollyweird celebrities, Scientologists, unquestioning members of other cults/religions, political wonks whose adherence to their political party is divorced from independent or rational thought... the list is quite extensive.
The rest of your statements are at best generalizations. Many scientists are members of the LDS church as are many engineers and computer scientists.
That does not preclude their inability to confront metaphysical conundrums and philosophical conundrums in anything other than a "but da big shiny god-thing said so through the prophet durr" mode.
I could go on and try to explain that freedom of choice is a vital part of LDS theology but since you choose to keep using negative terms I know that it isn't worth the effort.
Hardly. Baptism by Proxy is "freedom of choice"? Even after lawsuits from groups such as Jewish holocaust survivors and Amerindian tribes, the Mormon Church continues to do this.
The concept of predestination/"foreordination" necessarily negates the illusion of freedom of choice. If one is not a "foreordained elect", then nothing one can do will change this. If one is a "foreordained elect", then this is also unchangeable. Mormons sometimes claim that "choosing to sin" is evidence that one is not foreordained - but that then means that the non-foreordained are the only ones given freedom of choice, except that their choice is essentially meaningless since they are not "elect" by foreordination.
Don't get me wrong - I believe that people should be kind and be the best they can be. But I don't need the metaphysical eye of a big-brother deity and unspecified holy wrath to tell me to do it. I'm evolved enough to see that being good to others ought to be done for its own sake, whether some old troll calling itself a "god" tells people to or not.
US companies will do anything if it helps them make their dollars.
Next thing, the men will demand that their group and the womens group be segregated into a "Saudi only" group so they aren't defiled by the godless Westerners. Facebook will be happy as it will make their demographic profiling even easier, and they'd be able to charge special rates for advertisers looking to the Saudi market....
Ker-ching!
It's so relative tho.
Very masculine men wore lace and colors only 150 years ago.
When I do renfest, I wear lacy clothing and it rocks.
There was a little surge of it by rock stars in the 60's and 70's but then it faded.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Germany was a democracy when Nazis came to power. Hitler was democratically elected.
A Burqa is a tool for dehumanizing the wearer.
We are anonymous
We are legion
We don't forgive
We don't forget
Privacy and Facebook in one sentence ... that must be a joke.
It dont hold water both pages are just as public.
I've never understood how, with a straight face, they could continue to say "yes, it LITERALLY becomes flesh and blood."
"No, it doesn't. I'm looking at it. It's still a cracker and grapejuice."
"No, no, I'm telling you, it's now LITERALLY the body of Christ. It's his flesh and blood."
"....No. It's not..."
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Their religion is also a little hard on poking and getting Facebook to implement a "throw rock" feature turned out to be more difficult than anticipated.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
Actually my wife served a mission and I have gone on splits with the missionaries in my local ward and I have worked with our ward mission leader closely.
I find it so interesting that you are so sure that you know more than I do. You arrogance is just outstanding. It is good that you feel that being nice to people is of value in it's own right. So do I.
You have been feed half truths and believed them. Baptism by proxy is because we believe that all must be baptized to be saved. That being said the people that are being baptized by proxy we believe have the option to still reject it if they don't want it. You know that freewill thing.
All this is a matter of faith and you free to not believe it but do not let people that are not members tell you what we believe.
No one can ever force you to accept anything it is all up to the person. It is just that we feel that the idea that if someone never was taught this or ever had it presented to them in the proper way would be punished for that. But no to our teaching we are not just forcing people to do x or y.
Like I said you are free to believe or not. You may be a very nice person in real life that just is rude on line for all I know but in this case you do not understand LDS teaching on the subject.
Pre ordainment is an interesting one. It almost falls into the classic nature vs nature argument of human behavior or the very nature of free will. Are not some people pre ordained to get cancer just by genetics? Or to be smart or to be good singers? In the end it is like the discusion on freewill I had in my philosophy class in college. I simply said that we had freewill. The reason being is if we did not then I am predestined to believe that we do. If we do then I am correct. It is of no value to deal the option that we do not. Preordination is not something anyone really has to worry about since we do not know one is or is not preordained to do and each of us has the freewill to ignore what we could do.
