To Rise Above
December 29th 2007 22:43
There's one thing that I have tried avoiding to do for quite sometime now. Namely indulging in my own perfect views of the world. It may be strange to say this but I'm not entirely comfortable with what I believe in. Is it because I have a weak mind? Perhaps, but even if that is the case it's certainly built on some solid moral principles.
As a Muslim I carry many burdens, some more obvious than others. While being associated with some of the worst people in modern history is always bothersome it pales in comparison to the burden of those who are not extremists yet blindly critical of Islam for whatever reason which takes their fancy. It isn't so much I'm afraid of them that I'm dissapointed. I can handle extremists using religion for whatever because I know at the end of the day they'll always exist, with or without me, with or without religion.
When people start criticizing my beliefs, and when I say mine I mean in the literal sense my exact beliefs for the actions of others, well that is heartbreaking. Though I shouldn't say only my beliefs, the teachings of other religions too have come under baseless attack, particularly Christianity and Judaism.
Hating is too easy and as such I do my best to not hate, because when I hate I'm wasting my time. I'm either preaching to the choir or yelling at a brick wall. Ultimately thats why I find it so heartbrekaing when perfectly sane, intelligent, respectable people decide to attack my beliefs, my exact same beliefs, and say it's the reason for the disasters of the world. It's counter-productive, they have it in them to make a difference but they waste it yelling at a brick wall or preaching to the choir.
One of my most important duties in life is to work with people, respect people, and promote mutual understanding. That is why one of the biggest burdens I carry as a Muslim is seeing people who can make the world a better place waste it by indulging themselves in their own world view.
It's too easy to just keep ranting and raving, even in an eloquent sense. Whats difficult is holding onto ones tongue when every primal instinct is telling you to attack without remorse. When a news story breaks that pits a homophobic Christian in a gay sex scandal strength and nobility is not to attack Christians but to withhold and attack the homophobic man. It is easy to go by what makes you feel better and layer in hate against a religion simply because of one persons association with it.
I've never felt so dissapointed than just most recently after reading a commentary on the assasination of Bhutto called 'I Don't Respect Your Religion'. There are a number of things that dissapoint me with that article though the biggest is how Cenk Uygur has decided to use the terrible events that unfolded in Pakistan as a means to attack other religions. He's preaching to the atheist choir and yelling at the religous brick wall. He's neither advancing his own agenda nor is he winning any friends who believe in religion, all he's doing is making himself and those who agree with him feel better.
Even though he did his research and wrote his article so elequontly he ultimately made no real progress for peace after the assasination, in fact he hurt progress. Now upon reading his article how many more religous people are going to be even more hostile towards atheists?
Some may say I'm hiding from the truth, that I'm saying we should all pretend we can get along even though our beliefs say we should kill each other. However thats not true, thats a distortion of reality. You can bring books and interpret them the way you want so you can guess as to what someone thinks, but that doesn't mean you're right, and often times you're wrong. I believe in one absoloute truth that I think is infallible. That is, we are not perfect but we are inherintly good people. If people were inherintly bad babies would not smile. We all want to get along and we loath not being able to justify what we are doing as a good thing.
Our morality always gets the better of us yet some clever folk have figured out a way to sidestep their own morality to feel better about whatever evil act they wish to commit. So I'm not hiding the truth but am trying to let people see the whole truth. Yes, you're right, there are all these verses of hate in the Quran, Bible and Torah but you'll find plenty of verses of love, respect and mutual understanding in all three.
I believe in being productive in everything you say, ultimately you make no progress for peace by taking a passage out of one of those books and highlighting how much it promotes hate, war and violence. The irony is of course you're promoting hate through your highlighting of the 'truth', worse yet, you're promoting hate in people who would otherwise have none.
To rise above is to hold ones tongue during times of crysis and acknowledge the reason for which the crysis happened is far too complex to pin on your faveourite scapegoat. Ultimately it's about being uncomfortable with your beliefs because the truth is far scarier than what your primal instincts are telling you to believe. True strength comes from those who are able to restrain themselves, not from those who succumb to their basic urges and attack viciously.
