# The Fallen Blogger and the Spectre of Secularism **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 28, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827 "2015-02-28T03:21:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 50
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/981 "2015-05-27T18:58:04Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > The book says she was nine when Muhammad fucked her the first time. If she was physically exhibiting signs of puberty at the time, would you still be insisting on calling it rape? Because _no rational person anywhere in the ancient or medieval world would agree with you that a man having sex with his acknowledged legally-betrothed bride as soon as she began to undergo puberty was raping her._ Now, I’m perfectly willing to agree that ancient and medieval ideas of gender roles and men’s “marital rights” were often quite shitty and oppressive by modern standards of consenting adulthood and gender equality. _But that applies to the pre-modern world as a whole, not just Islam._ If you persist in complaining about how uniquely horrible Muhammad was for following basically the same marital/sexual norms that the vast majority of contemporary Christians, Jews and pagans also followed (modulo the polygamy issue), then, as I said, you’re a hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/982 "2015-05-27T18:59:04Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > Yes yes, “but what about other things that are also bad! You’re not allowed to dislike THIS pedophile until you personally have eliminated all child abuse from the world!” I’ve heard it before. Judaism and Christianity are also stupid and authorize horrible things. The key differences are: \*This thread is about horrible Muslim things and is not the “stupid Jewish and Christian things” thread. \*Judaism and Christianity are rightfully looked upon as evil anachronisms by the progressive class, but when Islam does the same things a thousand times as often and a million times worse, the same lefties apologize for it. \*The ready comparison of what other people were doing in 1200 to what Islam is doing today says a a lot more about the fundamental problem with Islam than you think it does. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/983 "2015-05-27T19:00:26Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > If she was physically exhibiting signs of puberty at the time, would you still be insisting on calling it rape? > > Because _no rational person anywhere in the ancient or medieval world would agree with you that a man having sex with his acknowledged legally-betrothed bride as soon as she began to undergo puberty was raping her._ Keep defending having sex with nine-year-olds, it’s a good look. Both for you and for Islam, which requires such reasoning to be defended. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/984 "2015-05-27T19:05:29Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > you must accept our practices because it’s our culture The point the rational posters in this thread are making about the “Muhammad-pedophile” controversy is not that modern societies “must accept” the practice of child betrothal nowadays. Rather, the point is that you’re willfully ignoring the fact that other ancient and medieval societies _engaged in exactly the same practices_. Pitching a fit about, e.g., the acceptance of war-captive rape in Muhammad’s culture but not in Maimonides’ doesn’t make you morally superior: it just makes you a hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/985 "2015-05-27T19:09:00Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Both for you and for Islam, which requires such reasoning to be defended. No it doesn’t, since many Muslims have different beliefs about this. You continue ascribe beliefs to all Muslims that are not common to all. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/986 "2015-05-27T19:09:11Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Patristic Christian authorities in late antiquity were promulgating religious rules all over the place permitting adult men to become betrothed to prepubescent girls and have sex with them as soon as they showed signs of puberty, but that doesn’t seem to you like a terrible indictment of Christianity as a religion of pedophile-enablers. You don’t even have to go that far back, when conservative evangelical Christians are, right now, in America, holding up [stories like this](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/12/the-rest-of-the-maranatha-story.html) as beautiful stories of proper Biblical courtship and marriage. **Haberdash** , naturally, doesn’t care. > [@Haberdash](#): > > The difference between “Islam” and “underage sex trafficking” is academic in some respects. It’s also worth nothing that the “Islamophobia” shrieks were used to impede an investigation into one of the biggest pedophile rings in British history: [No, they weren’t.](http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/1407/independent_inquiry_cse_in_rotherham) > [@](#): > > Issues of ethnicity related to child sexual exploitation have been discussed in other reports, including the Home Affairs Select Committee report, and the report of the Children’s Commissioner. Within the Council, we found no evidence of children’s social care staff being influenced by concerns about the ethnic origins of suspected perpetrators when dealing with individual child protection cases, including CSE. > > […] > > Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers. At an operational level, the Police gave no priority to CSE, regarding many child victims with contempt and failing to act on their abuse as a crime. Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the Police and the Council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham. The first of these reports was effectively suppressed because some senior officers disbelieved the data it contained. This had led to suggestions of cover-up. The other two reports set out the links between child sexual exploitation and drugs, guns and criminality in the Borough. These reports were ignored and no action was taken to deal with the issues that were identified in them. > > In the early 2000s, a small group of professionals from key agencies met and monitored large numbers of children known to be involved in CSE or at risk but their managers gave little help or support to their efforts. Some at a senior level in the Police and children’s social care continued to think the extent of the problem, as described by youth workers, was exaggerated, and seemed intent on reducing the official numbers of children categorised as CSE. At an operational level, staff appeared to be overwhelmed by the numbers involved. There were improvements in the response of management from about 2007 onwards. By 2009, the children’s social care service was acutely understaffed and over stretched, struggling to cope with demand. It wasn’t a case of “the police didn’t do anything out of fear of being thought racist”, but "the police didn’t do anything because they apparently just didn’t give a shit, and the people trying to deal with the problem in the face of this police inactivity and apathy were overwhelmed. > [@Haberdash](#): > > The exact same apologism on display in this thread – you must accept our practices because it’s our culture, whatabout-this-thing-someone-else-did, you’re only concerned about this because you’re a bigot – was used for decades to stonewall efforts at controlling the Muslims of Rotherham as they raped children at a compulsive rate. I’m amazed at your continued ability to bullrush ahead with your hateful nonsense even when actual facts keep contradicting you. > [@Haberdash](#): > > Not me, but rather the billion or so Sunnis in the world. You want it both ways – fringe beliefs of minority groups are touted as examples of what Islam “really is” (while of course ignoring everything backwards and evil about Iran) but the fact that those minority groups are regularly massacred for being heretics somehow can’t be relevant. Or maybe Islam, even Sunni Islam, isn’t a monolithic block whose adherents, contrary to your bigoted worldview, don’t all believe lockstep in the exact same things. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/987 "2015-05-27T19:10:11Z")
My problem is with the acceptance of forced marriage and rape in Muslim society today. The fanatical veneration of a child rapist is merely a reason for the concrete problem. Women and children are treated as animals for the abuse farm in Islam. You’d rather deny this than take even the minimal first step towards ending it, which is understanding why it is. In societies descended from medieval Judaism and Christianity, we have taken great steps towards eliminating this problem, by discarding Judaism and Christianity. The Christian areas with the worst sex abuse problem are those where new religious fervor and true believers dominate. Religion is evil, and true believers do evil things. There’s nothing better about Christian beliefs, but there’s something better about formerly-Christian societies, and that thing is _that they aren’t Christian anymore._ It is a human rights imperative that the Muslim world follow the lead of the West and give up on religion. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/988 "2015-05-27T19:13:40Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Or maybe Islam, even Sunni Islam, isn’t a monolithic block whose adherents, contrary to your bigoted worldview, don’t all believe lockstep in the exact same things. The popular Muslim pasttime of killing other Muslims is enough to demonstrate that. Do YOU believe that Shiites are valid Muslims who are entitled to exist in your ideal Muslim-run world? If not, you shouldn’t cite them to show Muslim beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/989 "2015-05-27T19:17:21Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > It wasn’t a case of “the police didn’t do anything out of fear of being thought racist” [http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/how-rotherham-happened/](http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/how-rotherham-happened/) > [@](#): > > All of the victims identified in police reports were white, according to Ms. Bennhold, and the perpetrators were primarily of South Asian origin. An investigation carried out by Alexis Jay, a former chief inspector of social work hired by the Rotherham city council, subsequently found that a number of local police officers and government officials apparently refused to act on knowledge of the abuse “for fear of being accused of racism.” Alexis Jay is the same person whose report you quoted. I imagine that, like the hadith, he will exist in a state of Schrodinger’s infallibility, where questioning one part is bigotry but quoting another is also bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/990 "2015-05-27T19:19:01Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > My problem is with the acceptance of forced marriage and rape in Muslim society today. This is a problem within the Muslim world and elsewhere, and it’s reasonable to have a discussion about it. It’s even reasonable to point out that it seems to be more common in some Muslim countries. But it’s not reasonable to malign all Muslims, since it’s not true for all Muslims. > [@](#): > > The fanatical veneration of a child rapist is merely a reason for the concrete problem. Again, this may describe the beliefs of some Muslims but not all. > [@](#): > > Women and children are treated as animals for the abuse farm in Islam. Some parts and some interpretations of Islam, not all. > [@](#): > > You’d rather deny this than take even the minimal first step towards ending it, which is understanding why it is. I don’t believe you understand why it is. Bigotry is generally quite blinding towards actual searches for knowledge and problem-solving. