Hi all,
I've been a long-time lurker, and am seriously impressed with the level of thought displayed by some of you CEMB folks (just this morning I was reading Happy Murtad's blog).
As you can guess from my username, I'm really struggling with the cultural influences that were implanted in me as a child, and I guess in a way I don't want to admit what's going on..... To paraphrase a certain Sith Lord, I guess my family would say "I find your lack of faith disturbing"
Having been brought up in a very conservative (increasingly so on in the last couple of decades) household, it's hard for me to publicly admit that I'm not in any way an orthodox Muslim. Ever since I was a child, I was questioning most of what I experienced in life, and there were never really any suitable answers from a theological point of view.
My family simply accepted what they were being told (and to be fair to them, followed on from what generations before them had done in their Kashmiri homelands) and even questioning whether there was a god was completely beyond the pale. Due to my questioning nature this led me to higher education away from my home town, and further exposure to philosophy and rational thought.
I know deep down inside how I feel, but it makes me feel incredibly lonely as the majority of my excellent friends are from secular middle class English backgrounds, and it's very hard to communicate experience of life as a 2nd generation immigrant.
I have a family now, and my non-muslim wife is probably more orthodox than I am
, I have absolutely no intention of forcing my kids into learning stuff the way I had to. If I love them, I have to let them make their choices, albeit I will be leaning towards taking an evidence-based scientific view of things (admittedly not so easy when discussing moral/ethical issues, but can explain much of the world around us without resorting to superstitions).
The beauty of the internet is it's opened up spaces where we can be ourselves, and in my case, ask for a bit of support and encouragement. In truth, my shifting sense of identity is causing me a lot of psychological conflict and pain. I love my wider family, but I wish they would accept not everyone wants to blindly buy into their culture.
In peace,
Wavering
Topic: Hi from the north of England :)