C.J. you are in error.

I do not support Hilali nor the wearing of the hijab.

My references were applicable to BOTH genders, and it has nothing to do with hijabs.

But I do support the basic idea of modesty for both genders on sound scriptural grounds. Feel free to disagree with those grounds :) but.. I'd prefer you did so on sound anthropoligical and psychological grounds than simply the desire to misrepresent or 'pounce' on me.

The amount of 'skin' we display is culturally relative, and once we settle down to given boundaries we can usually adjust our own sense of arousal and its appropriateness.

The problem comes more when people EXCEED the accepted boundaries.
-MORE cleavage, maybe a hint of nipple.. etc..
-MORE leg...
-Thongs under short skirts etc..
-Men in 'muscle shirts' showing full bisceps etc

I still rememember a Japanese chick in Singapore walking along with her boyfriend or husband in a skirt so short it showed about 20% of her bum (yep..of course I measured that).. and her panties were cut to deliberately show about 30% of her bum cheeks.(measured that too)

I should not have to spell this out for you.
You speak like someone from a planet we don't know. Its as though you have not shared the same human experience as most of us. *scratches head*.....

To make this clear, all one has to do is contrast the attitude of the youth oriented FM stations and their disgusting 'gotcha' segments aimed at humiliating people.... to something like an old episode of 'Father Knows best' :) Now that will bring a hue and cry ....

CONCLUSION.

-Modesty for all of us is a good thing.
-focus on our inner beaty of character is preferable to the outer which will fade.

"if you've got it, flaunt it" I challenge all to read Daniel Chapter 5
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=34&chapter=5&version=31

King Belshazar 'had it'.... he flaunted it....and then.. we got the saying "The writing is on the wall" which to this day we still use.

Why is it that so many people only seem to be able to function and think at the extremes?

Surely there is common sense and moderation left!! Girls shouldn't need to show it all to get attention! It makes them bigger targets to rapists and pedophiles.

We keep trying to pretend we are all the same when clearly we are not. We are being told over and over that not all humans are good and some humans can be really bad and some are really violent, some think themselves so superior that they don’t believe that they need to respect, others are just 'you know what' holes.

We know, because we have been told by experts and them (education!!), that some men (really alot) have no respect and they see girls/woman as an item for their pleasure and/or meat. Therefore we should do what we have to do to educate and protect our girls/woman and boys/men. The law does not protect the victims; it only works to deal with the complaints by the accuser after the event. The only person that gets protected in this process is the criminal?

When making an allegation of rape they can use your dress and actions against you. Even if we can change the law, if people have discretion it wont change the attitude and prejudices that fuel their actions. So our girls need to be taught about this so that they can take that into account when they dress to go out and depending on where they are going and with whom they are with, dress accordingly taking into account that they would be wise to protect themselves. If not from the rape then at least from what will follow as getting justice is even worse than the rape – you get re-victimised over and over again

Fellow_Human,
Thankyou for the information about the youths of Lebanese descent causing the problems at Cronulla. Can I take it that this same group are,mainly, the ones we call Muslim hoons in cars and caused the mayhem in the revenge attacks, next night. I did note that you said that these youths do not practice their religion.

While I can appreciate your dissapointment with the comments of Sheik Hilali, you did not answer my question, which was.

Are most muslims taught that women in western dress, or scantily clad, are whores and sluts?

If this teaching applies only to a few groups, can you elaborate on these groups. I am far more concerned about the situation here than overseas or world wide.

You blame the victim Jolanda. Muslim countries dont have lower rape levels than Australia, infact some have higher rape levels. Muslim guest workers as house keepers in Saudi Arabia are often used as free prostitutes by the employer. HIV is as just as rampant in parts of Indonesia as it is in parts of Africa. Some of the highest rape levels in the world is in South America in Catholic areas such as Nicaragua. A woman can smear her self in dung and wear a gorilla costume a rapist will still rape her. It is the rapist that is deviant not the victim. Rape does not enter a well adjusted mans mind. The Sheik was addressing men who were driven out of their minds with superstition and so look for evil in the world to the point where they can only see through evil eyes.So the Sheik speaks evil.

Turnrightthenleft,

You obviously know how to reason and think, although I still believe you are coming at this from a fundamentally wrong position.

To comment about those on the Christian right is fair enough, however, I notice that you tend to see an attack on SOME Muslims for their support for extremism

Perhaps it's my unique ubringing, among it all in South West Sydney. My family was poor and so I grew up in housing commission areas where most of these people settled.

I was always taught to be open minded, and still am, but I believe I gained an anthropology degree during the age of 8-16, when we moved out.

All, repeat, all my friends, were either Asians or Lebanese, as all the Australians I knew were too middle-class for me and I didn't have much in common with them.

I realised though that I was, as all white Australians were, seen as an inferior by almost all of the migrants in the area (area was about 5% white Australian - grew up near Cabramatta). This wasn't just paranoia, but physical action, violence.

I remember groups of Lebanese & Asians that went "Aussie bashing" for fun, although the fact that I knew a few saved me. They're families were racist, told them never to mix with anyone but their own, and one Vietnamese friend I had for my entire childhood, who, although incredibly sly was the best of the bunch, even he was a racist who thought Australians were inferior...

...A teacher was even bashed so bad once the story was on the Nightly News.

Anyway, my point is, such attitudes weren't only common, they were by far the rule as opposed to the exception.

But you didn't have to live there to know this, you just have to see the news, see what others say. You just have to put a few things together for yourself, that, these people come from cultures where religious and ethnic minorities are treated like dirt, as we see all across the mid-east, and now, in Iraq with the sectarian violence.

I don't know if you read the HREOC report into Children in detention around the time people wanted to get the kids out, but in that there was many cases of Muslims being violent against minorities, like Mandaens.

It got so bad that the Mandaens were moved to another compound as Muslims wouldn't share cutlery, eat with, let their kids near, such dirty infidel scum.

Of course it wasn't all, but enough to have to admit there are cultural elements to their attitudes.

Just as we've seen with silence on Hilali, and that those interviewed at the mosque support him, it says a lot about how they value those outside their tribe.

Think about it, for that is the reason everywhere such cultures go in the west, even the ridiculously tolerant Netherlands, they become the crime capitals, a % of their youth commit racially motivated pack rapes, bashings, and murders.

Islamic immigration, and to an extent mass immigration from the third world, is the largest problem in the western world.

The EU recently held a two day summit to decide what to do about their Muslims.

I remember when police at Bankstown had such a problem with Lebanese youth bashing white students at the station they had to keep a permanent presence there.

Imagine catching a bus from there each day? Most don't, so they don't care.

That is human nature, but empathy should also be.

Thanks for reading.