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/991 "2015-05-27T19:20:07Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Judaism and Christianity are also stupid and authorize horrible things. The key differences are: > > \*This thread is about horrible Muslim things and is not the “stupid Jewish and Christian things” thread. :dubious: Well, at least now you’ve come right out and admitted that this isn’t about any actual ethical or moral principles as far as you’re concerned. You don’t actually care what bad things any non-Muslims do, or what common factors across different ancient societies perpetuated those practices among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. You simply want to use any accusation that you can think of as a justification to bash Muslims. And you’re frustrated because the rational people keep on interrupting your Muslim-bashing party by pointing out the factual and logical flaws in your bigoted generalizations. > [@Haberdash](#): > > Keep defending having sex with nine-year-olds Keep pretending that you actually object to having sex with nine-year-olds for any other reason than that it gives you an excuse to bash Islam. But you’re no longer fooling anybody, if indeed you ever were. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/992 "2015-05-27T19:22:42Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Keep pretending that you actually object to having sex with nine-year-olds for any other reason than that it gives you an excuse to bash Islam. But you’re no longer fooling anybody, if indeed you ever were. Yup, anyone who claims to oppose child rape is just one of those “Islamophobes” grasping at straws. No one REALLY thinks having a sexual encounter with a nine-year-old is a bad thing. I’m beginning to suspect why you might be so attracted to Islam. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/993 "2015-05-27T19:25:33Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Yup, anyone who claims to oppose child rape is just one of those “Islamophobes” grasping at straws. No one REALLY thinks having a sexual encounter with a nine-year-old is a bad thing. Opposing child rape is reasonable. Maligning millions because of the veneration of a figure who lived more than a thousand years ago who _may_, by some sources, have committed child-rape, is not. In short, I don’t believe that you care that someone who has been dead for over a thousand years might have abused a child. This has nothing to do with any present or future children that might be abused, and everything to do with your bigotry against Muslims. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/994 "2015-05-27T19:27:25Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Dearborn has adolescent sex slaves (or at least more than similarly sized American cities)? In short, _I don’t believe you_. Most American Muslims, especially those in communities that formed prior to the rise of Islamism like Dearborn, are pretty reasonable. They came here because they looked at the backwardness of the Islamic world and said they’d prefer to live in the superior American culture, after all. Dearborn Muslims do have occasional problems with [arresting people for advocating non-Muslim religions](http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/22177220/dearborn-settles-with-christian-missionaries-arrested-at-arab-festival) and on one occasion even [stoning them](http://www.clarionproject.org/news/american-muslims-stone-christians-dearborn-michigan) (must be a cultural thing) but in the big picture, we can all agree that Dearborn is, most of the time, a model for how more Muslims should be. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/995 "2015-05-27T19:28:42Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > My problem is with the acceptance of forced marriage and rape in Muslim society today. No, your problem is with Muslims. That’s why you focus on the problem of forced and child marriage in Muslim societies, and are utterly, hypocritically, unconcerned about the problem actually being [something that is common in in poorly developed countries regardless of religion](http://data.unicef.org/child-protection/child-marriage). > [@](#): > > In societies descended from medieval Judaism and Christianity, we have taken great steps towards eliminating this problem, by discarding Judaism and Christianity. The Christian areas with the worst sex abuse problem are those where new religious fervor and true believers dominate. Religion is evil, and true believers do evil things. There’s nothing better about Christian beliefs, but there’s something better about formerly-Christian societies, and that thing is _that they aren’t Christian anymore._ > > It is a human rights imperative that the Muslim world follow the lead of the West and give up on religion. While your grudging acknowledgment that Islam is really no different from Christianity (not that your posts show that you actually believe that) is welcome, it’s cute how you think that the West has “given up on religion”. I live in the secular, free United States, and yet despite the fearmongering about “creeping sharia”, there are more laws passed because of and more lawmakers promoting a specifically Christian-branded theocracy here than there will ever, EVER be that promote a Muslim-branded theocracy. > [@Haberdash](#): > > Do YOU believe that Shiites are valid Muslims Of course I do. What a stupid question. > [@](#): > > who are entitled to exist in your ideal Muslim-run world? I don’t believe in anything of the sort. