And what if she doesn't "Respect" your religion?

Submitted by Right of Center Filipino (Philippines), Nov 20, 2006 at 02:10

I always hear about how muslims are really "good, peaceful, human beings" and that as long as you "respect" islam everything will be ok.

But it seems that non-muslims, no matter how many hoops we go through, always wind up "disrespecting" the sons of mohammed. When someone expresses his opinions about the flaws of islam immediately there are calls for the death of the person who uttered such words. I'm not saying that there isn't anything wrong with my religion (those old, theiving, hypocritical types in the Vatican still have a lot to answer for believe me!), but when we have a disagreement we try to talk about it first and see what's wrong.

the sons of mohammed on the other hand are quick to grab their scimitars and chop off heads! What is it with you people? Is the islamic definition of dialogue a knife to the throat of the opposing debater and forcing them to capitulate to the muslim argument, (or is it demand?).

If that is the attitude of the muslim in public I shudder to think what their habits are like at home. I can just imagine a woman being stabbed to death by her husband when she went to defend her daughter who was thinking of converting to Christianity. Or a non-muslim woman being duped by a muslim man into marrying him and forcing the unfortunate bride to stay with the man by force, all with the help of his similarly brutal family. Or a woman being forced to marry a muslim who raped her because he now has rights over the victim. Or muslim letting his wife and daughter be raped or stoned by a whole village so his honor and that of his betters is upheld.

Are these the acts of caring, loving people? I can already hear you protest that I am just slandering your precious islam with fantasies conjured up in my mind. Well all these instances are based on news accounts from Australia, pakistan, "palestine", Isreal, iran and even in Western Europe! From these accounts muslim men equate respect with the slavelike submission of the other, whether it is his wife or other people. Any deviation from this is met with swift violece.

Now I can hear you say that this isn't the accepted form of islam. That this is an aberration of the faith. Well if this is an aberration why is it when critics from your own community talk about these very same topics they get, at most, a trickle of support and the only major attention they receive is persecution from the "aberrations" you supposedly denounce? In general, calls to reform the faith are met with a damning silence from the "ummah". From my vantage point it means that muslims are either afraid to speak up or agree with what is being said.

Before I was of the opinion that bygones be bygones when it came to islam and Christianity. Yes there were things that I heard about the faith that were disturbing but then I thought it was not my place to criticize. "It was the way they want to live and I should respect their beliefs" I said. But that all changed when you "good and peaceful people" demanded that I respect your beliefs to the detriment of my own.

When you call the women of my community whores only fit to be raped you disrespect me. When you demand that I not drink an alcoholic beverage in front of you becuse you are offended you disrespect me. When you threaten me with death because I express my opinion you disrespect me. When you demand to remove the Christian roots of my own Christian Holidays you disrespect me. Well I shouldn't be surprised. The muslim "man" and "woman" have no respect for each other or themselves, why should they have respect for other people?

It will take a whole lot of convincing for me to believe that muslim in general, let alone men in particular, are caring "respectful" people. From the actions I see, there is nothing "good, peaceful or human" about islam's progeny.

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