to be proud of being a white english muslim?

[MoveBiatchGetOutTheWay]

Yes it sounds weird. Point is, some people (muslim and non muslim) are of the opinion you cannot possibly identify as this, but I love our culture and Im enjoying passing it down to my ds (in the form of afternoon tea and gentlemanly manners ;) )

I love my religion, and boy do I love my culture :)

PosiePaques google the westboro baptist church if you don't believe there are people spouting evil shit in the name of Christianity still. Or Gary Ezzo, Tedd Tripp, Michael Pear or James Dobson.

What theodorakis said.

A twat is a twat end of. Nothing to do with religion, ethnicity, class (perceived or otherwise), sexuality, gender or job.

op i'm glad you are happy, good for you. Can't help thinking that this whole debate is exactly what you were hoping for though.

If it wasn't why not say "aibu to think that we should all be proud of who we are", not so grabby a title though is it.

Does it help that I keep reading the thread title "to be proud of being a white English muffin"?

All religions are about control and most defiantly controlling women's daily life, fertility, employment and rights.

Religions are and always will be cruel to women.

I am so 'proud' that my dd will b able to drive a car, wear a bikini, vote, use contraception and choose her own partner as we live in a flawed but free society.

I am proud of all the brave women suffragettes that fought for this and my grandad who died in an air raid on duty as a fire watcher repelling a dictator in 1943.

I didn't say that many people religious or not are evil, nasty or vile....but seemingly Islam has more than it's fair share.

Fair comment Rosie

Posie Islam is here to stay! No matter what you say...islam is here to stay.

I will not apologise for anything another muslim has said and done - i didn't do it, so why am i expected to apologise for someone else's actions.

Why am i pointed at and told that "your people" have done x,y,z in the name of islam. If that is what you want to use then I put it to you that many people religious or not are evil, nasty or vile....but seemingly the West has more than it's fair share!

When you decide to remove your blinkers, you will see that the world is bigger than your narrow views and as I said, islam is not going to go hide because you don't like it. It is here to stay.

I know a couple of converts to Islam (although they prefer the patronising and offensive term "revert.")

There does seem to be a period of adjustment where they take on culture as well as relgion - but like christianity, it's hard to separate the beliefs and customs from the religion, IMO.

After all, if they didn't wear the hijab/ niqab (I believe the compulsion to do so is contested) then nobody would know, unless they chose to say. For example, what is the reason for a woman, at a woman only swimming session, to wear an enveloping head-to-toe lycra dress and hijab? It's not religious, it's cultural - but two white British Muslims I know do this.

Also, peppering conversation with "inshallah" etc- now, I realise that the Qu'ran is best read in Arabic as that is the original language, but surely that's cultural too? (Mind you, plenty of nutjobs evangalists here in NI use "DV" (God Willing) all over the place, which is similar.

Basically, same as everything to do with religion - no. Don't be proud. Do your thing, but FFS keep it to yourself. You can dress modestly and do your thing without making a massive song and dance about it - it looks like attention seeking.

Oh, and being proud to be white is just weird.

If that's the way it seems to you Posie, then perhaps that is down to where you are getting your information. People are people. They are delightful, loving, hateful and murderous. If you find that you are beginning to associate one group more than another with certain traits, maybe it is time to examine your sources and challenge them.

Trouble is when you align yourself to a brand you are responsible for it, to a certain extent. When we found black children in this country did less well at school we didn't say people are people, did we? We looked at why Black children didn't do as well at school.

So I want to examine why Islam seems to be involved in most conflict throughout the world, why suicide bombers are nearly always Muslim. I don't think that's an unfair question. Pointless standing side by side your brothers and sisters in peace and ignoring all those who wage war.

Religion is the guide of the culture, imo, but not when it started(obviously) as the culture decided the religion..... however the religion now stops the culture from progression.

Anyone care to post a world conflict or genocide that doesn't involve Islam this century? The Congo is one....any more?

Cambodia/Thai border.. Buddhist.

As for Islam is here to stay...I certainly hope it changes significantly. I don't want to walk down my high street and see little girls with their heads covered, or women hidden away. More and more I see women in their competitive modesty fully covered.

I would disagree that practicing a religion makes you responsible for all the actions carried out in it's name or by other followers. However I do think that others will label you for it.

Do millions of missing females in India and china count as genocide?

I don't know OP, what do you mean by pride?

Crunchy, what you are witnessing there is 'Competitive Islam' It is NAUSEATINGLY common with reverts [fume]

Watching idiotic expat 'reverts' attempt to Out-Muslim each other when I lived in Egypt was by far the most entertaining non-contact sport I ever saw.