BTW as to the being lied to let me make this clear. I am a member of the church. I am also in the leadership of my ward aka a member of the ward counsel. I am also the Sunday School President which means that I am to safe guard that only correct principles are taught. So if you really think that there is lying going on then I would be one of them ones doing the lying. I will tell you that it is a challenge at times to make sure that some good meaning but misguided members do not teach the wrong things. Believe it or not most of the wrong things I have correct are some of the very things that you do not like.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Do you think women would be asking to shave their legs if it wasn't for pressure from men to shave them? If you think that has a clear answer, go read jezebel.com for awhile and learn that it has a spectrum of answers. Accept that there can be a similar spectrum of answers regarding the question you asked.
Just because a group is pressured to perform an action does not mean that every member who performs that action did so as an act of repression.
If people were used to see others nude they wouldn't jump to such stupid conclusions either. That whole paranoia also has roots on religious movements.
Dilbert RSS feed
Sorry but they'll just have to start their own version of FaceBook. Then they can belong to anything they want.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You can unlock someone's cage, but if you force them out then you have taken their freedom.
True, but that doesn't make you a bad guy for kicking the shit out of the smartass walking up with a shiny new lock.
Wasn't that long ago that boys got in trouble for having treehouses with "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" written on them.
If "Muslim nation" means more than "a nation comprised of people, most of whom are Muslims", please present your definition. Otherwise you're just engaging in the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You might wanna recheck your sources about the implied atheism of some of your examples. Not that it really matters since atheism, being a lack of belief in a deity, has no inherent dogmas, ethical or moral structures that tell people what to do or how to behave, all of which religion presumes to. You would find it pretty difficult to find people committing atrocities "in the name of atheism", whereas it's pretty commonplace to find people doing the same in the name of God. Coward.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Imposing your idea of freedom on others is not freedom.
And what's to stop a guy from pretending to be a girl on facebook ?. (Or vice-versa).
That's aside from the generic "there is no privacy on the net" issues.
A purely political/religious play - next thing you know someone will want a sign up saying "No blacks"
This is Islam at its best, Just send them all back to Saudi where they can't
drive and the men and the rligeous police can beat them.
Yep, it's too bad.
In China, they have sinks outside of the washrooms, so they don't mind washing their hands in view of other people.
testing out my trending skills
Women like to talk in the washroom. I've been told that they have couches in some washrooms.
testing out my trending skills
I think that you meant the women's shower tent in M*A*S*H.
Female genital mutilation is rare and certainly not common in muslim society. Please provide a reliable cite if you persist in your shocking claim.
In fact, body mutilation of any kind is forbidden by Islam. The body is supposed to be God's creation and vandalizing it is bad (goes the reasoning).
Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea have been good successes.
Tunisia and Egypt are some more recent examples. Followed swiftly by Algeria, Yemen, and others...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
"... it's true that the type of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia is *extremely* conservative and anti-female..."
It isn't Islam. It's culture. Sometimes people wrap cultural activities in a religious coating.
Some facts:
In approximately the year 595, using the U.S. method of dates, Khadijah bint Khuwaylid bint Khuwaylid (pronounced Ha-dee'-jah), a very successful owner and manager of an international trading business, asked a younger, honest, reliable, and trustworthy trader named Mohammed to marry her. They married and both were extremely happy in their marriage, according to all that we know.
Mohammed is now called the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam.
Understanding that, it is difficult to see Mohammed as someone interested in having an unequal relationship with women. The inequality comes from the culture that existed before and after Mohammed.
I have unusual experience in that I have spent many hours alone with Muslim women, teaching them English here in the U.S. so that they could live with husbands here who are U.S. citizens. There are huge problems in some of the cultures that have embraced Islam, but those cultures cannot sensibly be called "anti-female", as the women will loudly tell you, if you ask them when you are alone with them.
Just remember that when Sharia Law is finally imposed upon non-Muslims, you can expect lots of people to get killed over it.
