Why Islam

I saw an ad for http://whyislam.org/ on the subway today. There is a wide and spreading or wide-spread and widening conflict over Islam between many groups of people in the US today. I don't have any good opinions right now, but I want to try to name some of the groups involved as well as some events that have taken place. I also want to collect people who have written about the subject. However, I have to confess that I have a bad opinion about organized religion in general, so I may have a hard time being objective.

On the one hand, there are groups that want to highlight misconceptions about Islam, such as whyislam, or create a Western Islamic following, such as the Muslim Student Association. I suppose both want to tell the West that Islam is a religion of peace and that Islamic Extremists, are, just that. I read on whyislam.org today the argument that people should consider the difference between how women are treated by Islam and how women are treated in Islamic countries. I accept the logical distinction, but I want to learn how many women living in the Muslim world ( in and outside of Islamic nations ) are actually free to educate themselves, drive a car, teach, etc.

On the other hand, people are speaking out, saying that too many women suffer in Islamic nations. Everyone who saw the movie or read the book, Kite Runner, was able to find out about 'honor killings' in Afghanistan. I also recently saw a video from a conference held in January 2008, where women who left Islamic nations got to give their perspective.

The talk was called "Women in Islam" and gave perspectives from Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, Rosine Ghawji and Cyrus Nowrasteh. The moderator was Janet Levy. The link is http://www.guba.com/watch/3000134226 , but there is an accompanying link too:
http://www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org . Their views are less flattering and more revealing.

I also recently listened to the Dec 7 2008 podcast of 60 Minutes recently. So I learned that Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian oil company ( most profitable company in the world, by the way ) used to be US owned and to this day maintains a portion of land within itself where women get to live as if in the West. That is, they can drive cars, for example.

I should also note that there is an extreme end to anti-Islam too. I think they call this reverse hate speech or, just hate speech. Yes, if you turn to YouTube, you will find that there are a few videos posted with harsh music in the background while Islam gets bashed. I am happy to say that I do not have the 'media-nurtured' negative reaction toward Muslims that I unfortunately do to black people. I fear that all the online hate speech and even the New York Times-style 'do not slander Obama as a Muslim because Islam is evil' bad mouthing is going to make the 'next' young people into Islamophobes.



P.S., isn't it awesome that Jeremiah Write gets absolved 'after' it made a difference? ( Article at Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/21/meet-the-white-man-who-_n_92793.html )