That's what I'm getting at. Your comment was poorly typed and read as:

- people who converted to (another) religion are the worst kind of people
- they are as bad as people who are vegetarians and ex-smokers.
- vegetarians gave up meat to annoy others

You did not state that religious converts are as bad as those who have turned into vegetarians.
You stated that religious converts are as bad as vegetarians.

There's a huge difference. My mother was raised vegetarian and doesn't eat eggs/fish either. She wasn't converted to vegetarianism. She was raised that way. That's different to being brought up to eat meat and then turning to vegetarianism and becoming 'self-righteous', which is the crux of your argument.

As for the hijab/niqab, I've spoken to some muslim girls (shock horror) and they did it willingly. Their parents weren't extreme religious fanatics and didn't mind if their daughters did or didn't wear hijabs or niqabs. The girls themselves became more interested in the muslim religion as a result of the lack of exposure and input from their parents. They then decided to wear headscarves.

But they also agreed that not all muslim women do it because they want to but because they feel pressured by their family and the expectations into doing so.

I'm all for muslim women covering themselves when they want to. It's when they're being coerced or forced against their will to dress that way that bothers me.

Owned is a slang word, predominantly used in North America, that originated among 1990s hackers, where it referred to "rooting" or gaining administrative control over someone else's computer.
The term's original usage was close to that of the traditional meaning of the word "own" - for instance, "I owned the network at MIT" indicated that the speaker had cracked the servers and had the same root-level privileges that the legitimate owner of the servers had. "Owned", a later variant, became more common in the late 1990s, as did the more abstract usage referring to any compromised security mechanism. By 1997, "owned" was regularly used in website defacements, and it subsequently spread to gaming circles, where it was used to refer to defeat in a game. For example, if someone makes a particularly good kill shot or wins a fight in a multiplayer video game, they might yell out "owned" to the loser(s), as a manifestation of victory, a taunt, or provocation.
Owned has now spread beyond computer and gaming contexts and become part of standard slang, where it typically entails severe defeat or humiliation, usually in an amusing way or through the dominance of an opposing party. Other variations of the word owned include own3d, 0wn3d and pooned, terms which incorporate elements of leetspeak.
In 2009, Microsoft described a security vulnerability in ActiveX as leaving Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server users open to a "Browse-And-Get-Owned" attack

Kek, I never knew that's where it came from.

Interesting!

I think it's spot on, just because you have a religion, don't think you're above common decency and good sense. We need it over here in the UK, those all in one suit things whatever they're called should not be permitted in banks or petrol stations or anywhere where you're not permitted to wear a crash hat. If I'm not allowed to then nor should they.

I am very anti-religion but that aside it just makes sense.

Well they're not quite the same - a crash helmet will (obviously) protect you from anyone trying to stop you. However your point about them being a very efficient disguise is valid - I believe one of the Underground bombing conspirators fled the country while pretending to be a devout muslim woman didn't he?
I have no objection to people wearing them provided one thing is enshrined in law - that any request by someone in authority to remove it for the purposes of identification should be complied with and their religion does not give them any exemption. If you want to wear one, fine. But if a policeman asks you to take off the veil you are still required to remove it for as long as it takes to identify you. I also do kind of worry about people driving with them on - I'm pretty sure it has to degrade your peripheral vision and hearing. I don't think cars were really considered when the design was drawn up.


I'm not anti religion but the bald fact is religion is easy to abuse and pretty much all of them have been abused. if someone could come up with a religion the tenants of which make it fundamentally impossible to abuse it to harm those who do not follow it, I'd be all for it. I think some of the sects of Buddhism get pretty close to that, but they're a bit too ... aesetic for the population at large.

Jon

Once again Jon, your post makes a lot of sense. However, I have to disagree. Having such a law would require us to trust the police to know when it was appropriate to invade peoples privacy to ID them. They can't manage with the reams of legislation there is already. Giving them more power is a bad idea.

The overall thing is a wider problem, but in swimming pools it's a no-brainer.

The whole point about wearing a veil is that you cannot be seen by men, and I believe it is down to a commandment from god. Therefore Man's petty requirements for being able to see the face for security reasons are trumped by the requirement from the almighty. It would therefore be presumptuous of Man to assume that his own requirements stem from "common sense" when god has a far better argument for keeping the face covered; that it is what he wants.

You cannot win any argument against god by citing "common sense", common infers that it is generally agreed amongst Men, whereas god's own will trumps all others regardless of quantity.

I hate religeon.

Is it any worse than religion?!

Hmmm can't be seen by men, because god said so, man made god, I'm confused

Just in case further endorsement was needed that Islam treats women as second class citizens:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8204207.stm

Nice!!

Again, I agree that some Muslim marriages are atrocious, in the same way as some western marriages are. The difference is that in one case the government seems to not only condone it, but positively encourage it, while in the other it is a shameful and illegal thing, needing to be hidden and escaped from.

I'm sure there are just as many marriages which are happy and brimming with equality, in both eastern and western civilisation.

well done that zippy .sorry i cant say it as well ( i was going to say eloquently but didn't know how to spell it .).

Spelling errors aside, is there a reason for your strong dislike of religion?

It's the assumptions that get me. I wonder how many newsworthy stories are made about happy families, living in harmony across a wide range of religious and racial backgrounds? Not very flippin many, but I know plenty of people who are in arranged marriages and are making it work together, people who have been in abusive relationships that have been able to leave, and those who (for whatever reason) haven't. People are people, some have different rules or social responses to situations, some people have wicked intent, some are the eternal samaritan and of course there's everything in between.

All that said, it's certainly true that in their homelands, without western influence there seem to be a glut of stories coming out about the way women are treated, and I expect (although I don't know) that muslim women living in western countries have a lot more options and support for their choices than their eastern counterparts. There's nothing really to be done about it, we can't keep imposing our will and our ways on countries that don't want or need it, after all, that's what "world diversity" is all about....

...isn't it?