Friday, July 19, 2013
Sunday, July 14, 2013
In My Perfect World
An array of thoughts zipped through the corridors of my mind. I wanted to speak but it was as if my lips had been permanently put into a state of union through the wonder of invisible super glue. Is this what I really believed? Am I that intolerant? How long had I been blind to the fact that I too am prejudiced? As I sat there astounded and appaled, my challenger, opponent would be incorrect vocabulary because he was not a foe, disappeared from the scene as his schedule required him to. A single question, “What is your idea of the perfect world?”, had shaken my understanding of my identity. This sudden realisation, that in my perfect world everyone would believe in some form of God, literally rocked my world.
My role as an ethnic minority and the oppressed gender has led me to support pluralism and diversity throughout most of my life. I find that I lean towards policies that champion ethnic equality and feminism. In fact, the primary reason I chose to work as a interfaith coordinator this summer was because I aim to do similar work on a larger scale in the future. As I dig deeper into my psyche I find that I have reason to feel this way. But is this reason enough? Is it not just another excuse that anyone labeled a bigot would make?
As an undergraduate philosophy major, I encountered many an atheist and agnostic. I can even say that I was an agnostic during a couple of periods in my life; however, as hard as I tried to resist the faith, God just kept reeling me in. So I supposed, as the Cadets have sung, “til I saw your face, now I’m a believer, now there's not a trace, of doubt in my mind”, that most agnostics would find the faith at some point in their lives. Obviously, it was not my place to say anything because I truly believe it’s an individual journey. The atheists were a different story, because they spent their time trying to convert me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had people of other faiths try to convert me before, but it was based on a more explicit effort to make me believe in their religious beliefs rather than to negate my own. Eventually they would give up and just respect that I had my own path to God. With the atheists that I encountered, a lot of the rhetoric was based on how wrong my pointless path was. My time in those situations was spent with persistent negative reinforcers. As a result, my conversations with such individuals became less frequent; I am assuming that this impression remained in the back of my mind as I continued to grow and learn. Things changed though, as they do in life, during our porch chat with Chris Steidman. His one question brought this thought back up into the forefront.
As ridiculous as this may sound, meeting him made me realize that not all atheists spend their life actively proselytizing. It served as a reminder that every group has their set of radicals, whether they are a part of the religious group I identify with, Islam, or any other body of faith. Luckily, on the opposite side of the spectrum, there is a large portion of people that contribute positively to humanity. Regardless of whether they identify with faith or not, they are giving to the world and that is the most important thing.
I think my biggest struggle will be to have to frequently remind myself that the thing Mother Earth needs is the cultivation of interpath relations. In order to be a fully loving and giving person, I need to let go of my hypocritical tendencies and just absorb. Once I have absorbed I need to be okay with agreeing to disagree as I often recommend others to do.
It is funny how things work out; we keep meeting ourselves and addressing internal faults. We fight against our insecurities and our prejudices. We find that evolution through reflection is a constant process. I enjoy this wonderful journey of facing my own digressions and hypocrisies, because it is one step towards my destination. As Martin Luther King, Jr. has said, “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last”, well not quite yet, but I would like to think we are on our way.
-Farrah Walji
My role as an ethnic minority and the oppressed gender has led me to support pluralism and diversity throughout most of my life. I find that I lean towards policies that champion ethnic equality and feminism. In fact, the primary reason I chose to work as a interfaith coordinator this summer was because I aim to do similar work on a larger scale in the future. As I dig deeper into my psyche I find that I have reason to feel this way. But is this reason enough? Is it not just another excuse that anyone labeled a bigot would make?
As an undergraduate philosophy major, I encountered many an atheist and agnostic. I can even say that I was an agnostic during a couple of periods in my life; however, as hard as I tried to resist the faith, God just kept reeling me in. So I supposed, as the Cadets have sung, “til I saw your face, now I’m a believer, now there's not a trace, of doubt in my mind”, that most agnostics would find the faith at some point in their lives. Obviously, it was not my place to say anything because I truly believe it’s an individual journey. The atheists were a different story, because they spent their time trying to convert me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had people of other faiths try to convert me before, but it was based on a more explicit effort to make me believe in their religious beliefs rather than to negate my own. Eventually they would give up and just respect that I had my own path to God. With the atheists that I encountered, a lot of the rhetoric was based on how wrong my pointless path was. My time in those situations was spent with persistent negative reinforcers. As a result, my conversations with such individuals became less frequent; I am assuming that this impression remained in the back of my mind as I continued to grow and learn. Things changed though, as they do in life, during our porch chat with Chris Steidman. His one question brought this thought back up into the forefront.
As ridiculous as this may sound, meeting him made me realize that not all atheists spend their life actively proselytizing. It served as a reminder that every group has their set of radicals, whether they are a part of the religious group I identify with, Islam, or any other body of faith. Luckily, on the opposite side of the spectrum, there is a large portion of people that contribute positively to humanity. Regardless of whether they identify with faith or not, they are giving to the world and that is the most important thing.
I think my biggest struggle will be to have to frequently remind myself that the thing Mother Earth needs is the cultivation of interpath relations. In order to be a fully loving and giving person, I need to let go of my hypocritical tendencies and just absorb. Once I have absorbed I need to be okay with agreeing to disagree as I often recommend others to do.
It is funny how things work out; we keep meeting ourselves and addressing internal faults. We fight against our insecurities and our prejudices. We find that evolution through reflection is a constant process. I enjoy this wonderful journey of facing my own digressions and hypocrisies, because it is one step towards my destination. As Martin Luther King, Jr. has said, “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last”, well not quite yet, but I would like to think we are on our way.
-Farrah Walji
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