Light at the end of the tunnel
Over the past month, there have been times when I’ve let my obsessive side take over. I’m learning that I have to take it easy and stop thinking and reading when I reach saturation point. I don’t have to find answers to everything immediately.
I’m starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, and feel that there has been some value in my research on religion. I feel that with Islam, most of the “wrestling” has been done – I don’t often come across things that need serious investigation now; I am starting to have some confidence that I know the lie of the land, so to speak. There is always more to learn, but the main arguments used against Islam – the main things that are potentially shocking – are things I have already encountered and thought about. Doing this has been difficult, but I now see the value of it as my fear of unknown shocks goes down. I also see that my thought processes are working on all of it, and this takes time… I need to patiently allow that to happen.
The questions I’m asking are really big ones: about the purpose of life; what God wants of us; how God communicates to us; what religion is, and what it is not. It’s perfectly possible to be really into religion and not really ever answer these questions in a satisfying way. Your heart is drawn to a shallow answer, and you go with the flow. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. But I want something more stable and secure than that now. I want to build my house on a rock.
Right now I feel strangely peaceful, and I dare to hope that God is pleased with my search. I don’t feel so guilty about my lack of commitment; I don’t feel that blind devotion to doctrine is of much value. I feel better about committing to an honest search.
I think my next move is to concentrate on reading scriptures and see what, if anything, inspires me. I accept that this will take time, that it has to take time, that over-saturation is not constructive. The fear that drives me to obsess is not faith, so I will try to step back and have faith that clarity will come to me.
Demands and faith
I want to put aside theology and belief for now and discuss the other side of religion – once you’ve subscribed to it, what it demands of you. It’s not unconnected to belief because when you look into what religion demands of its followers, whether it makes sense or not influences whether you believe in the religion or not.
Even when you think it makes some sense, if it’s extemely difficult and would impact on your life in what you feel is a negative way, your commitment to the religion can wane. Then if you’ve never done so before, you can start to ask questions about the theology and work out whether there was any reason to be committed in the first place.
This is what happened with me and Christianity. I couldn’t lay my dreams aside, and I couldn’t tolerate being at the mercy of nonsensical rules that allowed me to be trampled upon and then being told to just forgive.
I have the same problem with Islam. It won’t let me fulfil my dreams either. My dream of having my own home and living in it until I die couldn’t happen in a mainstream interpretation of Islam because (i) mortgages with interest are not allowed (ii) inheritance from non-Muslim relatives is not allowed (iii) even if we moved to my husband’s country, I have no idea if I’d be allowed to live in my husband’s part of the family house after his death. (He is 11 years older than me so I have to think about that.)
Perhaps there is a less literal, more spiritual interpretation to be made, which doesn’t imitate 7th century partriarchy and tribalism. But I’m under a lot of stress to find it.
My religious indecision is part of the larger stress of an unclear life plan. The fear and doubt comes from needing security every time. Needing to know that the structures I put my trust in will be good for my livelihood, not bad. Perhaps it’s selfish, and faithless, but I may as well be honest about that.
I think that we will never have children. That takes financial pressure off us, and psychological pressure off me to make my mind up about religion before my fertility runs out. And really, the world is going down… global warming, pandemic killer diseases, war, famine… is it really a good idea to make more people? Why would I want to have kids that I would love, only to make them suffer through this awful life? That’s real selfishness, is it not?
I also think that wherever we end up living, it will not be his country… he doesn’t even want to live there. Wherever it is, I am going to have to work and contribute to a house. To have some chance of not being homeless when I am old. This thought makes me so unhappy. I am not lazy to work, just don’t think I will find a job I am good at.
The demands of religion are hard enough when you have faith. Without faith, they are just extremely off-putting. I think faith grows with practice, but I also know all too well how it can be extinguished by religious pain, so I am very distrustful of religion, constantly finding reasons to ignore the cry of my heart for spiritual nourishment. I don’t trust myself to be able to have faith. Even though it’s a way of being that I really want.
I’m tired of wrestling with religion. Every way I turn it just seems to get harder and harder. Faith is not there… I can’t see the wood for the trees.
Mirrors
In my travels around the blogosphere today (yeah, work is going really well – NOT), I have come across a certain saying – twice; once from a Muslim and once from a Christian. The saying is that scriptures are like a mirror – what we see in them is really a reflection of ourselves.
Maybe it’s just my habit of being superstitious about the voice of God, but seeing it in two places from people of two faiths in one day made me pay attention.
A few of you have been telling me similar things in response to the question “is there an ideal?” In other words, no there’s not. There is not one particular view on a religion that is the correct view. There is not an absolute at the bottom of all the layers of interpretation that people have put on it over the centuries. Perhaps those layers of interpretation just give the illusion that it’s all neatly wrapped up – an ideal life, a complete package, a closed case, a done deal. Which I don’t think it is.
