The Mandatory Religious Experience
Religion, especially Islam, and it effects on the individual and the society have been a constant subject for my posts, in my blog and elsewhere. Having asked the same questions over and over, I have come up with typical answers.
To justify the claim that religion has nothing to do with the daily pictures of terror and oppression, some people claim that religion is “just a habit” (see). Some others prescribe that people should “follow their religion as it is rather than how a religious leader wants it to be” (see). As I am not a religious person, I can’t discuss these ideas. However, from reading portions of Quran, mainly because I’ve had to, I can say I have never found Quran drawing such a low-profile picture of itself. For example, when trying to show that Quran’s direct privilege to men to beat their wives is only a necessity for a thousand years ago, some people claim that parts of Quran had not meant to be applied to all generations. Whereas, the same book asserts that it is for all the times and all the places.
The important part is that these comments are not written for a post that is arguing that religion should be exterminated. In contrary, I have always tried to show that, like everything else, religion should be rigorously regularized. For example, its course of action should be clearly defined. As an example, actually a very sad one for me, I have tried to show how oppressive it is to force children to engage in religious activities, while they are so submissive to their parents. One typical answer to this question is “Don’t worry, children have fun in these occasions” (see). A more personal comment states, “when I was a child, I loved my religious experiences” (see).
As an outsider, my understanding is that, submission to a religious idea is through faith, and not a scientific-style investigation. The faith seems to start from “religious experiences”. I have heard of “talking to an Imam [holy figure in Shia Islam]“, “having a sense of connection to the world”, or even “a light came into my room” as examples of such experiences. I am sure we can include psychology and ufology in the discussion and reach to interesting results. But, as a personal experience, we all know people for whom Nicole Kidman is the focal point of the world, and I don’t think any of us is going to slap them in the face and try to return them to the “truth”. Thus, the personal religious experience, while is personal, is personal and none of anyone’s business.
Whenever I see a horror movie at night, I see related nightmares, even though I am holding my wife’s hand. I am sure if I ever attend a two-hour Islamic (Shia) event I would have a very genuine religious experience. I don’t know why people take religious experiences so seriously, and I respect that. My point is that, the importance of the religious experience does not justify pushing people to have one.
The last type of comments I get are the least intellectual ones. “AND IF you truly search, GOD will aid your search and you will be rewarded” (see), “even your saying that you are not Muslim, does not make you any less Muslim in the heart”, (see), “you are substantially muslim in the heart” (see). I leave it to you to interpret these comments.
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Religion can enable us to understand why we are here and what lies ahead–the questions that occur to most people at some time in their life. But that doesn’t mean we must have “religious experiences” as you describe them. Religious understanding, however, does require the combined messages from all of the Prophets of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Through them, we can enlarge our understanding of God and the Messiah He promised to send us. No single organized religion provides that knowledge! But religions have always been busy trying to assure their members that their understanding is all that’s needed by everyone everywhere, so they can be “saved.” And that philosophy has only gotten us where we are today: facing a nuclear war provoked by each religion’s proud belief that it, alone, is “right.”
Jane Broida Drake,
Thanks for using “can” in your first sentence.
I don’t think it’s faith that allows people to be submissive toward religion. It’s more like obedience. Am I wrong or doesn’t most religions say either my way or no way? or am I paying too much attention to religious loons?
Based on that I see that it’s obedience without questioning that allows people to be submissive toward religion and nothing else.
“am I paying too much attention to religious loons?”
Sankar, yes you’re paying too much attention to the religious loons.
Arash, again interesting points of view but I’m afraid your opinions are very opposing to mine. I believe this is due to the fact that you and Sankar have a very different perception and understanding of religion from mine.
By December I’ll very active here discussing many issues… The first topic I would love to start is “What is religion to you”… Before I can disagree and debate with you, we’re going to need to define the words we’ll be using… ie. British Parlimentary style of debate where the motion should be defined.
Anyways… Laters… looking forward to December… I’m sure we’re going to have some very interesting debates and discussions…
Khod Hafiz =)
Hi Again Arash,
1) God gave us a brain, if so we should not use it as a hat rack when it comes to religion. Science and religion are like 2 wings of the bird of mankind. Both wings must be strong and equal or the poor bird will fly in circles ON THE Ground.
Male and female are like 2 wings of the bird of mankind. Both wings must be strong and equal or the bird cannot ascend to the heavens. Our souls are meant to be bird-like not worm-like.
everyone must investigate the truth for themselves, even if it takes 10,000 years! But there are scientists and others who say, “I am going to prove that X DOES NOT exist. And of course with that kind of attitude, Is anyone surprised that they reach that conclusion? I mean there are people who are hired by large drug companies to prove that there are 6,000,000 children in the USA now who need psycho-pharmaceuticals. Their research will prove it because that’s who pays for their research. Why shouldn’t they keep their jobs? Would you set out to prove that your job is not necessary?
