Over on the
Cry, the Beloved Iraqi Women thread, someone who's been troll-rated into oblivion made a disparaging comment about Muslim women who choose to wear the burqa. His point, if I read it correctly, is that one can hardly be expected to be taken seriously in asking for equal rights while cloaked in a symbol of religious second-class status.
Of course, both the commenter and I are laughably ill-educated in the ways of Islam, I would wager. Nevertheless, while I deplore the "blame the victim" message he's inadvertently sending ("Of course she was denied equal rights -- just look at the way she's dressed!"), I have to admit, my first instinct is somewhet similar.
Then again, I'm not the person to look to for dispassionate sound bites about religion.
The fact that I so unreservedly despise organized religion as a whole naturally calls into question my credibility when examining the individual
reasons for that loathing. But setting aside that skepticism, if you would...
Sure, I hate all organized religions. But I especially loathe those religions who use special modes of dress to segregate women from men; in itself, that shouldn't mean much, but invariably when women are especially set apart from men, it is generally with the understanding that it is because women are either inferior or dangerous or "unclean." And that makes me sick.
I remember my mother telling me about her revolutionary act in high school: She refused to cover her head for Mass one morning. By the end of the week, none of the girls in her Catholic high school were putting that stupid tissue on their heads.
I am irreligious. While I am able to muster enough self-control to keep my mouth shut around people who are deeply religious, I nevertheless MUST find an outlet for my irritation and sometime rage at organized religions. I consider them the construct of craven men -- of men who sought and seek power, of men who lacked the imagination to find a way of living on this planet in peace with everyone, and so created methods of subjugating wide swaths of their fellow humans to ensure their own undeserving primacy in society.
It makes me ill. And what really KILLS me is that in this purported age of enlightenment and reason, so many millions of human beings are still in thrall to these constructs. The devious, insidious thing about organized religions (in my opinion) is that their architects appropriated those spiritual elements of natural religion, adopted what might be considered "Universal truths" -- and distorted them just enough to obscure their origin.
Whenever someone tries to defend the concept of "might makes right" as an extension of Darwinism -- that is, men rule the world because they're stronger and therefore things are the way they're supposed to be, because the strong survive and the strong make the rules blah blah blah -- I cannot help but think of the elementary school playground.
So, the biggest, strongest kids on the playground rule that playground; they cow the other children, they make the occasional example of a smaller kid to keep the others in terrified awe...
Does anyone observing that set of circumstances wish to defend it as being the way it ought to be? I'm assuming not. Well, there's simply no substantive difference between that microcosmic portrait and the larger reality of human existence.
The big and the strong rule the playground and justify it with Darwinism -- fuuuuuuuck that.
And what does this have to do with religion? Well, come on, do the math, Johnny boy. It's the big and the strong, ruling the playground as they have since the biggest and the strongest got together and decided they could wrest control of the swing set from the peaceful chicks with the cats and the candles. Hell, you kill off a couple million goddess-worshipping women and their sensitive yet virile lovers -- you've got yourself a monotheistic universe for the next few millennia.
And damn if it didn't work. And that's why I'm pissed off, and that's why -- much as I love and respect so many people who DO believe in a single deity they call God/Jesus/Yahweh -- I think it's a fucking fraud.
It doesn't help that we have so many blatant examples throughout our recent history (read: past 2000 years, give or take a century) of the big and the strong using this god concept to manipulate, bully and deceive the mass of mankind into swallowing their hemlock a little bit at a time. Not enough to kill you, kids -- just enough to weaken your resistance and keep you pliable. Drink up. Have another draught of the One True God -- and stop peeking behind the curtain, those are not the druids you're looking for.