I remember when i was in first grade, we were sitting in our religion class (one day a week, we were separated into our various religious groups and we had a study session on it) when I had a very disturbing experience. We were speaking about other faiths, and my teacher was making a point that everyone who didn't follow the muslim teachings will all be punished. My best friend at the time was a Catholic, so I remember feeling very distressed hearing this. My hand shot up and I asked my teacher, "What if they don't know any better? What if a person is born into a Catholic family and is raised as one and is just never really exposed to Islam?" (Obviously not my exact wording, but I wasn't speaking in English anyway, so it doesn't matter
). My teacher just shook his head and said, basically, that it didn't matter: only Islam has the correct teaching - or some such nonsense. I told him this didn't make sense, and he told me not to question things I couldn't understand.
I always look back to this exchange as the moment when the seed of doubt regarding religions was first planted in my mind. It's been many many years now and I *still* remember how upset I was. How I was thinking that it just didn't *make sense*. And over the years, I have met people of other faiths who expressed the same sentiment of: "if you don't follow our teaching you're going to hell."
I know not all religious people think like this, and I can allow that religion definitely has a place in society. I am very spiritual, actually. I believe in a higher being. And I think for some people religion can be a useful way to channel their spirituality. I don't look down on people who do choose to be part of a certain faith. But it's when the blind faith regarding some sets of rules interferes with reason that it starts being very very dangerous. And in that sense religion has also done great harm in this world.
It's easy sometimes to just abandon reason and rely on a "definite authority" for guidance on how you're going to live your life. But which authority is the "right" one? The Old Testament? The New Testament? The Koran? Which translation of the chosen book are you going to follow? Even though there are exceptions, the majority of people are following the faith they do, not because they've studied every single religion that is out there, and have made a choice on what to follow. People mostly choose the book considered sacred by the community they are born into. And the thing is, depending on where you live, or depending on the sects/community the books are interpreted many different ways. In the Islamic faith alone, there are the ismailis, Ahmadiyah, Alawis, Yazidis, etc. Because of where I was born, I was never required to wear a veil -- or worse, a burka. But had I been born in a different place, I would have had this imposed on me; in fact I may not have been allowed to get an education, and I'm sure the local authority can find some religious reason supported by some quotes out of the Koran, to justify that. And this 'interpretation' differences are present in other faiths as well. Curious, isn't it, considering that all these rules were supposed to have come from one source, which is supposed to be the word of God?
Updated On: 9/28/04 at 03:17 AM
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