Do You Believe?
Posted by Kaleidoscope on March 1, 2008
Author: A Copyright © 2008
Location: Kuwait
Has anyone ever called you a disbeliever recently? Not necessarily in the religious meaning, but in general? Have your beliefs started falling one after the other, while not even knowing what to believe in anymore? Like things have lost their meaning? Like they don’t make any sense anymore?
Sense! Is that part of believing or not? When you say I believe in something, does it mean you take things for granted and without question? Or, is believing: considering, searching, thinking, observing, and connecting things together to make sense of them? And then taking it to heart? What if most of what you’ve been taught proved to be wrong; your most deeply rooted beliefs, the way you were raised? What happens when you start to question these things? Is it normal to feel rootless?
“Way ma hagait ennich entay bit9ereen chithee. 9ara7a ma tewaqa3t beyee yom etgoleen feeh halkalam!” Translation: “Oh, I never thought that you would turn out like this. Actually, I never thought there would come a day when you’d say such things!”
Have you failed their trust in you? Their interpretations? “You, the religiously well-raised child of a very religious father, the son of a Sheikh! And your mother, a respected activist and one of the sisters. It’s been months since you last prayed, and when was the last time you actually read the Quran?” I Can’t remember. Your cousins only know of this, and oh boy, how they give you that look! “See? We’ve turned out better than you after all! All these years you spent at the Islamic School, all the uncountable times you’ve been to Mecca and Medina, and all the Islamic ‘big-shots’ who knew and helped in raising you. All of this. And here you are. You don’t even pray! But us? We pray! You even question the simple rules! How could you? You simply turned out to be so disappointing!”
Who cares! But, deep down inside, you do care. Not about what they say. It’s about that feeling you had the other night when you heard the Imam in the nearby mosque praying. His voice suddenly hit deep. It felt like home. You try to think of what lead you to this, then the confusion starts again and big scary question marks start popping into your head. Stop. Put that away for a second. Just listen. Listen to the Imam. You don’t have to do anything. Just enjoy the peace, the calmness, what you loved to call: tranquility.
The prayer is over. And you’re still mesmerized at your desk, with your homework waiting to be finished. But the question that is waiting to be answered keeps ringing: Do you believe?
March 4, 2008 at 10:27 am
Doubt has two hands as we do…One hand holds your neck tight pressing on your carotid artery and trying to cut the connection between your heart and brain, forces your belief/faith to commit suicide.
The other feeds your belief/faith roaming over your chest reminding you the place of your heart.
It is up to you which hand you would like to hold dancing with doubt…
March 14, 2008 at 7:20 pm
But what happens if you want to get rid of the doubt but you simply can’t? if everyone is telling you .. “You can find peace only in religion” and you want to believe it but can’t.
March 16, 2008 at 2:13 am
Oh how lovely, A.
I look at the universe around me, this realm that is beyond religion, and ask myself:
‘how can I not believe?’
March 16, 2008 at 9:27 am
You can find peace only within “yourself”. For that you need to find where you belong to/come from. You are too precious & complicated to belong to nothingness and to end up in nothingness…
March 17, 2008 at 3:13 pm
It’s been AGES since I’ve been to mosque… and quite frankly, I don’t feel the need to. Just for the record though, I’d like to state that I do believe in a ‘higher’ power or something,.. however, I am now finding religion quite (unnecessary?)
I haven’t prayed in like.. FOREVER too. Quite frankly, I’ve never been more at peace with myself than I do right now! All that time, I remember, I’ve tried to be this MUSLIM… I’ve tried to be what was expected of me.. but hell, you want to know what I believe?
Well, I think, it’s all about accepting ourselves for who we are. No, actually LOVING ourselves for, and despite
who we are. It’s pretty much the basis for all religions, right? So, the way I see it, I don’t really need ‘religion’ now, I know who I am, I know what I want, I know am not perfect, but I still like what I see… I basically have what they tried to give me!
Not bashing on religion though, I’m just saying… it’s… a bit like a crutch. You might need it for awhile, the “right kind” will help build you up, help you on your way, and maybe one day… You just won’t need it anymore, cuz you’ll be just fine.
My space, my thoughts anyway :)…
good going A
(I KNOW WHO YOU ARE 
AND I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER:P!)
March 27, 2008 at 4:49 am
I think I know that feeling, it had bothered me a lot before loosing my faith. Not any more though, I stopped the doubt by starting to walk in paths of religion, psychology, history, politics, philosophy and ended up drawing my own conclusions. And religion lost the bet, as did the cultural investments of my own family.
I found out that doubt is healthy for my brains; it means that the brain is working; criticizing, trying to reach that taboo zone, and expose its mysteries, so that they won’t be mysteries anymore, weren’t great Greek scientists been blackmailed before by their own relatives and close families?
The thing with doubt is that it won’t leave till you reach your own truth, and then you either become a rebellious individual, a philosopher, a scientist, or simply you won’t give a damn anymore.
Losing faith is not simple, even with a critical mind, but it’s possible with time and maturity.