My journey with religion…

I wasn’t intending to share my experiences with religion on my blog, it can be quite a controversial topic and it can skew peoples views. However after a short discussion on the comments on one of my posts I thought I would reconsider sharing some of my experiences.
So here I go…

I was baptised Catholic as a child, my mothers family from a catholic background and my Father was a typical cultural Asian Muslim. I had a bit of both religions from my grandmothers on both sides, mosque on a Friday, church on a Sunday, I perceived it all to be the same. My parents never really put emphasis on religion, it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t in contact with my Father’s side of the family for a large majority of growing up till my late teens, so I considered myself as a Christian. I lived with my uncle for a while during my teens and though not religious in the way they conducted themselves, we went church every Sunday. My mum never felt the need for me to have my communion and all the rest. I left Christianity in my early teens, and thought of myself as without religion but I still believed in God, Christianity didn’t make sense to me, it was just a cross around my neck. I didn’t believe the priest could bless me or that he had a higher status than me. I didn’t understand the three in one concept, the need for intermediaries, praying to Jesus to pray to God, or talking to dead family members to get them to talk to God, saints, priests etc. It just didn’t make sense to me. I considered myself as agnostic for most of my teens but wore a crucifix or St Christopher  as a good luck charm.

In my late teens I began dating a Muslim and he was more culturally Muslim than religious,  so he didn’t know much about his religion, but he knew that when he was older he wanted to take his religion more seriously. So I used to research things on his behalf and tell him what was and was not permissible. I didn’t believe in what he did, but I respected it and all religions, and perceived it as a good thing to be close to God in whatever form.

I was a religious agnostic if that makes sense, I would pray every night, to what I perceived as the creator, and for Him to guide me if there was a path to follow. In the meantime anything I found from different religions that I liked, I thought was beneficial or that made sense to me I would adopt. For example I really wanted a tattoo, so I checked what the major religions said and concluded that the majority don’t exactly agree with it, so I didn’t get one. In this multi-religious time, I also stopped eating pork because of it being mentioned in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in addition to some personal views, I began fasting in Ramadan, trying to abstain from intimacy, and I just generally had never been too fond of alcohol therefore eventually that stopped as well, as I have control issues and would never let myself get drunk anyway. So my partner decided that he could no longer be with me, due to his new found knowledge of his religion, he recognised that our relationship could not be long term as I was not Muslim. I was back in contact with my Father who still had no affiliation with religion. I was in my final year at university, I had several friends who were Muslim. One of which was the most unreligious person, so it was a shock when he came back from a trip abroad volunteering for a charity with a fully grown beard and trying to refrain from impermissible things, although he hadn’t started practising segregation as of yet, so we were still friends. Around the same time, some of my other friends were going through a similar stage were they started to take religion seriously. My friends had never directly preached to me, but I was curious so we’d discuss it sometimes. I was in slight awe of my friend who had gone through his transition, because I hadn’t known anyone that willingly put themselves in danger to help people and the crazy things he would do to fundraise.

On one occasion he mentioned that people always ask for signs in out of the ordinary miracles, waiting for writing in the sky and miss the signs they are being given everyday. He made reference to a spiritual story:
While out to sea, a large boat became shipwrecked and there was only a single survivor. This man prayed and asked God to save his life. Soon thereafter, another boat came by and offered the man some help. “No thanks,” he said. “I’m waiting for God to save me.” The men on the boat shrugged their shoulders and continued. As the man became more deeply concerned, another boat came by. Again, the people aboard offered this man some help, and again he politely decline. “I’m waiting for God to save me,” he said again. After some time, the man began to lose his faith, and soon after that he died. Upon reaching Heaven, he had a chance to speak with God briefly. “Why did you let me die? Why didn’t you answer my prayers?”
” I sent you two boats! You chose to refuse them both”

So I started to think were there signs? A couple of friends I knew had started practising Islam, a female friend of my friend had converted and I heard of one other, no other religion was being shown to me, a lot of the religious practises and rules I had cherry picked were from Islam, so I thought it was the sign to look into it deeper. So I started with things I thought would nullify it straight away such as being permitted to have four wives and beating your wife, and it wasn’t what I thought it was, I could understand their explanations for it. I then became obsessed with watching lectures, it was all I would do in the breaks I had whilst writing my dissertation, I adopted more things from Islam such as halal meat, getting involved with the political side of things. I loved the character of the Prophet and how Muslims were meant to be in their character, not long after, I converted to Islam.

