Why I No Longer Envy Born Believers
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Why I No Longer Envy Born Believers
By Yoginder Sikand for New Age Islam
For many years, I harboured a deep-rooted envy for people who unquestioningly believed in whatever religion they happened to be born into. Their seemingly unshakable belief gave them, or so I thought, remarkable confidence, which I sorely lacked and desperately craved for. How I wished I could have the same uncritical faith! How I agonized about why my parents had never insisted that I follow any religious tradition, including their own! Surely, with the sort of commitment that the ?born believers? I knew displayed, weathering the storms that I had to confront in my life?and there were many?would have been infinitely less painful. How much suffering I would have been spared?or so I used to think.
Although I tried to experiment with various religions over the years?not very seriously, I must admit?I could never arrive at the same state of belief (or what critics would call ?blind faith?) as that of ardent ?born believers?. Lack of sincerity and commitment was certainly one factor. That it was solace or an end to my inner suffering, rather than truth, that I was searching for was another. But, equally, the fact that I simply could not bring myself to believe in and assent to the absurd, unacceptable and immoral claims, beliefs and tenets of some of the religions that I sought to engage with ruled out the sort of faith that I so desperately craved for.
Today, after years of studying different religions and religious communities, I no longer feel the way I used to about people with seemingly unshakable belief in the religions they were born and socialized by their parents into. Indeed, I am now profoundly thankful to have been spared the ideological brainwashing that billions of ?born believers? throughout history have been?and continue to be?subjected to.
True religion, as I understand it, ought to provide ultimate truths concerning existence, life, death and beyond and the divine realms. Surely, accessing or realising these truths should be a matter of ultimate importance for those who claim to be religious. Nothing else, I presume, would be of greater importance to a sincere seeker. But, as I have painfully discovered, this is something that the vast majority of ?born believers? are simply not interested in or concerned about at all. For them, unflinching loyalty to the diktats of the religion they happened to be born into?even if what their religions teach on a range of issues may be patently absurd, unscientific or morally reprehensible ?is of fundamental importance. Loyal adherence to the faith that they have inherited from their parents, rather than the desire to realize the truth as it is, underlies their religious life.
Since it is unquestioning adherence to the faith of one?s parents, rather than an honest search for truth, that drives the ?born believer?, one can be sure that had he or she been born into a different religion instead he or she would have believed in it with equal passion. Consider the case of a born Christian, who insists that Christ is the only way to salvation and regards Mohammad as an imposter. Had the same person been born a Muslim instead, it is almost certain that he would insist that Islam was the only true religion and that Mohammad was the greatest prophet. He would also fervently believe that Christians would perish in hell for what he would consider as their disbelief. Likewise, a born Muslim might very likely believe that Hinduism is polytheistic nonsense. However, had she been born into an orthodox Brahmin household instead, she might well have regarded Islam as wholly false and considered Hinduism as the epitome of truth. Similarly, a born Muslim might regard the Sikh form of worship completely unacceptable in the eyes of God and the Sikh custom of leaving one?s hair unshorn absurd, but it is very possible that had he been born into a Sikh family instead he would have considered the Muslims? five compulsory daily prayers as a tiresome burden and a meaningless ritual and the Islamic practice of male circumcision as barbaric.
As these hypothetical examples illustrate, most blind believers are not guided by the quest for truth at all. Indeed, they are inimically opposed to that very quest. Most such believers follow their particular inherited religion and claim it to be the best simply because they were born into it and feel compelled to defend its teachings (no matter how absurd they may be) at any cost. They have been socialized into believing that the religion of their parents is the only valid repository of ultimate or divine truth, or, at least, the most superior one. At the same time, they are also trained to believe that all other religions are perversely wrong, wicked and immoral or, at the very least, definitely inferior to their own. That is why the blind believer can never generously admit the merits and truths of other religions. If he reluctantly does so, you can be sure that he still feels compelled to insist (to himself, if not to others) that his own religion remains the best. Blind belief of this sort is at the very basis of bloody conflicts in the name of religion the world over.
Blind believers are psychologically compelled to regard that every word of their scriptures, prophets, avatars and gurus as absolute divine truths. This belief is not based on any objective examination of their religions or of the lives of the key figures of their religious traditions, but simply on unquestioning belief. For even a shadow of doubt or skepticism to emerge in the minds of such believers about their religious texts or the personalities of their founding figures is regarded as the most heinous crime possible?which, they are forced into believing, will provoke the wrath of the divine. Instigating and instilling fear of divine punishment for daring to doubt or question is how most religions manage to maintain their stranglehold on the minds of blind believers.
Many widely-revered religious scriptures abound with absurd and unscientific claims, but blind believers do not dare question them. Some such texts depict a violent, hate-driven and vengeful God, who drives his followers to declare war on those who do not accept what they claim is the sole true religion. Others are replete with stories of deities who engage in adulterous affairs or are habitual drunkards and rapists. The narratives of the founders and key-figures of several religious traditions indicate that some of them suffered terrible moral flaws and were hardly the models of virtue that their followers imagine them to have been. Some are recorded as having engaged in looting, adultery and rape, others in incest, murder and widespread slaughter?crimes that would surely have landed them into jail or into mental asylums had they been around today.
