my take :)

noticed how the media always keeps away from any form of positive development in any religion in the name of secularism. Yet, everytime someone ommits a crim ein the name of religion its always promoted. And the religion is always pointed at. Not the individual(s). They never even bother to point out that the religion on the hot seat does NOT preach such actions. They will however quote some [insert religion] apologist saying how they need to tame their followers, and that the majority isnt like that. Let's take rape for example. No religion preaches it, yet everytime it happnes in a third world countries its always blamed as the baranrism supposedly present in the individuals religion. Rape has nothing to do with religion! even an idiot knows that! its purely a very selfish, evil and materialistic crime. And a sin in religion. It's not religion that makes thing difficult for women in these societies. its the culture. a culture that was prevalent even before, for example, islam was revealed. That culture still prevails. And now that these block headed people are paper muslims, they use islam as a divine pretext to abuse women and other human rights. Ther eis a fine line between culture and religion and its high time it got pointed out. Islam abolished all these barbaric cultural practices, but they are more or less back in place now and, shamefully, this time they are in the name of islam itself. Growing up, I always believed that all preists and hindu pundits were evul child molestors and rapists. Seriously. That's coz the only mention i've ever seen/heard in the media is of these very isolated cases. And since thats ALL i ever get to see/hear about them in the media, it's only natural for me to unconciously assume that that's what they all are. We all know thats not true and again, its an individual thing. It's the person who should be punished, not the religion. So heres a thought, everytime you read about one evil religious cleric, try to talk about one if not two good clerics. Post it on your blog, write an article for ur local newspaper, a magazine or just mention it to your clique or even family. Just bring it up so that it remains in peopels ACTIVE memory. So that they have real people and examples to cite and not just the passive believe at the back of their mind that their relgiion is not evil. that they are not evil. the media'll most probably not publish it... coz seriously... who cares? that wont make their paper sell. And that's when you question them about their 'secular' policy. Bring it out in the open. Punish th eperson for the crime, not his/her relgiion which he/she isn't following anyway! Punish the individual and not an entire society. I have a few personal favorites when it comes to present day muslim clerics, but i'm not going to name them, at least for now, in this post. Because even tho my loyalty lies with Islam, this isnt't about religion. :) It's about ethics. Go on, spread some positivity around you. Spread the truth.