Saudi cleric says Muslim women can respect veil bans

That's mighty nice of them telling women that they can obey the laws of other countries when they are in those countries.

Wow, a half way reasonable Muslim Cleric.

I guess we can call him "moderate" then.

You can't call any of those clown (No, clowns make people smile). You can't call any Wahhabi cleric "moderate". That would be like saying a moderate terrorist.

You can't call any of those clown (No clowns make people smile). You can't call any Wahhabi cleric "moderate". That would be like saying a moderate terrorist.
It was sarcastic

You can't call any of those clown (No clowns make people smile). You can't call any Wahhabi cleric "moderate". That would be like saying a moderate terrorist.
It was sarcastic

By the way, clowns make people smile. It's proven.

This isn't "moderate", per se. He's just horny enough that he'd rather see more scantily clad women around him. I give any guy "thumbs up" for setting aside his religious convictions for a better look at a pretty girl.

Why does no one else see that Christians are just as guilty as the Muslims of indoctrinating their children with fear.

I'm tired of people complaining about the Muslims but we are all more then happy to sit here at home and let parents try and enslave kids by putting the fear of hell and Satan into them.

It's every bit as bad and it's the exact same thing that the Muslims do that allow so many kids to be converted over to religious zealot causes so easily. It may not be the intention but it really plants the seed and it doesn't take a whole lot to make it grow.

Until we start cracking down on Christian wing nuts here in Canada I don't think we honestly have much of a say against what goes on abroad with religion unless it's a direct violation of human rights.

Until we rid the world of Childhood indoctrination of religion we will never put a dent in terrorism.

Are you serious about comparing Christianity with Islam indoctrination ?

shocking but honestly yes.

I truly and honestly believe that as a child I was forced to beleive in god and that was serious mental abuse. It was never presented to me that it was an option NOT to believe in god. Most parents that are religious raise their kids with the deliberate attempt to instill in them the same beliefs they have. It is highly controlling and it's really no different from what Muslim parents do with their kids.

I was dragged to all kinds of classes that were designed to "teach" kids about hell and all the bad things that will happen if you don't do exactly what the church says. It was even forced into my education as I was made to attend a Catholic school and take religious studies that were graded on par with math, science, English and the honest important subjects. There religious studies classes only ever encompassed Christian theology and never touched on any other religion. Indeed it wasn't until I was in high school that I had any contact with people of other faiths. It was also not until high school that evolution was even mentioned or explained in any real way.

Most of the kids ate it up but despite getting very deeply involved in group ministry for younger kids I always held doubts in the back of my head. I would call out to Jesus to speak to me often but no voice would ever come. Eventually I one day just walked right out of the church and never went back for years thinking that if Jesus was to abandon me then I'd spend some time to search out the right faith so that I could speak with him.

Eventually years later as an adult I was introduced to the Catholic church and became heavily swayed by it's influence. I thought at first that maybe here was my chance to have a heart to heart with God and find out why I held such doubts and how I could remove them.

What I came to realize the further I delved into the faith was that new concepts such as mortal and venial sin and the infallibility of the pope were downright silly to me when I began to ask why. No one could give me anything but a theological answer without any real justification in the real world.

Finally everything came to a head one night when I decided to pick up the bible and read the whole thing cover to cover alongside the Catechism of the church. If I was incapable of translating a passage I reasoned that surely the Catechism would hold some kind of answer of how I should approach it. Needless to say that you don't even need to finish Genesis to begin to see what a total monster God is.

Infanticide, rape, incest, genocide, murder, it was all there is full clear quality in the old testament abound and none of these were addressed in any real reasoning in the Catechism. I lost my faith that night and gained something new instead.

Freedom. I was no longer in fear of hell or trying to reach out desperately to a being who could never hear me or answer back. I recalled all the moments where I had such a large nagging doubt in my mind and for how long I had ignored it.

I also made the realization soon after 9/11 that with the way that I had been raised if a group of Christian heads had come to me and told me that if I did something to martyr myself for god that I would meet Jesus I would have likely done so without blinking because I had been raised to want to be with god and avoid hell more then anything else.

Of course I fully realize that my case might have been unique and it's a logical fallacy to assume that my experience translates to something on a far more grand scale. The truth however is that the further I examine the world around me with fresh eyes the more people I find like me and the more people I find that have doubts in their faith. That same distant nagging voice that many have. The one that tells you in the back of your mind that god may not be talking to you because he is not there.

I know that many Christians would easily try and deny this claim but the truth is far too real for us to dismiss without massive consequences. There are people all over the free world trying to make sure that all kids are forced to learn creationism alongside proven scientific methods and there is prejudice abound for homosexuals and many wish to control what you do in the bedroom because they think a magical man in the sky cares about it deeply.

These people are only stopped from taking every aspect of the bible literally and forcing the rest of us to follow by moderate people. People like you and me Proculation. I don't think I'm off the mark when I say that you would object to the killing of Homosexuals or Adulterers based on human rights.

The thing about the middle east is that it has never had human rights so the people there cling onto religion as a means of trying to find comfort in their lives. All the terrorist groups do is grab children much like the ones you find here in Christian classrooms and feed them a bit more extreme versions of the same things we teach our kids about god.

It wasn't too long ago that the crusades occurred and Christians and Catholics acted just like the Muslims do today where they would kill and torture a person to get them to convert to their version of the magic man in the sky.

There is a very large link between indoctrinating a child to religious belief and fears of hell and what the children in the middle east are taught to beleive. Just look to the extremists at home in the states and you can get a very real picture of how powerful a motivator faith can be for acts of hatred.

I understand that writing out my story and presenting these points will convince very few to even begin to think about altering the way they view faith but maybe at least it will shed some light on why so many choose to reject faith.

You're right, my grammar error.

By whose calendar? Are you from some alternate reality where the Crusades ended last week, rather than several centuries ago?

I think if you talk to most of these terrible people you have a hang up with, that you'll find out its only a small minority, vocal yes, but small nonetheless, who take the bible literally. Most who profess to believe in a god keep it to themselves, and believe wholly in the science behind evolution. You had a bad experience with religion because it didn't give you the answers you wanted.....perhaps you didn't ask the right questions.

Anyways, get over it and leave each to their own. Faith, (you seem to miss this fact) has also brought happiness and stability into many people's lives You seem almost evangelical in your anti religious zeal....just another fanatic screaming at people.

Hey jeff if your going to get upset in this thread get upset with the Cleric in Saudi Arabia that told women to accept the social norms in other countries when it comes to veil.

Since the viel has nothing to do with Islam try and leave religon out of it for once.

Sincerly
Bodah, fellow atheist.