As a Muslim I carry many burdens, some more obvious than others. While being associated with some of the worst people in modern history is always bothersome it pales in comparison to the burden of those who are not extremists yet blindly critical of Islam for whatever reason which takes their fancy. It isn't so much I'm afraid of them that I'm dissapointed. I can handle extremists using religion for whatever because I know at the end of the day they'll always exist, with or without me, with or without religion.
When people start criticizing my beliefs, and when I say mine I mean in the literal sense my exact beliefs for the actions of others, well that is heartbreaking. Though I shouldn't say only my beliefs, the teachings of other religions too have come under baseless attack, particularly Christianity and Judaism.
Hating is too easy and as such I do my best to not hate, because when I hate I'm wasting my time. I'm either preaching to the choir or yelling at a brick wall. Ultimately thats why I find it so heartbrekaing when perfectly sane, intelligent, respectable people decide to attack my beliefs, my exact same beliefs, and say it's the reason for the disasters of the world. It's counter-productive, they have it in them to make a difference but they waste it yelling at a brick wall or preaching to the choir.
One of my most important duties in life is to work with people, respect people, and promote mutual understanding. That is why one of the biggest burdens I carry as a Muslim is seeing people who can make the world a better place waste it by indulging themselves in their own world view.
It's too easy to just keep ranting and raving, even in an eloquent sense. Whats difficult is holding onto ones tongue when every primal instinct is telling you to attack without remorse. When a news story breaks that pits a homophobic Christian in a gay sex scandal strength and nobility is not to attack Christians but to withhold and attack the homophobic man. It is easy to go by what makes you feel better and layer in hate against a religion simply because of one persons association with it.
I've never felt so dissapointed than just most recently after reading a commentary on the assasination of Bhutto called 'I Don't Respect Your Religion'. There are a number of things that dissapoint me with that article though the biggest is how Cenk Uygur has decided to use the terrible events that unfolded in Pakistan as a means to attack other religions. He's preaching to the atheist choir and yelling at the religous brick wall. He's neither advancing his own agenda nor is he winning any friends who believe in religion, all he's doing is making himself and those who agree with him feel better.
Even though he did his research and wrote his article so elequontly he ultimately made no real progress for peace after the assasination, in fact he hurt progress. Now upon reading his article how many more religous people are going to be even more hostile towards atheists?
Some may say I'm hiding from the truth, that I'm saying we should all pretend we can get along even though our beliefs say we should kill each other. However thats not true, thats a distortion of reality. You can bring books and interpret them the way you want so you can guess as to what someone thinks, but that doesn't mean you're right, and often times you're wrong. I believe in one absoloute truth that I think is infallible. That is, we are not perfect but we are inherintly good people. If people were inherintly bad babies would not smile. We all want to get along and we loath not being able to justify what we are doing as a good thing.
Our morality always gets the better of us yet some clever folk have figured out a way to sidestep their own morality to feel better about whatever evil act they wish to commit. So I'm not hiding the truth but am trying to let people see the whole truth. Yes, you're right, there are all these verses of hate in the Quran, Bible and Torah but you'll find plenty of verses of love, respect and mutual understanding in all three.
I believe in being productive in everything you say, ultimately you make no progress for peace by taking a passage out of one of those books and highlighting how much it promotes hate, war and violence. The irony is of course you're promoting hate through your highlighting of the 'truth', worse yet, you're promoting hate in people who would otherwise have none.
To rise above is to hold ones tongue during times of crysis and acknowledge the reason for which the crysis happened is far too complex to pin on your faveourite scapegoat. Ultimately it's about being uncomfortable with your beliefs because the truth is far scarier than what your primal instincts are telling you to believe. True strength comes from those who are able to restrain themselves, not from those who succumb to their basic urges and attack viciously.
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