- Date posted
- Yesterday
I’m just so sad and lost
I’ve recently started therapy and I’ve began reflecting at lot on my faith and spirituality. I was born and raised Muslim, but as I’ve grown and changed, my perception of the community is quite complex. I think Islam is a framework for people to make sense of themselves and the world around them, just as any other organized religion, but in practice it makes me feel like a hypocrite. I don’t read or pray enough, I don’t look or act the part, but the one thing that pulls me back is my belief in God - some divine being, a deity of creation, beyond this universe and the infinitely many other universes. I do too little to stay but still too much to walk away. I’d never renounce my faith, never leave Islam, because being Muslim has shaped how I am socialized - my identity, my culture, and my interactions. I am Muslim but it doesn’t feel genuine enough to claim such a title. I’m like in this intermittent phase where I’m caught in between, I am so stuck, I am so lost. I don’t judge someone for being religious just as I don’t judge someone for not being religious - because it’s their life, not mine. Agnostic, atheist, polytheistic, monotheistic, whatever it may be, it’s not for me to decide. I think the thing that has driven me away is how hateful religion can be - it turns people into the worst versions of themselves because they see morality as being black and white. In my heart, I cannot truly hate anything or anyone, it hurts too bad. I believe there is a God because how else do you explain these miracles, these masses of people who call themselves believers, there just has to be something bigger than all of them, bigger than ourselves. I know life is a test and that life is suffering but my question is: who is it a test for? a test to see if you can maintain your faith in God despite all this pain and suffering? why bad people live such lavish lives while the innocent suffer? is it because the bad are rewarded here so they will be punished after? or that the innocent are punished her so they will be rewarded after? it’s all so hard to make sense of. They say not to question things but that seems counterintuitive, why would God want us to be clueless? I see my purpose as to protect my soul and to help myself and others become the best version of themselves, reach your fullest potential, while acting out of goodness. I believe in something after this all - because there has to be, people don’t disappear after death, how can they? then how do we explain the supernatural? ghosts and everything else that exists between the physical and metaphysical world. I stay away from the things that’ll taint my mind and body, at least try my best to, I don’t take part in any activities that risk my body becoming impure - no sex, no alcohol, no drugs, nothing that will intoxicate me. I want to be vegan so that I can help the earth rather than hurt it, because animals are God’s creatures too. I don’t know what comes after this all, if the concepts of heaven and hell are real, or at least what we have thought of them to be, but I do believe there must be some reward or punishment for our actions, because how else do we explain this natural inclination to behave the way we do? I’m no perfect person but I think that acting for the wellness of all of God’s creations is the only way to truly worship and fulfill God’s wishes in creating us all. So I guess what I’m saying is that, I believe there is an afterlife and a purpose in existence and that there must be a higher being that watches over all of this, or maybe that’s just the only way I can make sense of things. I don’t think I can claim religion any longer as much as it hurts, but I do believe in God. Even when I’m hurt and confused, I’m sad or angry, I still believe in God. But I have grown up in a hyper religious environment that wouldn’t be accepting or open to hearing such beliefs. I simply want to act out of love, to support all of God’s creations in becoming good, I’m tired of this hateful speech that fundamentally not even religion in its most orthodox form pushes but people do. We are all equal, why not help each other? Why are we so quick to hurt one another? I just don’t know where I stand, how can I have faith in God yet no faith in religion, can the two both be true?