In the face of all of this, blind believers are often compelled to engage in painful struggles to retain their faith in their religious traditions. This explains the frantic efforts they are forced to make to defend, cover-up, explain away or excuse the absurd claims and immoralities which some of their religious texts themselves record and even uphold as normative. Had their religiosity been based on the quest for truth, rather than unquestioning loyalty to the religion they have been born into and blindly accept, they would have been spared this painful torment of struggling to defend the indefensible.
True seekers are the polar opposite of blind believers. A true seeker refuses to be bound by or unquestioningly accept the religion that his forefathers have cherished, for he recognizes that this can be a major fetter in his search for truth. Indeed, he is open to the possibility that most or even every religious tradition, including the one he was born into, maybe flawed, while at the same time he recognizes that truth may well be found outside the boundaries of conventional religion.
Unlike the born or blind believer, the true seeker refuses to seek truth only in what are conventionally regarded as ?holy? scriptures or to be bound and confined by them. For such a seeker, the whole of the cosmos, including, and most importantly, his own self, is the arena for discovering and experiencing truth. What drives the true seeker on is the quest for the truth about the fundamental questions about the divine and about life and death, and in this search he refuses to blindly accept anything in any religion?including the one he happened to be born into?that does not conform to his experience, personal realization, the confirmed findings of science and the demands of basic morality.
True seekers are few?and have always been so. The harsh reality is that the vast majority of people who consider themselves religious are blind believers, almost all believers in whatever religion they happened to be born into and reared by their families to believe in. Why this has been so is not difficult to understand. Parents would like nothing more than their children to believe as they do, and so insist that they blindly accept their religious beliefs and practices. This continues over the generations in such a way as to completely rob children of their right to believe as they want or to seek truth for themselves. By the time they have grown up, most people have been firmly brainwashed into an uncritical, robotic acceptance of the religious beliefs of their ancestors. Even if some of them harbor doubts about these beliefs, few would dare to voice them for fear of being scorned by their families and peers, ostracized from their communities, or, in some cases, even killed for their dissenting views.
Believing what one?s family insists is true is thus the infinitely easier option for most folks. It spares them the agony of searching for truth, which is a quest that inevitably entails painful struggle, including against the absurdities and prejudices that one has been reared on since childhood in the name of religion. How much more convenient it seems is it to simply acquiesce in the prejudices of one?s family and unquestioningly accept the religious beliefs that they have clung to for generations?even if this means being shackled by absurd and unacceptable beliefs and rituals! For people too petrified of the hurdles that must be crossed in the search for truth or too lazy to even think of setting out on that path, blindly accepting the religion one is born into seems a tantalizing option, and one that is too tempting to be resisted.
But succumbing to this temptation comes at a very heavy cost?at the cost of truth itself. Remaining shackled by ignorance, prejudice and burdensome beliefs and rituals is the heavy price one inevitably has to pay for choosing to be a blind believer, passively accepting what one has been socialised into believing since infancy and simply too frightened to contemplate of thinking beyond it or critically analysing it. Clinging to a belief system simply because one is born into it clearly indicates, as nothing else can, that such religiosity is in no way impelled by a quest for discovering the truth?or, to use the language of God-centric religions, of knowing or realizing God. Inevitably, then, such belief, I suspect, can never lead one to the truth?or, if you prefer the term, God.
Having realized the futility of blind belief, no longer do I now envy ?born believers? for their seemingly unshakable faith. I now realize that it is not truth that they seek or know, but, rather, simply the prejudices they have inherited from their families in the name of religion which they spend their entire lives worshipping and defending. How much better, then, the freedom of the path of the seeker?despite the heavy odds on the way?than the shackles of blind faith, which I once so desperately craved to be imprisoned by!
Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore
URL http//www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/yoginder-sikand-for-new-age-islam/why-i-no-longer-envy-born-believers/d/6889
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yes, i do envy the born believers. i live in a rural farming town. i would trade places with the simple farm girl who married her husband whom she met at church when she was a teen, raised her children. she grew pigs, cows for meat. occasionally, she has an alcoholic drink. she has a modest house and cabin in the woods. spends her evenings and weekends with her family. she is a good person. does good work. she has a good life. good health. good family. she is a good christian. she attends church on sundays and reads her bible. she believes jesus is son of God as that is what generations before believed and passed on who lived the life they knew.
now, would she or anyone envy me - a woman who follows the koran and the only life she has known is one of loneliness and pain?
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Greetings and Peace, all group
432 And do not envy that which GOD has graced some of you over others with. For the men is a portion of what they earned, and for the women is a portion of what they earned. And ask GOD from His grace; GOD is knowledgeable in all things.
2439 As for those who reject, their works are like a mirage in the desert. A thirsty person thinks it is water, until he reaches it, he finds it is nothing; and he finds GOD there and He pays him his due, and GOD is swift in judgment.
