New Rant

OK here we go.

Thats pretty much how I raise me kids. I want them to know the way I do things is my choice and they may not do the same as me as they have free will and freedom to choose. Tis not like that for a lot of kids brought up in religious families though is it?

I'm going to just try and attempt to give my children a kind of education in different religions, so that they can understand how people believe in different things and they all think that what they believe in is right for them. Hopefully, it'll lead them to be tolerant of the multitude of religions we have in the world.
It saddens me how religion has been the cause of so much bloodshed over so many centuries and still is.

Read these comments on another blog and thought I'd share my ideas on this here.

There are myths surrounding religion which all secular people are indoctrinated with at birth. I know this because I imbibed them without even having to chew from when I was knee-high and I took these assumptions as Truth. The biggest lie/assumption there is is that religion has caused ALL the misery on this planet and that without religion we all hold hands and live as one in harmony and blah blah blah

I want to do my bit to halt that bull right now. Religion, like anything, is a tool. In the hands of the spiritually minded and morally inclined it is a tool to purify the self, to cleanse the soul and to attain nearness to their Beloved, Allah/God. This is what the tool of religion came to do. But as with all tools if placed in the hand of a moron it can weild great harm. If placed in the hand of a materialist who seeks only self-glorification, riches, fame and power then religion, like anything, can be used for great harm and manipulation. It isn't the religion that is at fault, it is the misuse of the religion which is the culprit, and this is as much a crime against God as it is against humanity and each and every individual who takes religion as a tool for self-glorification or as a means of oppression and manipulation will find that waiting for him at his grave, will face the Owner of Truth and have to find a sufficient excuse on Judgement Day. There is no excuse and quite rightly these oppressors will see where their scheming gets them.

It isn't the religion that is to blame, it is the lack of belief in it in the first place which causes misery. Allah says do not oppress, engage in acts of aggression, feed the orphan and the poor one lying in the dust and treat all people with absolute justice and equality. If people adhered to religion, believed in and practiced it as it was meant to be practised there would be nothing but peace. Unfortunately it is disbelief in Judgement Day and the fact that every atom of good and every atom of bad is taken into account and seen that leads people to commit great abominations.

Those who seek the "delights" of this world will utilise any tool to get what they want. In the first inception of man's progress this tool of convenience was 'religion', but at today's stage far more violence and materialistic pursuits can be legitimised with politics with little or no reference to religion. And if we think about that assertion a bit further, espcially viz-a-viz the 20th Century and the era of secularism, far more deaths and violence were perpetrated in the name of nationalism, humanism and secularism than EVER have been in the name of religion.
Communism, Nazism, World War I, World War II, Hiroshama, Nagasaki - none of these were religious movements or events yet put together they killed millions upon millions of innocent people - secularists and non-religious people have killed MORE people in one century than so-called "religious" people throughout the eons preceding them combined.

In fact, let's take this further, if we look at the world today with it's uneven distribution of wealth and resources we can make a very confident assertion that more people die as a direct result of third world debt than have ever died because of religion. And was the debt and interest incurred instigated because of religion? No. It was instigated by secularists and greedy governments who care more about making sure that 80% of the world's resources end up in the USA and Europe than they care about human rights and living standards for the vast majority of the world's population. Religion (Islam) actually FORBIDS usury so under a religious world third world debt would simply NOT exist - how many millions of innocent lives would that one religious ruling alone have saved??

Materialism is killing more people than religion ever has, so don't fall for that one-liner - don't throw the baby out with the bath-water. Religion, as far as I see it, is the perfect method of self-improvement. With religion man becomes a true man, living a dignified existence in moral excellence. We were all created for a purpose - this universe was not created by chance, nor was it created for no reason. There is a reason why it is here and why were created that only religion can help us to unfathom.

I never liked religion until I realised that there is a distinction between Institution and dogma, and the real content which it contains. The sufis have a saying "don't mistake the container for the content". What's inside is more important than what holds it.

Dogma exists in ALL spheres of human interaction - including the scientific fields. Does that mean we get rid of science? You have people abusing money - do we get rid of money? You have people abusing children - should we make having children forbidden??!

Tools can be used in a variety of ways. Instead of villifying the tools let us instead try to put the tools to their correct usage - in that way we might get somewhere.




Regarding teaching children ALL religion and letting them choose - poor my children have to have just ONE faith to believe in. This is seen as BAD. Why? Do you let your children choose their meals? Whether or not to clean their teeth? Whether to have vaccinations and medical treatment?? Whether to receive an education at all? In all these spheres I have never heard anyone say "Lets not feed/clothe/innoculate/remedy little Johny - that's oppressive - let's wait til he's old enough to choose these things himself".

From my experience it is the children who are taught that EVERYTHING is valid who are most confused - how can two opposing doctrine both be true? It makes everything meaningless. That's like saying you can have both black and white at the same time. But two entities diametrically opposed cannot both be true. From a purely technical point this means that what one is the other cannot be. For example, “white” is total light, the incorporation of all colours; “black” is absence of light and absence of any colour whatsoever. They cannot possibly be both things at the same time since they include each other’s negation. To be one would cancel the other. You cannot, ergo, have a ‘black-white’ since in essence this is meaningless – you haven’t understood what black or white is if you think you can have both at the same time.

I had no religious teaching at all, and I have never heard of many people who honestly teach their children ALL religions - not in an honest way - and I've only met one woman who intends to teach her children Islam. Something gives at the end of the day.

OK. I'm done.