one moar neuron

sonic-hip-attack:

goodreasonnews:

emilygoddess:

goodreasonnews:

This argument bugs me. It’s like someone saying “I’m not ashamed of myself because a man told me to be! I’m ashamed of myself because I want to believe a magical ghost from beyond the stars might think I ought to be according to a book written by a clairvoyant caveman who married a child.”

“I couldn’t be bothered to ask some hijabi women why they wear the veil, or even to fucking google it, so I’ll just parrot some racist stereotypes instead.”

So tired of Islamophobia and racism masquerading as feminism.

It’s neither Islamophobia nor is it racism and the argument isn’t one concerning feminism. It’s anti-Islamic, I’m against Islam and all religion because it’s suppressive not just to women but to everyone it touches, even those who don’t follow it. This is just one specific way Islam oppresses one segment of its following. It’s an argument from an anti-theist standpoint. Why do Islamic women wear this or that? In a sentence: It’s reverence to their god. That’s enough reason to deem it suppressive because the very belief in a god is itself suppressive of the mind and it’s regular logical thought process. One should be allowed to wear what they want and worship how they want and not be harassed for it, but that doesn’t mean that the intellectual discussion of it ought to be suppressed. I won’t be silenced in my pursuit to expose the evils of religious thinking. It is not your right to be free from criticism and it is not racist or bigoted to be critical of a belief system.

Would you call me a bigot if I criticized Scientology or Heaven’s Gate or People’s Temple ideology? What’s the difference between those cults and Christianity and Islam?

Islamic women are not the only women who wear veils and hijabs.  And someone’s “reverence to their god” being displayed by dress does not automatically equal suppression or oppression.  Wearing a yarmulke is not oppressive, it’s a symbol of their devoutness to their deity.  

One should be allowed to wear what they want and worship how they want and not be harassed for it, but that doesn’t mean that the intellectual discussion of it ought to be suppressed.

What you posted was not an intellectual discussion.  It was simplistic, insulting, and painfully overgeneralized.

Religious thinking causes a great many evils, but items of clothing are just items of clothing, and people wear them for a large variety of reasons.  Some women wear burqas and niqabs and hijabs for oppressive reasons, and some wear them for expressive reasons.  It’s not your place to speak for all of them, especially in such a dismissive way.

It is not your right to be free from criticism and it is not racist or bigoted to be critical of a belief system.

You can criticize religious beliefs all day long and I will probably agree with you.  But you asserted a flawed generalization about hijabi women (that they are ashamed of themselves) that deserved to be criticized as well.  

I don’t support you being silenced for being anti-religion.  I also don’t support you speaking for millions of heterogeneous believers and making them sound uneducated, naive, and not in control of their own actions to make your points. I hope you see the distinction.

ETA: My sentence didn’t make sense so I fixed it.

this is good talk.