They used to argue over which hadith it was that said that when they met a christian, no sorry they call them Kaffirs (pagans), they had to force them to walk on the broken part of the path, and never to greet/compliment them first. Never to return their compliments if you could get away with it. It was DISGUSTING.

I frequently went to town on them and asked them if they would like their mothers, their sisters, their grandmothers to be treated like that? As they are all the same Christian/Kaffir stock as these converts had come from. Would that be OK? Would they shove their own grannies into the gutter so they could pass?

Having lived alongside people who think it reasonable to think like this, to say one thing and then do another, but in the name of a supposed God...? No. Unacceptable. Shameful.

I went there a believer in God. I came home a changed person. What I saw/lived and witnessed disgusted me.

I now too eschew all religion. It is merely a control mechanism for women. IF there WERE a God, he'd not accept women to be treated like this. .

I will repeat what thebody said. Because it is exactly what I am proud of, and what I believe.

All religions are about control and most defiantly controlling women's daily life, fertility, employment and rights.

Religions are and always will be cruel to women.

I am so 'proud' that my dd will b able to drive a car, wear a bikini, vote, use contraception and choose her own partner as we live in a flawed but free society.

I am proud of all the brave women suffragettes that fought for this and my grandad who died in an air raid on duty as a fire watcher repelling a dictator in 1943.

Houdini great post.

One of the people I know "reverted" while in Egypt.

Yes....Bingo!

I don't think it makes you responsible, that's the wrong word, but the collective must take the minority in hand. Culturally Islam (and I do believe it shapes the culture) breeds violence in many, control and violence. It is not alone, by a long shot, but it does have huge issues. Where does the 72 virgins come from? Jihad, Fatwa? These are not peaceful. There are many references to violence in the Koran. Is it because many places that Islam grows or is a majority are also poor?

Completely agree with Houdini....Religion is a way to control women, and maybe the poor too!!

It's powerful men in various cultures who have used religions to try to control women and poor people. This isn't the fault of the religions, as some people would probably try to control others anyway and find something else as an excuse for it.

Posie, Adapt to survive. If Islam doesn't restore full rights to females, it simply can not survive long term.

Ultimately if a religion does not support women equally to men, it is alienating 50% of it's target market. If a religion does not provide a healthy framework for the future, regardless what anyone says, it can not and will not survive long term.

The Pharaohs held their religion for over 7,000 years, give or take an adjustment between poly and monotheism along the way. If you had have told a Pharaoh after 2,000 years, 3 or 4 or 5,000 years that one day people wouldn't believe in that religion, they would have laughed in your face.

Likewise, Christianity is 2000 years old, if we said 1,000 years ago that it would be struggling, that one day there would be other religions stronger that it may even struggle to survive in some parts of the world... again you would be met with disbelief.

Islam is no different. If it doesn't address the clear and obvious oppression of women perpetrated under it's nose, and on occasions carried out in it's very name then it will NOT thrive long term. One day, especially if it does nothing to improve itself, Islam WILL be replaced or will fall in popularity. It is as it always has been and always will be. Islam is a recent religion. It ought to have learned the lessons where other religions faltered, it didn't. There are gaping holes in it's structure, and it knows it.

The powerful always find ways of controlling the weak. It is still used today, however the 20th century has shown that it is in no way necessary and indeed Athiest States were no better when it came to human rights abuses.

UK and USA going to war with Iraq. Iraq was a secular state at the time of invasion.

Crunchy... I can say nothing... I will merely roll my eyes!

That said... those that convert in egypt have a 'spechul' place in my disdain heart. They are to me like white Rastas in Jamaica with their dreads and tings... sucking their teeth.... Evry-ting Irrrriiiieeee Mon! It's merely grown up dress up, they do it for attention. IMVHO.

Mind you, you have to be bonkers to find life there acceptable. Either you get religion or you get out...

Revert - I have never come across this term but I assume its like 'born again' christians'.

And comparing the religion to a bunch of crazy violent suicide bombers... Well we don't assume all Japanese are sadistic, cruel kamakazees, do we?

There are nuts and looneys and mis-informed people all over. I do get a bit annoyed when 'reverts' spout cultural beliefs as religious ones, but I don't think it is confined to Islam - I guess they are just a bit more 'obvious' (burkhas, etc). I have come across some pretty nasty racism and general smuggery ('ou god is better than your god' - to quote Not The Nine O'Clock News)-going both ways (Islam vs West).

Look I don't have time for religion full stop...but I would be deeply shocked if an Anglican blew up Birmingham city centre.

Given that Islam is 1500 years old and yet the history of Islamic suicide bombings goes back only a couple if decades, I don't think that it has a basis in the Quran.

Suicide attacks have been used by various people over the course of history.