dialamah

I missed this the first time. If I understand the preamble to the Environics study correctly, they addressed this by interviewing the same number of non-Muslims in roughly the same ratios as the general population across the country. Thanks for the screenshot.

I couldn't look because they want me to sign up, and I just don't want to. But why is this data more 'valid' than the data from Environics? And why would you characterize the responses of immigrants to be 'smart' instead of honest? People who *choose* to come here do so for a reason, especially those who had a good life and a well-paid professional career in their home country and come here to end up working as janitors or taxi-drivers.

Here's the full text: Not only do they want to 'reduce or eliminate' (undefined) Islamaphobia, but also (undefined) 'system racism and religious discrimination'. Why are we not demanding a definition of 'systemic racism and religious discrimination'? What does that mean, exactly? It's not exactly defined so - I bet the Christians will use this lack of clarity to argue that because Canada is a Christian country, Christian prayer should be held before every school day, and all students should take part unless they ask for special dispensation. Also, gays - Christians will demand the right to not serve gays because forcing them to do so against their beliefs is religious discrimination. This motion just allows too much leeway for Christians and other religions to just impose what they want on the rest of us. Are you scared yet?

This explains a lot of your posts, I think.

Agree with this, entirely. Once I left my own religion, I really was harsh on Christians as a group, but I have softened as I've met some who seemed to get the 'spirit' of it, rather than strictly the message. Betsy, just for the record your testimony in your OP here made more of an impression on me to help me understand you and your faith than any of your posts telling me why God exists, or why abortion should be illegal or why homosexuals 'choose' to be homosexuals and should just 'stop'.

You walk away from a direct question, twice now. Where is God for these people who, through no fault of their own, are living in misery due to God's laws? Why shouldn't his followers, who beseech him, find relief? What kind of loving God provides contradictory and ambiguous direction and then punishes those who 'get it wrong'? I wouldn't even follow a person who does that, never mind a supposed 'perfect' and omniscient God. If you aren't going to address the cases I related of the homosexual minister and the teenage kids, then perhaps don't bother answering at all. Just accept that your Christian faith is not even as compassionate as my atheistic humanism.

True, and that happens a lot in the legal system.

You didn't even see my story of the minister who spent decades making the 'choice' to follow God's rules and suffered decades of misery because of it, did you. Or the facts of teenagers who realize they're attracted to others of their gender and how they're viewed and treated by the 'Christian' element in our society. Those are real people. Those are innocent people. And they live in misery because of "God's truth". Why don't you address that, Betsy? Doesn't God have an answer about why these people are so cursed, from birth apparently, while the rest of us are not?

Tell me a religion that doesn't teach those things, even if the definition of each sin varies slightly. Even the most primitive tribes had rules against murdering, thieving and stealing your caveman's wife. Then, as now, it doesn't stop that sort of behavior.

And this is the worst thing eh? I show you how the bible's 'truth' has imposed misery on innocent people and you ignore all that to come up with some lame platitude.

Christianity doesn't give us a 'consistent' idea of right and wrong. No religion does. Instead, they teach us to hate others based on arbitrary rules and to reject fact in favor of myth.

Yup I could do that. Let's say that I open up my bible to 'find out the truth', I find out that God hates homosexuals and I should as well. Never mind that science shows that homosexuality exists throughout the natural world and has existed in humans since the beginning of them. Science is clearly making things up. Then I read about a man who was so desperate to be straight that he became a minister, got married, fathered daughters and strapped a bible to his genitals at night in an attempt to end his homosexual dreams. Who fought his urges, and who never acted on them for most of his adult life. Where was God to help this man through his torment, who could have 'cured' him or even prevented him from having these urges, when he so clearly sought to follow God's will in this? God was nowhere to be found, eh? And what about all the kids who are bullied, harassed and beaten for being homosexual - who are accused of choosing that as if teenagers yearn to be so outside their peer group that they'd 'choose' utter rejection over fitting in? Who would risk being alienated from their parents and their community on a 'lark'? Where is God for these kids, some of whom have been raised as Christians, who have and still do truly believe in God and yet who still yearn for sexual contact with someone of their own gender? The only thing that makes sense is what science tells us: homosexuality isn't an aberration or abnormal; it's just part of sexuality for humans. The bible is wrong, and so are Christians who continue to use the bible to reject and condemn homosexuals. So yeah, I guess the bible can help me find the truth.

Yup. To my old church, you are the false prophet. To you, they are. Since the verses each of you use to support your versions are clearly ambiguous and contradictory, I think if there is a God who had a specific plan for our 'salvation', he should have/would have provided much clearer instructions to his humans. If he exists, I can only suppose he was so ambiguous in order to encourage us to look for our own answers and to move away from his. If he doesn't exist, then the ambiguity in his texts is clearly the result of people attributing events in their time and in their context to him.

