New member
OP - October 27, 2015, 10:30 AM
Hi ,
Long time lurker first time contributor. I have the tendency for being verbose so I ask your patience and forgiveness now. I am not a Muslim but have spent the majority of my formative years in an Arab country.My brother in law is a Muslim but a pretty moderate one as in he allows( but doesn't consume )alcohol and pork to be cooked and partaken of in his house using his utensils, listens to music , tv etc and is against IS. We live in a western country now . My sister had to take shahada to marry him but has since apostatised and returned to her catholic faith. She doesn't seem to understand how serious this is and I'm worried for her because she plans one day to live in his home country .I'm married to a Hindu atheist so you can say we're a mixed bag of nuts lol. I, myself vacillate between Catholicism and atheism. Atheism was the winning contender till my child got seriously ill at 7 months . I felt that I was partially to blame , maybe this was Gods way of calling me back to the fold , pretty shitty way I might add . My mother told me as much but recanted that later after she saw how much it hurt me .I feel held hostage by a faith that I'm not sure I believe in ,perhaps vain hope that this will magically prevent my child from a reoccurrence of his illness;it's still lurking in the background.
I have always been a seeker ; I remember being not more than 6 or 7 when I asked my mum why Jesus was blonde and blue eyed , her and was that he was special being the son of God and all that. I still remember being unhappy with that ans . I also found it odd that we were told to pray to find lost items or banal personal issues and if we were fortunate enough for God to answer our prayers he ( another thing I'm not comfortable with- gender allocation)was praised but didn't seem to answer the much more important prayers of the multitude of starving and dispossessed.
Another insight I had was working in my field where I look after people with mental illnesses, could a benevolent God create this ! For what reason ? How is belief in religion any different from delusion? Yet many of the psychiatrist I work with are fervent believers in their religion, I wonder how they reason with this .
Perhaps the formal religious bodies have always been my bug bear left alone perhaps people would temper their religion with humanity that comes naturally to us. This is my hope , maybe unfounded.
In a wrap up , I just wanted to thank you for your time.I have read and enjoyed many of your posts especially happy Murtad ;but have noticed a drop in activity recently , are the members of this forum still active? I must congratulate you all on being so brave and open minded.