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When I say we own our action, what I mean is we own the consequences of the action. I do not mean freedom to act, which I think is a very different issue. The JWs shunning members definitely have the freedom to act, and they choose to follow membership rules. As I said I don't know if these are their religious text rules, or the rules of the board to keep the control over them. I believe it is the latter.
When you lack the freedom to act, of course that is a very different conversation.
It is a mistaken western centrist belief to think that the rest of the world lives without freedom. Freedom can be defined in many ways, as can the lack of it. I mean we, American women, just got our rights and autonomy over own bodies, REVOKED. How free are we? The Women's Equal Rights amendment never got ratified. We are yet to elect a woman as President.
Muslim women raised as Americans choose to cover their hair. If they can make decisions on what career they will pursue, wear make up and western clothes, they certainly have the choice to wear head covering or not. They choose to wear it. And there are many reasons why they do, sometimes it is to make a political statement. Women who can make political statement are not oppressed!
Any way we are getting off topic as this is not about Muslim women and head covering!
I mean, there is choice and there is choice.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here but as I understand, there is nothing in the Quran that specifically states that a woman has to cover her head and face.
I only know this because I visited Dubai and Abu Dhabi many years ago. We visited a museum about the Quran and local area that seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. Very primitive built from sandstone I seem to recall. Might have been an old fort of some kind. I wonder if it is still there? But I remember being struck by how informative and truthful it was and learning this fact that the Quran gives no direct instruction regarding head and face covering. I was very much surprised by this.
I mean, there is choice and there is choice.\
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here but as I understand, there is nothing in the Quran that specifically states that a woman has to cover her head and face.
I only know this because I visited Dubai and Abu Dhabi many years ago. We visited a museum about the Quran and local area that seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. Very primitive built from sandstone I seem to recall. Might have been an old fort of some kind. I wonder if it is still there? But I remember being struck by how informative and truthful it was and learning this fact that the Quran gives no direct instruction regarding head and face covering. I was very much surprised by this.
Anyway, just throwing that out there.
I don't know either, but I believe it does say both mean and women should dress modestly. When we visited the chapels and churches in Italy they always had a shawl to cover your shoulders, or head, I forget, and no shorts or very short skirts allowed inside. Same in Turkey, you can enter the Mosques, with a covering they offer you, remove shoes, and inside men and women are segregated. It is this way in many cultures.
Except there is no love in that example.
Shirley Phelps obviously deeply loves her children but is torn between her children and her religion and sadly for her, she is in so deep, that her religion won.
British documentary maker Louis Theroux visited the Westboro Baptist church several times over many years. From the UK, we virtually watched those kids grow up in that family. Initially the family were very united and the kids were very much all in on the doctrine. Gradually over the years doubts crept in and little by little, many of the kids left, not just Shirley's kids but many other family members kids. You would think at some point the adults would consider if they had been doing something wrong. I guess once you have shown the world how serious you are, and devoted your life to it, there's no turning back.
And the one Phelps boy waited until he turned 18 to be able to legally escape his father. Yes he made his decision to escape but the need to either escape or continue to live a life he hated was out of his hands. Are the choices to not believe or to be gay reallly choices people make and choices worthy of being disowned by the entire family? What kind of principle is it to make your own children miserable or to become non persons in your mind?
I don't know either, but I believe it does say both mean and women should dress modestly. When we visited the chapels and churches in Italy they always had a shawl to cover your shoulders, or head, I forget, and no shorts or very short skirts allowed inside. Same in Turkey, you can enter the Mosques, with a covering they offer you, remove shoes, and inside men and women are segregated. It is this way in many cultures.
Yes. The Vatican is certainly like that and St Marks in Venice. No shoulders showing and no shorts or short skirt.
And the one Phelps boy waited until he turned 18 to be able to legally escape his father. Yes he made his decision to escape but the need to either escape or continue to live a life he hated was out of his hands. Are the choices to not believe or to be gay reallly choices people make and choices worthy of being disowned by the entire family? What kind of principle is it to make your own children miserable or to become non persons in your mind?