So there are biased and unbiased ways of searching for the truth. This is true in science and religion? Why is this true?
The reason is: Reality is ONE. There are not 2 realities, one for religion and one for science. Both are connected, not only connected physical reality is a mirror image of the underlying spiritual reality!! Can you understand this Idea? If so you are smarter than me. I heard this a long time ago, and only now after all these years has this concept begun tomake sense. Reality is ONE.
You speak of subjective experiences as a basis of religion, Sure, a person can base their beliefs on subjective experience. If they don’t experience something, for them it isn’t true. How many times have you heard someone make a prejudiced remark about some group of people they don’t even know? Yet, they have had some kind of subjective experience which has confirmed in their minds that a truth about a group of people is known to them. Go and read what the Grand Mufti of Egypt has said about the tiny number of Bahais in his country. What nonsense. It is so twisted it is funny. (though if I lived there I wouldn’t be laughing.
So that is one way to investigate reality, by subjective experience. Another way is to see what are the effects of the ideas. If say, someone believes that eating only apples is a great way to diet. What are the measured physical effects of eating only apples? We put forward a tentative hypthesis and then test it.
This is easy to do for physical conditions but not so easy to test spiritual conditions. Why? because there is room to deny or doubt the effects are “real”. Science as we know it, is not meant to test spiritual or ethical conditions. Western Science was born and first nourished by religious philosophical issues but then it went its own way.
I have alot more I could say on this topic. but this isn’t the time or place for it. My conclusion is that one of the foundations of finding the answers to questions about religion is independent investigation, that is not biased either in favor or against the answer that may result.
An interesting point EdoRiver, could you please expand on the evidence you find for the existance of God?
AntonGarou, you shouldn’t encourage me with such questions….;-)
We in the West, from my experience are disunited within ourselves. Our minds are not connected to our hearts. As a pseudo-intellectual, beginning from my college days I read books and more books books and I had all these ideas and arguements, meanwhile I was an immature, spoiled, emotional child. I I could quote philosophers, and I would get impatient waiting in line, get angry driving across town. My wife used to say Americans are childish and I was perhaps more immature than average. Why? Don’t ask me. Should I blame my parents? Circumstances?
So the same thing is true with religion now for me. I could expand on the literary evidence that convinced me in the existence of God…but what does it mean? I know one can accept the existence of God intellectually, but ultimately one has to fall in love.
Really, I have finally come to faintly see, but not yet accomplish that this is the truth as well, to truly change your life you have to fall in love with God and his Messenger. It has to be this way or I don’t think people can change their hearts. The weak reflection in this world that love between a man and a woman represents is the , the source of that image is the relationship a human has with his creator. The steps and the process is the same.
REALITY is one (physical and spiritual worlds). So it follows from this that TRUTH is one. this means that the truth A jew finds in the Torah is the same truth that a Christian finds in the New Testament, and a Muslim finds in the Holy Qur’an.
However it makes me a little sad to write all this. As I say, I began intellectually on this road when I was a college student. I put these ideas finally to the test about 4-5 years after that. And since then…….I basically haven’t progressed as I thought I would…..I am much older than all of you, probably. Oh well, we keep on trying. That idea of search I paraphrased at the beginning, let me quote another source,
“THE VALLEY OF SEARCH
The steed of this Valley is patience; without patience the wayfarer on this journey will reach nowhere and attain no goal. Nor should he ever be downhearted; if he strive for a 100,000 yearsand yet fail to behold the beauty of the Friend, he should not falter. for those who seek the Ka’bih of “for Us (29:69) rejoice in the tidings; “In Our ways will We guide them.” In their search, they have stoutly girded up the loins of service, and seek at every moment to journey from the plane of heedlessness into the realm of being. No bond shall hold them back, and no counsel shall deter them. ”
I just have not had that intensity of desire to leave the plane of heedlessness. I like being heedless
. Aren’t all of my friends in the same condition? 
So I suppose I should take some comfort in the fact that even if my journey continues figuratively for 100,000 years; as it says in the Qur’an there, we will be assisted.
sorry about forgetting to close off that bold marker at the end of the second line.
Good night all, I have to get on with my heedlessness
I thought about what I wrote here last night before sleep. I still believe even more strongly in it. Actually I see that the reason I have not progressed in my desire for transforming my character is that, simply, I did not fall in love with God’s Messenger,
first let me clarify what I mean by “God”. I believe we cannot know the divine essence of God, any more than a table can understand the carpenter that made it. Really the difference is at least that great. So what can we know?
