Grace seeker, after all your time debating and being on this forum, i would have at-least expected you to master the art of debate, not make your stance unclear by popping up with some surprise here and there by trying to "trip up" your opponents with deceit. what do you have to hide? your half-assed debating skills? no need to, we already know this...you made it crystal clear one too many times.
Graceseeker by name, im afraid grace seeker not by nature.
Since you are having trouble following my line of arguement, I'll spell it out more simply for you:
The specific question of this thread is whether or not there is a double standard in terms of the perception by the non-Muslims world that Muslim women are oppressed by virtue of being "force" to wear the veil, when none one says anything about nuns.
I made my view on that clear by arguing that those who feel this way would be wrong because they make a false assumption, that there is actual coercion going on with respect to what either Muslim women or nuns wear. That such coercion was not demonstrably linked to Islam as a whole because we one could see that it was not a universal practice by Muslim women.
Yet this does not mean that no Muslim women are oppressed. If a woman has a husband who is oppressive, then she is living under oppression. This is true whether a woman is Muslim, Christian, Wiccan or none of the above. So, even though not all Muslim women are oppressed, this does not mean that no Muslim women are oppressed. And though Islam may not see itself as oppressive, sometimes those who do oppress Muslim women do so based on rationale that they cite as being part of their Islamic faith.
When questioned why I felt that, I sided with those who had already contributed the opinion that women and men are not affored equal status in Islam. This led others asking for substantiation of that position. To which I offered the example of honor killings. Now there are other examples beyond this, I believe, but we are presently stuck on this one.
To this point, surely no one can question the sense of logic that is involved. The question then becomes does the presence of honor killings substatiate the position that women and not treated equally with men in Islam. I am willing to stipulate that Islam does, at least in certain passages, teach equality. But I submit that on this issue there may be a difference between creed and praxis. And with regard to oppression, it is the praxis of one's religion that is important.
So, what is the praxis of Islam with regard to honor killings. Well, one could argue that since not all Muslim women are subjected to this, that it proves that Islam as a whole does not condone honor killings. That I have already agreed to. So, all such discussions are a moot point. But I do ask what I think is a very relevant question, since, as it has been argued, Islam specifically forbids such actions, where does it come from? And the answer has been culture.
This answer however is in essence a hypothesis. And in examining that hypothesis, I observed that the actual frequency of the practice of honor killings seemed to directly correlate with the degree of influence of Islam in the culture. And I argue that if Islam really did teach as part of one's praxis (and not just an idealized creed) the equality of men and women, then either there would be as many honor killings of men as there are of women or even in regions where the presence of honor killings was part of the culture, it would be less among Muslim communities than among non-Muslim communities of that same culture. That's a legitimate argument, and for you or anyone else to suggest that it is poor logic or poor debate shows your own lack of ability or an unwillingness to exam Islam rationally.
Fortunately, Woodrow has decided to join the discussion, at least for the moment, and he alone has raised a good counter argument. Mainly he asserts that such correlation doesn't really exist and that honor killings are similarly distributed among non-Muslim communities. He cites places such as southern Europe and India where he claims this same culture exists.
Woodrow, I don't see southern Europe as having that similar of a culture with those countries that are predominately Islamic, can you provide evidence that the practice of honor killings in southern Europe is anywhere near on par with honor killings in Iran or Afghanistan?
I agree that Pakistan and Indian share a common culture. Perhaps it would be good to compare the frequency of honor killings among Muslims and non-Muslims in these two countries to see if religion can be excluded as being part of the equation that leads to honor killings? Do you have any idea as to how we could obtain data to test that hypothesis?
Another way to examine it would be to see if the practice of honor killings increased or decreased in a nation that was once non-Muslim and now is mostly Muslim. Alternately, one could examine the effect of secularlization might have had in a nation that was historically Muslim, but now thought to have become more westernized.