I think if there is a “true nature of a religion”, it is what the original prophet/founder of the religion understood the religion to be. But it’s pretty difficult to determine that through historical documents which have issues with preservation. Or you can read scriptures which are attributed to God in the religion, and decide from that what you think it was supposed to be about; but you are reading it through the lens of the translator’s understanding, and you then put your own twist on top of that as it reflects your own values back at you. So how can you be sure that what you understand bears any relation to the original? Is there enough clarity to constrain the message?
And then even if you think you understand the original, there’s the question of whether it’s from God, or man-made.
I have to admit, I’m really lost now.
Things that bother me
I’ll admit it. I was hoping Islam would be something I’d want to throw myself into, like I did with Christianity. But there are aspects that are just bothering me.
- It seems legalistic about worship and about morality (although I both love and hate the morality part)
- It having started out as a self-governing society means that there are people who feel it can’t be practised fully outside of that kind of setup; if it can, it requires interpretation which goes against the mainstream
- Mentality of maximising rewards without understanding why certain things get more reward
- Stark divide between believers and non-believers; no praying for their forgiveness, inheritance etc
- War (esp. aggression), slavery, banditry, special restrictions on Muhammad’s wives… there may be an argument for this being OK/not OK within Islam that I can agree with, but how do I know it’s correct?
- Tawheed – is it really so important?
- Not sure about love of God
- Can’t ignore picture painted by hadith as might be true
Most of this is a matter of working out the true character of the religion; if I know that then I can be more confident about interpreting things in light of it. I suppose the Quran is the best source for this, considering it’s the most likely to have been preserved accurately. So I will base my conclusion on this. If there is a contrast between the character of the Quran and that of the hadith, I will go with the Quran and interpret hadith-related things in light of it.
The only doctrinal things on the list are tawheed, and the divide between belief and disbelief, which sort of comes from the importance of tawheed. Fundamental Christianity (and probably most religions) similarly have criteria for being “in the fold”.
If I like the character of the Quran, and it is convincing, and I resolve the doctrinal questions, then I may be able to say that it was from God. I should then be able to approach the rest of it armed with confidence.
If not, well then at least I can lay it to rest.
Taking stock
I have theologically rejected a lot of my former Christian beliefs. My thoughts about salvation are pretty much what Jasmine describes here, which is that it’s our responsibility to cultivate goodness in our selves. I then think of heaven and hell as the natural consequences of what we cultivate through our lives, and I’m more comfortable with varying degrees of reward or punishment than with a bi-modal either-or. What about salvation through Jesus? The idea of atoning sacrifices has its roots in Judaism, where I understand it to be about a person humbly sacrificing something valuable to them – an animal – as a form of worship, to draw closer to God, in much the same vein as fasting. This does not apply to the death of Jesus, because he was no-one’s possession to be sacrificed. If you argue that he took the wrath of God altruistically, suffering hell on our behalf, this would be horribly unfair unless Jesus actually was God (which I won’t discuss now but I think is problematic). Nor does it seem to be necessary: having your sin forgiven alone does not instantly make you a better person; we need redemption for it to make sense, and I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that the “fallen” and “redeemed” states of the Christian doctrine are nonexistent. Instead there’s a whole rainbow of natural states through which we move upwards by concerted effort – a concept Christianity seems to sneak in through the back door.
Having said that, I’ve come to realise that my thinking is still wired up in a Christian way in a lot of things. I still feel Christian. I guess our automatic thought obeys habit, and old habits die hard. It means I feel very uncomfortable and anxious about change. This has confused me lately.
As for Islam, I’m not sure whether I can trust it either. I don’t see why Jesus needed to have been born to a virgin, nor why he should return at the end of time. These seem like Christian doctrines that have found their way in somehow. I think Islamic theology is closer to my beliefs than anything, but I have trouble seeing the Qur’an as the literal words of God – I think at least some of the meanings might be from God, but I think putting undue emphasis on the actual words is almost like idolising the message. I also dislike the way Muhammad is revered to the extent that every little insignificant thing he may have done is copied, things that have no spiritual significance. I also feel Islam is too legalistic for my liking, too letter-of-the-law, e.g. specifying to the nth degree things that must be done in worship and things that invalidate it; but this may arise from hadith, which are perhaps vulnerable to the effect of people’s insecure desire to have detailed instructions vs. God’s instructions which are usually more vague.
Generally a problem I have with organised religion is the need for an explicit belief in God and in that religion. As Jasmine said in a comment on her post, faith may be more subtle than that. Everyone is not equally able to join a religion; it depends on exposure and many other factors, so this seems an unfair criterion for salvation. I don’t like the assumption that someone is “in the fire” because they did not profess a particular faith, and I don’t like a refusal to pray for their forgiveness based on that assumption.
But to be honest, I want to believe in something. I want to find a path that I can trust, I want the hope and self-esteem that comes from committing to spiritual self-betterment and having some success with it. It’s really tiring me that I’m not.
Wrestling With Religion 