I believe we can know about God, through His Messengers, the Founders of the great world religions. Do we need priests and rabbis, and ministers? That is another question for another discussion.
So we can fall in love with the Messengers and their message, in a similar way that we love another person. The principle originates in the spiritual world, the spiritual attraction that God allows us to feel towards Him. The physical relationship is based on this spiritual principle. Reality is one. There are two physical-psychological relationships, one is how we feel towards our Creator. The second is how we feel towards our chosen mate. So yes, I am also saying that if you can’t have a good relationship towards your God, you cannot really have a good one with your mate, because you basically don’t understand her/him. Why?
Because there is a hadith that says if you want to know (whatever you can ever know about) God you should know yourself. Yourself contains a soul. Your mate contains a soul. If you cannot know your soul, which is the closest thing to God, you cannot know yourself. If you cannot know yourself, you cannot possibly form a satisfactory union with your mate. Yes this applies with me. I don’t have a good relationship with my Japanese wife because of the reasons i have outlined above. So, I am trying yet again to fall in love.
Arash, In Iran you have compulsorary (sp?) religious education which I am opposed to. On the other hand, Iranian youth know the Koran much better than their elders and seem to be less susceptible to its distortion (am I wrong about this Iranian youth?).
What I wanted to say in my comment –(I loved my childhood religious experiences) — is that I would make a separation between indoctrination and religious experience and between minority and majority cultures. Perhaps this is because I am a Diaspora Jew and belong to a faith where one is required to argue with God and where it is not unusual to pray side-by-side with aetheists and secularists.
Religion gave me the tools necessary to question my education. By first grade, I understood that history was subjective: something that took my majority culture friends until college to understand.
Sankar,
Faith or obedience, or anything else, you seem to agree with me that we can not force children to get engaged in religious activities, unless we expose them to a vast number of religions.
Drima,
I’ll wait for that. For the time being, I am not sure what the definitions may bring to the discussion. Whatever I define to be religion, I can not expose my kid to.
EdoRiver,
I think I was lost in your long comment. You focus on the meaning and importance of religion. Well, I am an atheist. My point is that religion is strictly personal. Any comment on that?
By the way, in “everyone must investigate the truth for themselves” you mean “can” or “may”, not “must”. Right?
Esther (Iran),
This is what I understand from your comment:
1- Religion might be beneficiary to one’s life.
2- It must not be compulsory.
If you meant these two items, I completely agree with you.
Arash
Truth is absolute, but finding it is personal. You are free to believe anything you like. Regarding religion it is a personal quest, that will be aided by the God you believe doesn’t exist. Most of us here on the web understand that “God given” free will is an important element. You arrived at your conclusion, for this time, in the future it may change, for example because you get married and want to find a community to raise your family. this happened to me, I didn’t care which religion, I wanted the sense of community. Or it may change because of some experience, for example I know of some who have almost, and by all logic should have died in an accident, but didn’t, so this led them to wonder why they survived and others didn’t.
“MUST” as Socrates, who may have studied in Jeurasalem (e or a?) said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.
Esther, I had forgotten this tradition which I read about in Haim Potok’s series of novels. I agree with you completely. Give and take. And when you leave (the encounter) you have been given something more than you started with.
there is something wonderful and special that can be found in each of the major religious traditions. But then when the subject of whether others in another religious tradition are accepted as spiritual brothers, all this wonder and specialness seems to gradually fade into nothingness, like early morning mist.
IMO we hunger for the community. we are willing to accept the rabbai, priest, mulla’s interpretation that makes us more special than others, which we don’t believe, for the sake of membership and association in the community. We sit next to people in the congregation who may have all kinds of prejudices, but we overlook them or pretend they don’t harm us, for the sake of being with others we agree with and have grown up with.
Arash did you have this experience in your early youth?
Esther, after reading again your post,
it is not unusual to pray side-by-side with aetheists and secularists.
This is what I was saying in the previous post, the willing suspension of various points of belief for the sake of inclusion in the community. And secondly it is rather humorous, I wonder what an aetheist gets out of the experience of prayer? Who and what is that person praying to/for?
Arash, you have interpreted my comments correctly.
Edo River,
Since my own father *is* an aetheist and I am a secularist, I can tell you: ritual is different from belief. Praying is a form of meditation: it does not require faith in God. And you are right, community is important.
I often feel that ritual is a kind of time machine: that when I do something as simple as lighting candles for Sabbath, I am doing something my grandmother, great grandmother, and all the great-greats did as well. In a way, my true religion is grandmother worship
Grandmother worship, I can live with that…