Goddess

Coolio. I'll make popcorn.

Ya, there's some points of view that are just too stupid to address.

I don't have a preferred religion. They're all bunkum to me. So no one "gets a pass", including yours. I keep hoping that one day grown adults will stop believing in fairy tales that tell them to chop off their children's genitals.

Again, you take a one off case and try to make it seem like FGM is practiced and believed in by mainly Christians worldwide. It is the scope and extent of it in Islam that concerns me. It doesn't have that same scope and extent in Christianity.

Are we talking about just a certain country or are we talking about the overall practice of FGM and who practices it? I was talking about the belief and practice of it in general. Are you saying that FGM is practiced predominantly by Christians worldwide?

These things are not practiced in other religions/cultures to the extent they are in Islam. Your example of FGM being practiced in Christianity - for that I would say yes, it is cultural when certain Christians practice it. But it is not cultural when Islam practices it because it has been adopted as an Islamic belief. I would concede that FGM is not a mainstream Islamic belief but it is mainstream enough that most people associate it with Islam and most people who practice it, practice it in the name of Islam. Whenever it makes the news in Western countries -such as recently in Detroit - it is not Christians, but Muslims practicing it and bringing it to Western countries.

While there may be variations in how different cultures interpret Islam's beliefs - for instance, the many variations of things women must wear to cover themselves - the underlying beliefs are "specifically Islamic" - women MUST be covered. The belief that women are second class citizens who must be disciplined and controlled by men, is the Islamic belief that inspires the cultural variations. The cultures don't inspire the religion. It's the religion that inspires the cultures to adopt Islamic beliefs. And with no failsafes in Islam to stop rabid interpretations......you don't get to claim that culture is to blame for how the religion is interpreted by its followers. Denigration of women is intrinsic to Islam. That different cultures impose different methods to denigrate women, does not change the fact that they get this idea from and have the blessing of Islam to do so in the first place.

If by, "practices not in line with Canadian culture" you mean that they have not done something for which they (or any other Canadian) would be arrested and charged for, then maybe. But I wouldn't say that promoting the idea that women must be covered completely or partially at all times, making women sit at the back and use side entrances, vocally speaking out about hatred of Jews, demanding their own enclaves that are run by Sharia law and exclude non-Muslims and refusing to associate with infidels..... would be "practices in line with Canadian culture." I don't see much of a difference between someone who actually kills their daughter or wife in an honour killing, and someone who says, "I'd love to be able to kill my wife or daughter, but unfortuneately the law here doesn't allow it."

I wondered about this because there was a Pro-Palestinian rally where I was (it turned a bit ugly as it was really more of an Anti-Israel rally), and one of the girls from college went to it. I asked her and she said she was "Palestinian". I asked if she was born there and she said No. Were your parents born there? Again, No. Was her family originally from there? Again, No. So I asked how she considered herself Palestinian and she said it was because she was Muslim. I know the concept of Ummah - my people, right or wrong - is strong in Islam, so I sort of just chalked it up to that. But it seemed strange to me. I couldn't understand why she was "Palestinian" when there was clearly no ties to it. And I didn't want to pepper her with questions and make her mad.

How do you go through life being so desperately negative all the time? It must be exhausting and it's just so sad, that I pity you. In fact, research says there are no significant personality differences between online and offline daters. (Finkel, E. J., Eastwick, P. W., Karney, B. R., Reis, H. T., & Sprecher, S.. (2012) Online dating: A critical analysis from the perspective of psychological science. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13, 3-66. doi: 10.1177/1529100612436522) As far as the demographic characteristics of online daters, studies comparing couples who met online to those who met offline, the online daters were most likely to be employed, or of higher socioeconomic status. Not exactly the demographic portrait of desperate losers. (Cacioppo, J. T., Cacioppo, S., Gonzaga, G. C., Ogburn, E. L., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2013). Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110 (25), 10135–10140. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1222447110)

Good advice there. When I moved to small prairie town X, I found it hard to meet people. My girlfreind had been on a dating site before and even though the relationships didn't work out, she is still freinds with the people she met on there. Long story short, and after a bottle of wine , I put up a profile. I met my wonderful man on the first day and we've been together 2 1/2 years now. I talked to him for a few days on the phone and then when it was time to meet, I asked him to meet me in a public place. I didn't want him to know where I lived until I checked him out. I was on the site less than 24 hours. I will say though, that most of the men on it were incredibly creepy. One wanted to meet off the highway under some overpass......it reminded me of this sketch by Louis CK......"To your death, statistically!"

Citizens who speak openly about how much they hate us and our values, who now have $10 million in taxpayer money to funnel into their anti-West activities, who have never renounced their allegiance to Al-queda, who use our principles and medical care against us. Yes. They are soooooo law-abiding.

Exactly.

I don't like it either. But how do you deal democratically, humanely, in a principled way with humans who have made the choice to act worse than animals? Did we not stick our principles and allow the Khadr family their "rights" to raise their children as terrorists and coddle them? How did that work out for us? How did that work out for the Khadr children? How did that work out for public safety? Now we have Canada's #1 terrorist family walking the streets with pockets filled with our money, openly despising us. No. I don't understand how some people can be so concerned about the rights of terrorists and extremists and care nothing about the average Canadian's rights. So Khadr spent a little more time in Guantanamo than he feels he should've. I couldn't care less. He should still be there and his terrorist family should be deported to some Islamic hellhole. How does paying off terrorists who have some little right violated and allowing them to continue to use Canada as a base for their activities and for free medical when they are injured in their war against the West - how does that show our "principles"? Yeah, I know the argument - we stick to our principles and they somehow magically turn into law abiding citizens who love Western freedom and tolerance because they are so impressed by us. Drivel. They still hate us and everything we stand for and now they know how to operate because we are constrained by rights and principles while they are constrained by absolutely nothing.

see below

Plus we'll have to pay them millions in compensation for their frostbite.

Sometimes the rights of actual human beings come BEFORE the rights of those who don't give a shit. Being principled doesn't mean we have to let terrorists and extremists shit on us.

Really cool, Bonam.

I wasn't jumping on his side. I just misunderstood what you both were debating. I thought we were looking for solutions to combatting religious extremism in children and thought this woman's perspective was reasonable.

Oh sorry. I thought you were looking for a solution.

Here is one Muslim woman's thoughts on it: http://mackenzieinstitute.com/rise-islamic-extremism-canada/

This is a concern of some Muslims, too. I read this article some years ago when it came out (2013) but it echoes the above article. Her thoughts on multiculturalism in Canada are interesting, too: She also covers 9/11 and Canada's immigration loopholes.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3690481/asylum-seekers-benefits-eligibility/?utm_source=GlobalEdmonton&utm_medium=Facebook Welcome to Canada, where Trudeau pays you, out of taxpayer money, to do things illegally.