Hello everyone, I had to think twice before making an account, but I've taken the plunge. At the moment, I havent crossed any line, let's just say that...I'm standing on the line.
A brief religious intro about myself while trying to preserve my anonymity; I've got really religous parents (Sunni Muslims), and I was pretty religious too back when I was around 10 or 11, but slowly slowly like I'm sure happened to many over here, I started questioning various things about the religion and I'm at the stage where I'm just trying to find the answers. I'm 22 now btw
Quite a few things shook my faith, and there are a few things that reel me back in as well. I'll share with you some of the things that made me question it:
i)Prophet Muhamad marrying Aisha when she was 6, and bringing her in when she was 9. In today's world, that is going to be extremely frowned upon, and seeing as to how his actions are supposed to be a role-model for all of time, I have a hard time buying the excuse that 'Different time, different culture"
ii)The fact that the Book itself was compiled years after his death, and replicated from the 'memories' of the Haafiz. That, and the Hadees were compiled 100s of years after his death and we're supposed to explore which ones are right and which ones are not. For a religion that is supposed to have been left perfected at the time of his death, there are too many discrepancies and broken puzzle pieces.
iii)God having Ibrahim cut Ismail's head. I mean....testing one's faith is fine and all, but what's the deal with cutting heads? That of your sons too nonetheless.
iv)The whole Hijab deal, I'm not going to get into that, everyone's familiar with it. Also not counting how women get half inheritance, half power in testimony etc.
v)And then ofcourse, the whole hatred of Jews just ticks me off. Now I dont know whether this is something that comes from Islam, or is it just the lack of education of the Muslims, but it's there, the lack of tolerance is visible to anyone with half an eye. For a religion that's supposed to teach peace and be the perfect way of life, the lack of tolerance raises eyebrows.
And then there are the obvious qs, like if all non-believers are going to hell, that means all the 2.1 billion Christians, the Hindus, the buddist monks etc are going to hell, just because they decided to pray to the wrong God, or pray the wrong way, or believe in the wrong Prophet. I mean, hey it's not their fault that they were born in the wrong country; seeing as to how Islam is mostly centered to the Middle-East and North Africa.
Read Hitchens and his arguments as well.
Anyway, there are several things that reel me back in as well, not too many; just a few. Ofcourse it's always the little vague things that none of you will be relate to, but still stop me from completely coming over to the 'other side'.
So there you go, I'm hoping I'll be able to get a few answers from over here, and hopefully I'll make a few friends as well
Topic: Skeptical but with an open mind