I was taught this by the leaders in my congregation. They had the truth just as surely as you do.

It's not irrelevant; it's part of the nuance you refuse to admit. The point is that younger Muslims, even second generation ones, who are more likely to consider themselves Muslim first are also the ones most likely to feel that Canadians do not accept them. I bet if you asked Christians if they were 'Christian first' or 'Canadian first', the majority would say 'Christian first', because that is part of being Christian, as explained in this article: Nobody is concerned by this, because most of us do understand that for religious people, God comes first. This doesn't mean that they can't be loyal or committed Canadians; it just means they are religious. And note even as this younger, second generation of Muslims are becoming more religious, they are also rejecting the themes of patriarchy and anti-homosexuality that their parents and grandparents were raised with. So what we have, when we put all this 'nuance' together are second generation Muslims who are more religious than their parents, more proud of being Canadian than previous generations and who are more likely to reject patriarchy and to accept the prevailing social attitude towards homosexuality - which is acceptance. Kind of like Christians, eh? Christians who put God first, who are proud to be Canadian, who believe in the rights and freedoms Canada offers, who may or may not approve of homosexuality, and who may or may not embrace patriarchy as "God's way". I take the broad statements of the people who carried out the survey and analyzed the results over the one-sided statements of an anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant commentator on a political forum. Did you even note that Muslim Canadians are more proud to be Canadian than non-Muslims, and that pride has grown in the last decade? Here, 'facts and figures' that you choose to ignore in favor of the single point you believe buttresses your anti-Muslim argument.

You could be right, I just doubt it. There's only maybe 30 of us who post here regularly, right? Pretty sure any Canadian Reddit forum or almost any remotely controversial FB post by Huff Post or Al-Jazeera gets a lot more commentators. Why waste time on 30 people, some of whom are already on your side, when you can contact hundreds at a time elsewhere? But hey, that's only my opinion and I have no proof, so as I say - you may be right.

I remember one of my first doubts on my way out of Christianity was the idea that if I was good, or if anything good befell me - that was God's work, God's gift - it was not done due to my efforts, and to think so put me on a collision course with God. On the other hand, if anything bad happened to me - that was my fault. I'd failed in some way so that I deserved this 'bad' thing that God allowed to happen to me. It didn't matter if I had no clue what I'd done wrong, it was still my fault and it was up to me to seek God's mercy and forgiveness, to atone for the 'bad' thing I wasn't even sure about. I couldn't get over the arbitrary nature of this system or that it wasn't a bind I'd put my own beloved children in - why would a God who was all-wise and loving do so?

Yup. Women must not do certain things because men rape when given a chance. It is up to women to prevent men from raping.

@Argus From your link: And this generation is also the generation who feels the least accepted by Canadian society and is the most aware of discrimination by Canadians. Do you suppose this is coicidence? And this is exactly my point: you take only one side as having validity and hammer on that incessantly, ignoring any kind of nuance. You call me some zealot, but my goodness - at least I say often and clearly that Islam is a patriarchal religion and that is a problem and that some of the things some of them may believe should not be tolerated - you, on the other hand, refuse to allow any but the most negative characteristics of Muslims to inform your opinions, from integration to 'cultural' beliefs to economic contribution. That is the very definition of zealot.

This makes more sense than some long term plan to implement Sharia or reduce freedoms in some way.

Only the left ones ...

I read lots of it and I BELIEVED! Then I didn't. And strangely to those who still believe, I'm happier.

Slacker.

Then I guess you could have made a complaint and used your drunkeness to demonstrate your inability to give consent. I'm fine with that; women shouldn't take advantage either. Take a look at my first post, where I quoted from the OPs article. This isn't about two kinda drunk people with morning-after regrets. This is about telling women they are responsible for men's sexual misconduct if they wear heels, go with the wrong people or drink. You and most men really have no idea how often women are forced into sex against their will, even 100% sober. Few women say anything because they know they'll be judged for what they wear, who they were with and if they were drinking. Among women who make a complaint, about 2% are determined to be false. http://web.stanford.edu/group/maan/cgi-bin/?page_id=297 So how about men start really teaching their sons and friends what consent means rather than looking for ways to protect men at women's expense.

You make good points and I don't entirely disagree with you. At the same time, men who take advantage of women aren't as rare as you might like to think. Just as some don't think a Muslim immigrant or a refugee should be trusted because of the behavior of other Muslims, I'm not inclined to trust men about whether they got consent, because too many men just don't. Too bad for all the innocent guys, but if they can't control all the rapists then I see no reason to trust any of them.