Hi there
I am a 38 yr old married male from Johannesburg South Africa.
I think I fall under the umbrella of a sunni muslim - brought up in the Shafi mathab.
This intro might be long so be warned
I started using the concept of free thought about 3 years ago and started asking questions to myself regarding everything and that led to religion.
So I started visiting Islamic websites to negate my constant questioning, reading everything that did not make sense to me starting with Adam and eve and how in heavens name Noah got the world's animals onto his ark, I now believe it is a fable.
I was brought up in a not too practicing family, only read Jumuah prayers, observed Ramadaan and did the eid prayers. During my schooling years I was told to attend muslim school after secular school eneded in the afternoons and I was taught that even though I read the the prayer Our Father in secular school, Islam was my religion and I must follow accordingly. I did that naturally without questioning because I was told to by my parents, grandparent and all those who came before them
My problem with religion only started about 3 or so years ago, I know it took a while for me to take the blinkers off my eyes.
I have a few issues with religion that has led me to where I am now, a confused man with a loving wife and daughter. I don't pray, not even Jumuah, even though my wife would like me to. I just say I feel like a hypocrite praying on a Friday only when we suppose to pray 5 times a day. My wife she does not pray either, except for the Friday prayer. My in-laws live with us and they pray when they feel the need to, Like, during Ramadaan they will make all their prayers and after ramadaan they continue till the fad wheres off.
Being from South Africa, muslims follow the no alcohol rule very strictly and everything has to be halaal and there is no substitute. Our restaurants even sell macon and egg sandwiches lol. Ironically bacon is substituted.
Anyway back to my original train of thought as to the issues I have:
Firstly it is Free will:
If I did not have free will and everything was pre-destined, would the Almighty lead me to this website afters a few years of searching for the truth.
But in Islam they say we have free will which I don't believe because when planning something and you tell someone you planning on going on a holiday in December for arguments sake, the first word out of a persons mouth is Insha-alla (if god wills), where the heck is my free will then if I can only go on holiday if god wills, am I not saving money to make the trip a possibility? How can someone say we have free will when every utterance is met with Insha-alla Ameen? I will leave that issue there
Secondly it is the notion of the Hell fire:
In South Africa most of our first language is English and second language is Afrikaans or vice versa depending on you upbringing.
Muslim school we are taught you are taught your alif, baa, taas and to read the Quran in arabic, we read and read and don't understand a bloody word we are reading and no effort is made to teach us what we are reading, we pick up words here and there like Jannah and Jahannam but that is it.
So I decided to read the translation of the Quran on the net ( the Yusuf Ali version I think) and what I noticed is that almost on every page the non-believer is destined to the hell fire.
This got me thinking, if Mother Theresa believed in the trinity she should be going to hell according to the Quran ( I maybe taking it out of context or this or that verse is not representative for this day and age as it was only meant for the non-believers in muhammad's time as people with faith would say)
I cannot fathom how the Incas of Peru are all destined for hell, surely most of them were good and did good deeds and served humanity. Surely the Dalai lama is a good man, surely he can't be destined for hell???
If anyone asks me why I am not praying or fasting I say because I already have a place reserved for me in hell, so why the hell should I pray.
I feel that I am a good person morally and ethically, why should I be doomed to eternal damnation, if it is that way then so be it.
Those are my biggest gripes with religion and so here I am dazed and confuzed, your proverbial fence sitter even though when an Islamic discussion does come up in our household I tend to point out the negative things mentioned in the Quran and hadeeth.
Like I told my wife, babes, you know that the Quran says if you don't listen to me I may hit you if you keep not listening to me, she just said you try it.
My in-laws however, even they not very religious will say why can things not be as simple as it were in the old days where we believed what we were taught and that was that. In todays age we have everybody trying to change the religion. I remind them that not everybody is from our part of the world and there are many flavours to Islam, who says their flavour is right?
Shit I am rambling here, well that is sort of my introduction, it is funny that was trying to find my religion going to Islamic websites and reading this and that and by clicking on a link on one of those websites (don't know which one) I ended up here. God surely works in mysterious ways
Doc for now
Topic: Dazed and Confused from SA