I enjoyed the rules, I needed it as a safety net. I knew what people were allowed or not allowed to do to me. If I had a husband there were rules he had to follow and it was less scary than being with a man that could do anything, because I knew what to expect, I could prepare myself for anything. So for me there was many reasons to convert, I felt God was guiding me, trying to find an identity that I had lost from not being in contact with my fathers side of the family, though they were not religious. Seeing lots of people turning to it, and it just made sense to me at the time, it didn’t have the hierarchy that other religions have, on a surface level you could make sense of it. I was in awe of the good aspects, it was a structured way of life and on a surface level didn’t seem to require faith in as many illogical things that I felt other religions proposed.

My experiences taught me a lot and helped me develop a more empathetic understanding of those with different faiths. Since then I have had many ups and downs with religion for various reasons, at the moment I’m in quite a neutral state of mind, although religion can still be a sensitive topic for me. Perhaps I will write a part 2 at a later stage. I apologise if any of my comments have caused offense to anyone, I was simply expressing my own experiences.

Thought of the day

I wonder if there is any other context other than religion or Disney princess movies where it is supposedly comfortable to tell young children a story about a parent intending to kill their child.

We will not change our culture!!

Okay, I’m not quite sure where my haphazard blog is going right now, but another opinion inspired by an article.  My Aunt sent me an article in French, which I had to get translated by Google Translate, my good old buddy. Going off on a tangent, so she sent me this article: http://www.dreuz.info/2013/01/soutien-a-jean-leonetti-maire-dantibes-il-refuse-de-supprimer-le-porc-dans-les-ecoles/nm_298167_px_512_/

I may be wrong, correct me if I am, but what I got from it was that it is an article about the refusal to remove pork from schools. This refusal is linked to the protest from Muslim parents who either do not want pork served in schools or do not wish for pork to be served to their children, making the situation rather different if one or the other, but I am not entirely sure to confirm either. The refusal comes from the mayor Jean Leonetti, who apposes these changes for immigrants as religion should be a private thing and immigrants who come to France should adapt to the Judeo-Christian country they are choosing to immigrate to, if they wish for their own culture they should stay in a Muslim country where they can be accommodated. Basically to summarise that they are not going to change their culture.

That is fine and dandy, I agree that a whole nation should not have to change for immigrants that come in. People should understand that they will need to adapt a bit to live in a new society and it may not fit their social norms. However if it is refusal of accommodating a significant number of the population, its not something I agree with. So I don’t see why pork would need to be totally removed from a school unless it was full of mainly Jewish and Muslim children, but if the argument is to accommodate Muslim children in schools, for example having a halal or vegetarian option then I believe they should be considered. If there were French nationals that wanted a vegetarian option, should their belief’s be shunned and be given meat because it part of the generic culture to eat meat? No of course not. Maybe I live in a society where we are overtly accommodating which is why I don’t have a “have what is given to you” mentality.

People are so often mistaken that all Muslims are immigrants, if all the non-French Muslims left the country there would still be ethnically French people who are Muslims, its just as diverse of a religion as Christianity, which people often do not consider. Religion is often a lifestyle choice, should we not all be entitled to that? And not have a generic lifestyle of the country forced upon people. This applies anywhere, the right as a human being to choose how we live our lives as long as there is no harm to others. Whether it is pork being forced upon Muslims in France or non-Muslims not being allowed to eat during Ramadan in a Muslim country, I disagree with imposing beliefs and practices on anyone. Before anyone goes down the “but you couldn’t do it in their country” route or “they wouldn’t give you the rights” is a bit of a silly statement, its like saying oh this person is a twat so I’m going to be one too. I believe in being the bigger person regardless, I believe that we should treat other people how we want to be treated and therefore give the rights to others that we would want for ourselves. How can you create a better environment whilst pointing the finger at someone and then doing exactly the same thing, we must be the best people we can be first.

Yes everyone can just go back to where they came from and live the life they wish with ease, but that promotes racial and ethnic segregation which I do not believe in. Should we not all be able to interact with each other and appreciate our differences, different beliefs, values and lifestyles and be able to live amongst each other, why not? Stringency of culture doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest, after all how long has that specific culture lasted? Cultures, languages, dress, food, social etiquettes,  have always changed over the years in accordance to the changes within the population. You may think that can be used as an argument for people to change themselves, but in history most, if not all countries have changed from external influences and even internal adaptions. For example if we even look back in  recent history merely 60-100 years ago it was a very different lifestyle having an Italian, Indian or Japanese restaurant in the UK was unheard of. Miniskirts and skinny jeans would have looked completely ridiculous and immodest etc. What is acceptable and normal now would probably not have been then, or vice versa, change is inevitable.  Which is why I don’t understand this newfound need to hold on to culture exactly as it is out of fear of change, things will always change. At the moment the west lives in a culture of choice and individuality, so why then is there a need to impose our views on others if it doesn’t fit ours.