When I was very young, I used to think the voice of the man reciting Quran on the Radio was the voice of God talking. And when I was told it is not, it sort of confirmed my preexisting suspicion that something was not in order. The words made no sense to me, and were just ramblings, but the voice of the old famous Egyptian reciter was particularly annoying. I was told I was an intelligent child who asked lots of questions, about everything. I remember when I was plus or minus 6 years old having healthy skepticism about everything around me, and this included God, so I always took the matter with a grain of salt, seriously! my little mind wouldn’t buy the answers I was getting. I used to read a lot of books about science, inventors, inventions and history of sciences. It was a marvelous world, and I spoiled many household items trying to be the inventor of my dreams.
I remember vividly my dissatisfaction with the answers I was receiving about the God questions. Answers that to me were insubstantial, unfulfilling and sometimes felt like plain old fairy tales. You might wonder how can a kid so young distinguish between what is logical and what is fairy tales, but you would not wonder if you would have seen the types of books I used to read on science as a very young child. To give you an example, in a gathering of just pre-school kids, I met this evidently dumb lad who was blubbering about how rain is the result of the winter Camel fighting the summer Camel!! Having known for a considerable while, why it rains I was to say the least disgruntled by this stupid piece of childhood standing before me. Alas, I failed to change his mind, nevertheless such forms of rather common childhood fairy tales were for me always out of question.
When I was about 17 It dawned on me that this whole god business was a farce! and that there apparently is no one watching. Which I should tell you was such a revelation when you are 17, for one, because suddenly you can do all the BIG no no stuff your mama warned you against. And boy, did I have a good time? By that age I was not aware of the word atheist, but I later realized I was a hard core one. Thinking about it in retrospect, I think It was rather unusual for a kid to come up with such a revolutionary idea out of my own ass, with no external influences whatsoever!
I remained with this godless mind-set till I was about 24. By that time I was unusually out spoken about it. A dear girl friend of mine back in college was horrified when she realized I was a non believer. Her first reaction was, so what if you die now? do you know what happens to you? I did not give a damn! a few days later she came back to me with an offer. Her dad who is a self-proclaimed intellect is offering me a meeting at his fine office in an attempt to discuss the matter with me. No strings attached! I loved debating and I thought it was a good idea to meet the old man and so I did. Long story short, I came, I saw, I conquered. The man gave up and told his daughter this guy is dangerously smart. I met him again later once, after which he was imprisoned for business fraud, and I never saw him again.
My reading directions where shifting with time, and for some reason (perhaps hormonal?) I became bit by bit more spiritual. As a result I read tons of books on Judaism, Christianity and Islam along with other obscure teachings of eastern overweight gods. To be honest, the same way my letting go of god was a revelation, it dawned on me one day that I was wrong. Long story short, out of purely objective analysis I became a Muslim. It was the most coherent and well formed story I could find. And believe me when I say it, it had nothing to do with coming from a Muslim family. I was bold enough to have been a Scientologist if that had made any damn sense, but the Xenu thing was very improbable indeed!
Time passed and I became more of a believer everyday. There was even a time when I prayed 5 times a day…at the mosque, mind you! two years passed and to be honest after like half a year or so, I could not suppress that bad ass skepticism anymore. It kept on nagging me. I was having more questions than I could find answers. And although I held a firm belief Islam was the most logical thing out there, I still could not swallow it whole. Some things about Islam are just so damn true, you can not help but stop and wonder about them. There was a time when I even thought we could be an experiment of another higher civilization (which was an idea of a novel I actually attempted to write), if those intriguing facts about Islam are to come from anybody, then it must be a higher civilization. So what about the parts that are hard to swallow? oh you see, this higher civilization is just conducting experiments (I’m sparing you the details of the experiments), and this is why they give you some logical stuff to believe, and some which are fairies and they watch as supposedly intelligent beings suspend their minds and buy this which should not be bought. I’m blubbering right? but what is a blog for? huh?
My current agnosticism which I hold dearly, is the result of a long journey that has not yet ended and I have no idea where it is taking me. If I have learned anything through it, it is the courage to follow your mind. Should I also listen to my heart while I follow my mind? I guess I should, but I do not know what the heck that means anyway! Does the idea of religion seem logical to everyone by heart and we have to be educated out of it? or are we educated into it? For me, I was certainly a very objective, neutral young boy.
while I’m not black, I’m actually brown (worse I think?). I’m now halfway through the book and I think it is vivacious, and a real good read. This Obama is a good man down at the bottom. No matter how he does during his term in office, he managed to gain my respect.
I’m not however sure about agnostics! Wear your tin foil hats folks, the plague is here.