More to the point, what does it say about what kind of Spirit you have BECOME to do such a thing!?!?!
I mean, there is choice and there is choice.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here but as I understand, there is nothing in the Quran that specifically states that a woman has to cover her head and face.
I only know this because I visited Dubai and Abu Dhabi many years ago. We visited a museum about the Quran and local area that seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. Very primitive built from sandstone I seem to recall. Might have been an old fort of some kind. I wonder if it is still there? But I remember being struck by how informative and truthful it was and learning this fact that the Quran gives no direct instruction regarding head and face covering. I was very much surprised by this.
Anyway, just throwing that out there.
If you look at photos of women in Afghanistan or orher Muslim countries from rhe 1950s they are dressed much like European women of era. I heard on the radio a man telling the story of his sister wearing bikinis in Lebanon and within two years a burka due to fubdamentalists taking power. Religious principle of modest dressing dressing done by fundamentaists. Choices of following the radicals or being attacked. Not sure I would say that is a personal choice.
I do think that's a little different, though. I think it was well-stated in "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" when the Sydney Poitier character is having the confrontation wit his father:
Sure it is different and parents do tend to overplay their hand. In the clip he's not disowning his father, he is just setting healthy boundaries and differentiation. I'm not sure I agree with the notion that he owes nothing to his father because Dad just did what he was supposed to. That's a little harsh. I owed my father gratitude precisely FOR doing what he was supposed to. It's not like it's trivial or easy.
I guess my basic point is that there are no guarantees in either direction. Parents, being human, with human needs and weaknesses, can and do disown their children, for religions or moral reasons usually, or cultural ideas around family (dis)honor. Children, being human, can and do disown their parents, although it tends to be less for ideological reasons and more due to internal struggles or a desire for revenge for real or imagined wrongs or unrealistic expectations. It is more an acting out thing and can also involve emotional or even physical abuse (see: elder abuse).
I wish I had understood up front what a crap shoot even special relationships can be. Like most of us, I had all these gauzy notions that if you did your best everything was bound to work out with minimal speed bumps. Not always so. Couples sometimes grow apart; parents and children are sometimes ships passing in the night.
I have nothing but happiness for people who are living the dream: they have a lifelong happy marriage to one person and adult children who they have healthy and interactive relationships with. But I've come to see it as almost an exception rather than a rule. Too many moving parts, too many things to go wrong. People don't have any misfires on display in their FB profiles, is all. That's where you cherry pick the presentable parts of your life, lol.
The other thing I used to imagine was that my faith gave me some sort of leg up in this regard. I remember even gloating about it to myself as a teen. Little did I know!
Just to flip the script, have you considered the phenomenon of children shunning their parents? That happens too. Raise them with love and laughter, be attentive and involved and present and available, and they gaslight you that you never did anything for them and they can't stand the sight of you. I have no clue to be honest if any of this is religiously motivated -- I certainly know cases where it's not -- and it is often at least partly a result of a fundamental personality difference between parent and child. But there is actually a big underground of shattered parents who are unwillingly estranged from one or more of their adult children, despite loving them very much. It is underground because of the stigma attached to it and the pain of discussing or explaining it to people.
One thing's for sure, there's no shortage of pain in the world ...
You describe something similar to the relationship I had with my own mother. I didn't shun her but I did move out when I was 16. She was raised lower working class. No education beyond 14 when she began working in a factory. She had no aspirations or expectations for me at all. She wasn't equipped for that. Nothing wrong with factory work but it wasn't the future I envisaged for myself. So I left home and held down 2 jobs while I got my degree and then teaching diploma.
My mother was a good person but she had no understanding of what I was doing whatsoever. She seemed to think I was sort of playing at life. She came to my graduation without really knowing what my degree was. We clashed as you might imagine.
Quite different to the relationship I have with my kids. I can probably credit my upbringing with at least knowing what not to do in that regard.
There seems to be one religious principle that is dominant in religions but is not necessarily a requirement of theism. The principle that what we THINK we know about God must be adopted by everyone. That is purely the result of human vanity and hubris and NOT belief in God though theism seems to be inordinately stuck with it.
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