FTFY.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Judeo-Christian ideas are just another form of Platonism, so what's the point?
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I'm not sure I get the point of this? I mean, cant you form your own group on FB?
Ross Youngblood
I believe women are banned from driving automobiles in Saudi Arabia.
Govt must constitute a panel to rewrite US Constitution and Quran
Are we talking about the same culture that practices female circumcision? Why we should listen to them?
While people have the right to belong to whatever types of groups they wish online, this desire is indicative of a deeper problem in their culture. They need someone like Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to recognize what is unarguably broken and reform it from within.
"To the men: If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West"
-- Kinross, Ataturk, The Rebirth of a Nation, p. 343
Perhaps they need a private place to discuss their respective Clitoridectomies and which procedure was followed by the Mullah, the rusty straight razor, the sharpened piece of glass, a pair of sewing scissors ... oh and which color Derka they wish to wear when placed into a pit and stoned by groups of screaming, savage, dirty, stinking, wretched animals? Hummmm?
nar
Certain jews have "Kosher" computers. These are units that have very restricted access to websites, in fact, only to websites which are controlled by their sect. Mostly, the computers have no internet access, because it is possible the young person could come across a scantilly clad woman. Ditto for their cell phones. So the Saudi's requests are reasonable.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
No, the pedophile probably owns the news stand.
And I'm not being paranoid. Just look at what's happening all over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Sharia Law is taking hold. Sooner than later, it'll try to take hold here in the U.S. Just look at what went down in Oklahoma. Our Constitutional government is completely in conflict with Sharia Law. Sharia Law CANNOT be allowed to worm its way into the United States. Once it does, that's the end of the united States, and the end for non-Muslims.
Ever hear of Warren Jeffs?
Best of luck w/your teen years if you're a follower and decide to have "thoughts".
Dr. Evil: "No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan."
Acting like a farcical evil mastermind doesn't excuse life-threatening evil.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
As far as I know no Christian church will stone you or put you in jail for wearing a mini skirt. The biggest reason for that in some churches is that the rule of law independent of the church forbids it. When you let religions run countries, they also run amok.
Ah yes, the Starship Troopers reference is not well know around here based on that moderation..
Try walking naked on the street. Every society has it's arbitraly rules.
Could I borrow the time machine when you've done with it. I want to check the 2015 stock market prices (I already have a sufficiently good idea of what the oil price is going to be).
What makes you think that any of the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen or any of the other countries in the region are going to be democracies in the foreseeable future? There are only a couple of countries in the region with anything resembling a democratic government - Turkey and Israel - and both of those are pretty strained.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
For sake of discussion, let's say that Sharia Law is somehow permitted in the United States. If you are a non-Muslim, are you willing to be subject to such law, putting aside all of your Constitutional rights?
While the imposition of Sharia Law may not be inevitable, either short-term or long-term, it is a possibility. Are you willing to accept that, or are you willing to support legislation that would prevent it from taking hold in the United States?
Ok, calm down....
The reasoning behind some western countries targeting the burqa is because human psychology has been shown to dehumanize the faceless. It is reasonable that someone who has been treated like a non-person their whole life would not be able to make the conscious decision to free themselves or even if they could would choose not to out of fear. The law does indeed victimize the few who consider it an invasion of privacy, however, you should not assume that every woman who wears a burqa does so by choice.
The point being that if doing so by subjugation those who have not been able to choose will be freed and those that wish it will of course be able to lobby the government to repeal under freedom of expression. This temporary injustice would liberate those that are under a burqa by force who are assumed to be the majority by most westerners who fight for womens rights. On a balance of good the temporary injustice to those who wish to wear it is outweighed by the lifetime injustice of those who live as non-persons under duress.
> Yet even most aboriginal societies have some form of bodily covering - even if it's just loincloths.
Yes, but how do they swim&bath?
If naked, then this indicates that this is a protection, not a taboo..
Note though that most != all: I remember a TV show about an African tribes where the women were naked except for their ankles(which was taboo!), men did have some penis coverage though..