Peace Lote

Her description almost sounds like an occult method of meditation.

Welcome to the forum Dark.

Joe

LOL TheNabi...I didn't mean "meditation" but it came out that way...at night in the dark, I am a lot more contemplative and thinking than what I am during the day...also a lot closer to God...I talk to him, like a kid does every night before she goes to bed, confident that He is there...listening to me. The dark provides me the calm I find only occasionally otherwise. I don't think I have graduated to full-fledged "meditation" yet)
And...thank you for welcoming me here!
Thank you flossymoo and burhan21...thanks all!

Try some reverse extremisim.

I'm sure your family uses western products. Tell them it's the work of the infidel. They are supporting the infidel and thus are infidels themselves.

There are thousands of hadiths, so you can easliy find a couple they are not following. Tell them they are picking and choosing their religion.

If your family reckons they are proper then make them follow all the tennents of traditional islam. Lets see how long they last.

Burhan21,
This method won't work...I'll tell you why...for example,my family doesn't really want me to wear the Hijab...they just want me to recognize that it is something I am required to do, and by not doing it I am breaking God's law(whatever that means) and should feel sorry about it. For that reason I should think highly about any other female on the street who is wearing a Hijab. roll Go figure...the logic here is we all don't follow what is required but at least we acknowledge this isn't right, whereas you change it to fit your life.Sincerely, this is such an intellectualy constraining view...I just wonder how can you be good at medicine, science, law etc. and not question about life itself...how can one be selectively intelligent?

Thank you peacefulmuslim,LoteTree and Warda for all commentsand encouraging words.
LoteTree thanks for saying you find me articulate..unfortunately my advisor doesn't think so ops )
As for why I chose the login word dark...it has nothing to do with the "darkness I feel inside", in fact I can see only light...it is my love for the dark...that I identify myself with, the silent serene darkness that sheds light on your mind by providing you with an oppurtunity to think. Its in the dark I am most of what I actually am...closest to myself, closest to God, conversing with God...on the most personal terms with Him.

To begin with, I am a 25 year old female grad student in DC. Well...the reason I turned up here was because I have been browsing through these forums all these days and a certain event(that is the reason behind the post title) triggered my posting here today. I was born in a "religious" family in India and born and brought up with all the traditional teachings. At a certain point in my life, I rejected many of the things that my family firmly believes in. My critical thinking (and I have only God to thank me for that) led me to realise that religion is not merely the scarf on your head, or the length of your beard(for men) and that the ritual that was so deeply embedded in my family was not important at all. There came a stage in my life where I started doubting Islam itself because nothing made sense, and then as I intellectually matured I saw the beauty in it, I saw how it was all potrayed wrong..how indeed it was beautiful. That day onwards I viewed God in a new light, he didn't demand blind faith from me, in fact the very opposite!
I have to admit however, that till today I hadn't verbalized it to anybody, even though my family had a vague sense of my being "not religious". That was primarily due to two reasonsFirst,I respect all approaches to God and don't want to prove that my approach is the only correct one, I just want to say that I have an approach that could be valid besides many other and God is there to judge. I should only care about what I think is right and do it. For example, I sincerely, most honestly don't think that by not wearing a headscarf I am committing a sin, at the same time I respect any woman's approach who considers the headscarf as an integral part of her religion. Well...opinions differ and diversity makes the world beautiful! Second, because I was (am) weak...weak because I know that they will not understand or rather accept any of my opinions so I steered clear of this discussion.
However, today was THE DAY. We started off discussing whether it was proper for me to eat regular meat in the grocery stores ending, touching at why I think Hijab is not necessary and finally ending at the point where my family thinks that I'm arrogant or hopefully ignorant and need to "rethink" about my approach towards religion. Why I'm depressed is that my super-duper educated family is just stuck on the rituals calling it the basics of Islam that can never change. They think I am the ideal example of Americanism corrupting Islam and "tweaking" it as and when necessary. I think there are a lot of lacunas in my faith, however I certainly don't doubt even for a moment that when I follow the logical path that when I think certain things are open to interpretations(not necessarily better or worse) that don't even matter, I am not starying away from the straight path. In fact that IS my chosen path.
I thank God for the fact that he gave me a mind to think with and I will always pray to him that he help me use it...I would rather do that than believe in a God who gave me a mind only to want me to abandon it for blind faith. I don't know...don't have a way to know who is right , I just know that I'll stay true to the voice inside me.

Thought of sharing it with a community where I'm not the only one who feels this way. Thanks for reading through all this.