Appeal to tradition is a bad way to go!
2170 And if they are told "Follow what GOD has sent down," they say "No, we will follow what we found our fathers doing!" What if their fathers did not comprehend anything and were not guided?
Wordly pleasure/simple life?
286 These are the ones who have purchased this worldly life instead of the Hereafter. The retribution will not be reduced for them, nor will they be supported.
3186 We will test you in your wealth and in yourselves, and you will hear from those who have been given the Book from before you and from the polytheists much annoyance. And if you are patient and righteous, then that is from a strength of conviction.
Is it such a difficult test? Are the rewards the same for those who strive and undergo hardship versus those who are more passive or do not undergo much hardship?
3910 Say "O My servants who believed, be aware of your Lord." For those who worked righteousness in this world will be a good reward, and the earth of GOD is spacious. Those who steadfastly persevere will receive their recompense fully, without reckoning.
If being a monotheist where you live is not good for you, be a monotheist somewhere else! The earth is vast! Just don't move away from something--move to something. Plan carefully. Don't wait for things to change--make changes.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.peace
~Abdul-Hadi
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it doesn't seem right that a born believer who has lived a righteous life, given good health and family in this life then not have as good of a life in the life hereafter. my extended family are all followers of hadith some of whom visit shrines - born believers who practice what they were taught following traditions and how can God give them any less of a reward than me who follows only the koran?
the earth is vast but it doesn't matter where i move, there is not a community of monotheists following the koran only except for the cyberspace community of a few. finding the true path does come with a price - loneliness.
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yes, loneliness, if you want people around you who subscribe to more or less exactly the same belief as you. But this is just outwardly conformance. Inside, people are not so similar, even though who have the same faith. It all depend at what level you look. Traditional people are not the same.... "quran aloners" are not the same. Don't feel sad or lonely... try to see the good in other people and share that thing with them... forget the things that are not the same. You will not find anyone who has EXACTLY the same faith as you. Don't look for conformity. Everyone is at a different level. Some are growing. We are not meant to be homogeneous.
Some, or rather many or most, people undergo a gradual change from one state (the culturally induce) to another (the one which resonates with their soul). This of course only apply to those who wish to change. Most people remain stuck. For those who do change, their change is most often gradual and take a lot of time... time during which that person develops, matures and evolves to be able to handle a higher understanding of things and reality. This is when we grow closer to Allah.... reducing the separation.... softening our heart/mind. It doesn't happen over night, and many time it is also painful... but the reward of developing one's faith and understanding is wonderful to say the least. This is what we are here for... this is the great struggle. The level we reach will, as far as I understand, determine our hereafter.
But I understand what you seek and how you feel. We all need people to share with... to relate to. It's human.
Keep praying to Allah for companionship in terms of faith... you can have it! There are people out there who would be close enough in terms of world view. Allah can help you find them!peace
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Salam Sister,
I can understand where you are coming from. I have always felt lonely in my faith in that there is nobody in my circle of friends, family and coworkers who believes as I do. They are all Christian, agnostics and atheists who follow their own paths with apparent happiness and apathetic indifference towards God.
I recently divorced my disbeliever wife and have given up my home, my children, my wife whom I have been with for 21 years and everything in my lifestyle that I had known. The loneliness is at times absolutely crushing, but I take solace in the faith that God is with me and that this is something that must be done for me to grow fully into the Righteous man I wish to be.
I too have envy at times but I'm not envious of the people themselves but more of their "happiness" and sense of belonging and community. That is their "reward" in this life but at the expense of the next life. Our eternal life is our reward and it does not come for free. It requires us to pay the price in terms of painful growth, some loneliness, some loss, some sacrifice for God to bring out our true qualities, build our character and strengthen our Souls.
Be steadfast and resolute in your faith , sister. Trust in God that He is giving you only what you need right now and keeping what is harmful to you and your blessed destiny away from you, even though we see it and feel it as painful. This life is only temporary and when we finally meet God, we will only feel like we lasted in this life just a short part of a day and those who we are envious of now, will wish they had followed our Path.
When, God willing, you are given joyous greetings of Peace from the Angels and the other believers who attained Heaven on the Last Day, you will know you paid such a small price in this life for it, by the Grace and Mercy of God.
it doesn't seem right that a born believer who has lived a righteous life, given good health and family in this life then not have as good of a life in the life hereafter. my extended family are all followers of hadith some of whom visit shrines - born believers who practice what they were taught following traditions and how can God give them any less of a reward than me who follows only the koran?
the earth is vast but it doesn't matter where i move, there is not a community of monotheists following the koran only except for the cyberspace community of a few. finding the true path does come with a price - loneliness.
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thank you mr. Q for sharing. i really needed to hear that.
i have always felt alone since a kid. and the loneliest i felt was at an islamic convention. why did i have to be different? there were many a times that i wished that i wasn't me. reading your post really helped reminding myself. thank you