Driving through London yesterday, I was dismayed to see more and more young girls wearing hijab - all to stop the lust of men. If this isn't sexualising children (cover up your hair or you might tempt a man to sin!), I don't know what is. It's a disgusting religion/culture which should have been assigned to the rubbish dump centuries ago.

Completely with you. In the words of Sam Harris "liberals need to start acting like liberals ". This tolerance train has mislead many people to believe only radical islam is bad when in fact 50% or more of the Islamic community would prefer Shari law be implemented in government and 2 women are equal to 1 man. Ayaan is probably one of my biggest heroes due to her courage and civility in light of everything she has experienced and still experiences. Someone like that should be the spokesperson for liberal views not this live and let abuse BS.

We should not tolerate intolerance. Not tolerating intolerance is not itself intolerance, but I think our fellow liberals who defend Islam do not understand it and misuse the word Islamophobia.

As a person brought up in a Jewish household, I questioned Islam since I found out about it. We prayed three times a day, they had to do five. We had two-day holidays, they had three-day holidays. We had a six-pointed star, they had an eight-pointed star recurring motif. The two religions are tightly linked at the monotheism level, but I always thought Islam was a snotty younger brother trying to out-do the older brother. I have NO problem criticizing a belief system that calls for honor killing of girls who marry but whose husbands do not publicly declare them to be virgins.

I'm definitely with Ayaan and Sam. Challenge all bad ideas fearlessly, especially when the actions they inspire cause real harm to people.

There is a difference between criticizing a religion, criticizing the impact religion has on the lives of people and criticizing people or even trying to force people to do or not do something. I deeply detest islam, i deeply detest the way women and gender relationships are treated and regulated in islam and i have no idea why anyone would choose to believe in all that nonsense. But if a woman believes and accepts those rules for herself, why should i have a right to force her otherwise? She should get all the help to change her opinion and freely decide otherwise. But this will not be achieved by e. g. outlawing the hijab.
A much bigger problem for me is the impact of religion on children: they do not decide freely. And genital mutilation and circumcision are bodily assaults and mutilations they will never be able to undo. That should be outlawed by all means and immediately.

Not the liberals i know, they question the muslin religion too but there just isnt that many muslims to begin with and liberal back muslims in their right believe that if they so choose to believe that. What is happening in america you have christian extremists pushing for laws that would band muslims from moving to america specially in the south

If fanatic "Christians", instead of dragging their children through Target Stores screaming __ are going to hell, would attend get-to-gethers or develope friendships, they could share in graceful attitude, their ideas and be much more at peace. Fear is the driving force with Conservatives of all stripes. How dare others be equal? What would happen?

That sounds stupid. As Ali says, Islam is as horrible as any religion. Men rule and fear women. That's why they must crush them down. All patriarchies fear women, but Islam is at the top of the un-godly (ha) treatment. She wants to un-brainwash women as to this cruel inequity.

Bill Maher calls out liberals for this all the time and he takes heat for it. Liberals are terrified of appearing to be intolerant since we spend so much time calling out intolerance. Since Muslims are under constant attack by conservatives, liberals feel the need to come to their defense. I agree with this to a certain extent, but I don't think we have to go out of our way to defend Islam's treatment of women.

I have no problem with questioning Islam. It's just another religion based on the belief in a Big Sky Daddy and that makes it fair game. The Babes in Bags thing isn't universal, though. Not even the hijab is universal. Do I think the bag thing is ridiculous? Oh, yes indeed I do. It is borderline terminally stupid. That being said, I prefer to keep my criticism on the religion itself and not so much on the garb.

Sent you a message, but there was a problem with that. So, I'll do it here: @Ruetres -- A little rearranging and you would be Reuters. Then we could all get our news from 'the source.'

What do you write, kiddo, and how long have you been at it?

J.

I don't like any religion. There's always that hidden control thats in there. It sounds good sometime but there are secrets that normal people don't know about. They say religion has morals and principles. I say you can get the same from scholars thats studied humanity and have determined the rights and the wrongs in the world. People forget that some man wrote the religion to began with.

I find the Islamic treatment of women, and Hasidic treatment of women offensive. That being said, each culture has a right to conduct its own affairs in its own way. What we need to do is bring about an awakening in such communities about the treatment of women.

Westerners know very little of Islam to the point they're afraid of it because they see it as a very brutal religion not realizing that so is Christianity. The world has a long way to go before they realize the sham that religion is. It's an extremely powerful tool to control the masses. If you take that away from them they lose their power over the masses. What then? Martial law, I'd expect.

Islam is a worldwide religion. Much of what we see in this behavior is tied into Arab culture. I suspect Muslims from areas not contaminated by Arab regressive beliefs are a bit more enlightened.

I can only speak for myself, but I think ALL religion is EVIL, particularly the Abrahamic religions. Most are extremely misogynistic. I don't believe any of them serve any useful purpose. Like I said, I'm only speaking for myself. I base my positions on personal observations and research I have done. At their core, I believe they are all about crowd control, and forced conformity.
I really have no idea why most people do the things they do, or make the distinctions they do between religions. Any "belief system" that advocates genital mutilation, for any reason, should be eradicated.

I find all religions are on a very uneven playing field when it comes to sexes ie seems to suit insecure men and make them a lot more important than woman especially Muslim woman but then again look at nuns. right off the bat, GOD is seemingly male and woman are made from a small bit of spare bone. it's just manipulation with the face of help and friendship.

I question all religions equally. Though, for some reason, the mainstream media seems to champion "brave women wearing hijabs" in situations where it's unnecessary to wear head coverings, or it might actually present a safety issue. Still, wearing a hijab is visually promoting a religion just as someone wearing a giant cross. The fact that many countries have laws that require women to wear hijabs or burqas, and then women being applauded for wearing them seems as though they're appluading the same people who wrote those oppressive laws.
It makes no sense to me.

In Pastafarianism, we wear a colander. Anywhere someone is able to wear a hijab, I should be able to wear my colander.

I agree. Muslim women are abused and oppressed. I am not saying they are the only one, I am saying they are abused and oppressed.

Covering women head to toe so that they do not tempt men tells me that Muslim me cannot control themselves and behave. It's a way to control women. It tells me that they are ruled by basic instinct and cannot think and control their behavior. That still does not keep some of them from committing acts of sexual violence toward women.

OH I criticize Islam All the time.

The pillars and rituals of Islam heavily indoctrinates Muslims in dogma to the point of self brainwashing. If done from an early age, the reason why you see young Muslim girls in religious attire, Muslims would lose a critical component of their rational thought in being able to see their religion in a critical light.

If a new religion demands its followers to recite scripture that states that religion is the only righteous one and only that religions leader has the word of god and do all this 5 TIMES A DAY: We would most likely call this new religion a cult

I read Infidel, amazing eye opener about islam...and here is my abhor of all organized religion... I question everything....

I personally see patriarchy stronger in Muslim countries. I am a feminist liberal. I question all big 3 religions. Even the extreme sects of the Jews-chasidim have restrictions on women's place in their society-dress, dietary laws and activity ceased on their Sabbath.

Bringing Islam into any topic has a very polarizing effect, inevitably. How about if the questiion was, "i asked a mother why was she dressing her child "thusly". Wouldn't the proper response to that question have been, " Mind your own business?". Just food for thought......

I like to question all ideology and ideas. In my mind it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt the religion is a force for bad in society.