Letters to the Editor
Ms. Anthropia
Published Letters: 72 Editor's Choice: 1
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Scullerymaids of the world unite!
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"You hardly have a leg to stand on, calling me pedantic, when you are resorting to ad hominems as if they were valid arguments." -- Kitchengirl
Nice try. My making a pun on the name you chose for yourself is hardly comparable to a petty fixation with stylistics, especially since I used my little joke merely as a lead in.
An as for ad hominems aren't you the one labeling me "Alan Sokol" not once but twice because you don't like my style of writing?
"once those same radical (such as they are) women are ordained as Catholic priests, they *must* adhere to Church protocols, and lose the freedom of independence that they had as nuns."
Ah, the ultimate post-Modern dictum: hypocrisy is OK since it is better than fundamentalism.
Why be Catholic if you don't agree with Church protocols? There are countless other avenues to enacting social justice which do not involve alliegence to a patriarchal, homophobic and exclusivist doctrine, which by your own admission the nuns may not believe in.
"Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest." -- Émile Zola
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"submission to authority" in our nature?
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"But your critiques would have more substance if they began with the recognition that, like the tendency to self interest, the use of force, the binding power of emotions, submission to authority and the need for an ordering of experience -- that is to say, religion -- is an expression of human biology. Our societies, like our selves, have their foundations in flesh." -- Tim Behrend
I agree with some of your points, but certainly not the notion that "submission to authority" is embedded in biology. That sounds disturbingly like the Islamic argument that we are all born Submitters and thus converts are really 'reverts'. Why do so many people yearn for freedom if we are slaves by nature?
Even if what you say is accurate, however, I think it is imperative of all humans to try and transcend their animal nature. Reason is the means to achieve exactly that and the utter failure of religion to do so is evidenced by the relative social and scientific retardation of traditional societies.
The highest degree of freedom, opportunity and potential exists in those societies least bound by tradition and superstition. They are flexible, self-critical and thus ultimately more adaptive.
Obviously the state of our environment is Exhibit A that insufficient enlightenment in the face of technical progress is a dangerous thing, but that is a failure to apply reason, not the result of reason.
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Renegade Iconoclast (hero) & fetboy (goat)
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Renegade Iconoclast, thanks, even the Wicked Witch of the West need a white knight now and again. :o)
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As for you fetboy, you basically took off the mask and showed us you are a religious fanatic. You announced in an earlier post being a convert to an 'eastern religion'; I can only wonder which one leaves you so frothing at the mouth about emotion and passion. Doesn't sound like Buddhism (which I respect in many aspects) anyways.
America was founded on Enlightenment principles (the core of which is the supremacy of Reason) and if you asked every single signatory to both the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence I doubt a single man would tell you that passion was of greater worth than Reason in religion or government (in fact many in their writings expressly disavow being ruled by passion/emotion).
Passion is animalistic and although fun at times, prone to disappointment and negative consequences. The most mentally underdeveloped mind experiences emotions, but Reason takes cultivation and effort.
And no, I have no ethnic or nationalistic pride because the arbitrary circumstances of my birth are the most ignoble and dangerous basis for forming a meaningful identity. Germans have had to deal with the reality of that more than anyone else for the most obvious of reasons.
I have pride in the shared and never-ending intellectual effort of humanity in transcending superstition, ignorance, violence, conformity, oppression and if need be biology.
You babble about spirituality and yet ultimately show solidarity with the most base, meaningless aspects of human existence. Real spirituality would reject the absurd notion that there is any merit in wearing a piece of cloth on your head and see the sexual repression behind such a dictate.
And since you have that leftist fantasy of America's Peak Oil downfall so close at hand, is it any wonder you have to keep mentioning being a soldier and your oath to defend the Constitution. No insecurity there at all, huh?
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paging Credulistan Bob
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Tahir insisted the girl was religiously observant but mainly had wanted to be more independent "
ERROR -- DOES NOT COMPUTE.
First of all isn't the first duty of every good little Abrahamist submission to mom and dad?
Secondly isn't it rather convenient that when this story hits the news giving Islam its worst black-eye in North America since 9/11 and the imams are out in force the next day, that suddenly a Muslim close to the events comes up with the claim it wasn't about Islam and that Aqsa was really a devout Submitter after all?
Damage control anyone?
Her friends as the article you site noted still claim it is about the hijab, so hold your self-congratulations. She may be right, but I'm guessing Ms. Tahir is the one more inclined to see what she wants to see given the way adult, teen interactions usual play out. This may prove Canada's equivalent of the murdered drug dealer in the States who was 'always such a good boy'.