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/996 "2015-05-27T19:30:34Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > There was no stigma against raping slaves of all ages, either. This is something Islam has in common with ancient Europe. > > It goes out of its way to say that the sex took place. > > \*\*“He married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was nine years old.” > \*\* > > That’s the verse. Now, you’re free to reject the hadith as a reliable historical source. The problem is, Muslims are not free to do this. Either their scriptures are false, or their #1 favorite guy raped a nine-year-old. You poor dumb bastard, you’re too stupid to realize other hadiths place Aisha as being significantly older aren’t you? To give an obvious example if she was born prior to Muhammad hearing the call, then she had to be signicantly older. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/997 "2015-05-27T19:33:08Z")
Islamic scriptures are a contradictory mess that can’t possibly be true, you say? I agree. Now let’s see which societies we can repeat that claim in without being decapitated. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/998 "2015-05-27T19:37:36Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Alexis Jay is the same person whose report you quoted. Yes, and I quoted the report, and not an op-ed column. Here’s another quote from the report: > [@](#): > > The Deputy Children’s Commissioner’s report reached a similar conclusion to the Muslim Women’s Network research, stating ‘one of these myths was that only white girls are victims of sexual exploitation by Asian or Muslim males, as if these men only abuse outside of their own community, driven by hatred and contempt for white females. This belief flies in the face of evidence that shows that those who violate children are most likely to target those who are closest to them and most easily accessible.’ > > […] > > All the senior officers we interviewed were asked whether ethnic considerations influenced their decision making. All were unequivocal that this did not happen. However, several of those involved in the operational management of services reported some attempts to pressurise them into changing their approach to some issues. This mainly affected the support given to Pakistani-heritage women fleeing domestic violence, where a small number of councillors had demanded that social workers reveal the whereabouts of these women or effect reconciliation rather than supporting the women to make up their own minds. The Inquiry team was confident that ethnic issues did not influence professional decision-making in individual cases. The report also notes that the victimizers exploited and abused vulnerable children from mostly broken and abusive homes, regardless of the ethnicity (or sex…a number of young male victims are described in the report) of the victims. The area they were in was something like 95% white, so if there were more white victims than non-white victims, that’s mainly because there were far more whites available to be victimized. But these gangs absolutely targeted Pakistani women and children in the community as well. So your op-ed is, not to put too fine a point on it, wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/999 "2015-05-27T19:38:38Z")
Oh well, if the police officers accused of ignoring their duties and letting rapists take over the town _deny_ it, then I guess that settles things. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1000 "2015-05-27T19:47:59Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > My problem is with the acceptance of forced marriage and rape in Muslim society today. Actually, what’s really bothering you is that you can’t persuade other, more sensible people to hate an entire world religion indiscriminately with the same venomous bigotry that you enjoy feeling about it. But sure, let’s pretend for the time being that you do in fact have a genuine moral objection to forced marriage and rape other than as a cover for hating Muslims in general. So does everybody else around here. So does most of the rest of the world, including the majority of Muslims. [QUOTE=Haberdash] The fanatical veneration of a child rapist is merely a reason for the concrete problem. [/quote] What makes you think that this is true? After all, the majority of Muhammad’s marital history as recorded in Islamic sacred texts involves not his late relationship with a child bride but rather his quarter-century of devoted, monogamous and fruitful marriage to a twice-widowed prosperous businesswoman at least several years older than he was, who initiated the offer of marriage to him and supported him both not only personally but financially. So if Muslims worldwide are allegedly so influenced in their own behavior by “fanatical veneration” of their Prophet, then we ought to be seeing the standard Islamic approach to marriage in the form of “cougars” acquiring younger trophy husbands. Thus your attempt to blame sexual oppression in modern Islamic societies on the pernicious example of Muhammad’s own behavior is, like pretty much everything else you say about Islam, made-up bullshit. The fact of the matter is that modern Islamic societies, like all other societies in the world, have a long and complicated history that’s profoundly influenced by patriarchal structures that long pre-date not only Islam but recorded history itself. So no, you can’t explain forced marriage and rape in Islamic societies today as a consequence of “fanatical veneration” of Muhammad. If modern Muslim men were really modeling their domestic relationships on the life of their Prophet, they’d be stampeding to marry older widows. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=49) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=51)