Khalil_Allah
My apologies for taking so long to respond. I have had quite a many experiences which kept me away from the board. Please know that I have read your post many times with the desire to respond but didn't find the time until now.
I shall cut up pieces of your post and respond directly below them so you know what it is I respond to. And thank you for giving me such a well written piece!
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
wow! I am proud of your husband, mashAllah! May Allah swt reward him for his good deeds and for being good to his wife. (although rewards for such things are guaranteed :))
I am so proud of my husband too. But tonight he actually said something that disturbed me. I wrote of it in another thread regarding the relationship between kafirs and muslims. I would love it if you took a look and gave me some input since you seem so enlightened and well thought.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
You see the benefits of virtue, and you believe in virtue, but you just can't buy this whole God-thing. If reason is the only tool God gave us to acquire knowledge, then why would He not show Himself to us? Why would He not let us all believe? Maybe this hits some of your sentiments.>?
Indeed, it does hit some of my sentiments. I do believe in the benefits of virtue and I have tried to manifest them continually in my life because I have a true love for that which is good. I do not buy the God thing because there is no empirical evidence available in which to verify God's existence. It does perturb me that humanity can not verify its existence and that the major world religions tell of eternal punishment for not taking the leap of faith the lack of proof requires. It angers me actually, and so I'm in a place where the choice is between certainty of virtue or the possibility of a god which does not embody virtue (from my current perspective). It leaves me proclaiming atheism, frankly, yet also embracing virtue.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
Well let's start with virtue. I want to affirm your husband's character by telling you that living virtuously is the closest we can get to being divine.
I agree, and as a kafir I often say: since we can empirically find no divinity out there, we must create it here, within our actions and hearts. We should create heaven on earth, we have wasted too much time mistreating one another on the hope of a metaphysical heaven.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
Before you find peace with all of this, there are two aspects of life that you must settle on: belief in God (which likely seems impossible to you right now) and conforming your behavior to the virtuous standard. Virtuous men are drawn to virtuous women, so I shall assume you are alright on the latter half. And anyhow, you already exhibit deep admiration for the virtuous. Therefore, the rest of my discussion will be limited to the "God-thing."
The more I contemplate God, the less I believe such a thing is even possible. I am at the point where even the small ember of hope I had is dying, possibly dead. My Father recently passed, which is why I was not on the forum, I was taking care of him in his weakness. Watching him pass pretty much extinguished what was left of that ember of hope for a deity. I won't go into why or what my thoughts are on it because I am worried that talking openly about my skepticism can cause issues on the forum. The last thing I want to do is cause controversy, I am here with good intentions of understanding myself and others, not in bringing forth these utterly deep ponderings that have smashed my faith and hence can make others unconfomfortable. I just don't know if thats appropriate to do here, and so I'm reserving it.
On another note, I DO believe I have embraced virtue well. Yes, there is more I could do like completely giving up my home and running out to be a full time advocate, which is something I would LOVE to do, but considering I am raising children and caring for my widowed mother its something I can not venture into. That shall have to wait for if I have good health in another ten years. For now there is too much family duty. But I do live virtously in the ways my time constraints can afford. I engage in everything from protesting and picketing to fund raising for all kinds of efforts that work to alleviate misery on this planet. I do it simply because I love virtue, I want to be virtuous and I want others to embrace it in hopes that all the creatures of this beautiful small world may see less days stooped in misery.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
It's all on you. You don't believe in God and likely cannot imagine how you will come to do so. Some of the most brilliant people in our history had the same stance, so don't worry. Furthermore, I was a "devout" atheist throughout my youth and early adulthood. You're not alone.
Ahh but I do worry about it and I can not stop! I have tried to quell my mind in a million and one ways yet the questions and fleeting thoughts just won't end! If there is a creator (and though I don't believe there is) I want to know it! I want to understand its nature, I want to give respect and gratitude to that nature if it is indeed virtuous. I want to satiate my mind in regards to this, I want to put my ponderance of "if" to rest, a final rest. The God question I have wrestled with for a decade now is making me tired, making me... ill... Its as if I have this hole in me that can not be filled until I know for certain. And the fact that I can not drives me insane! I want to do what is right in this life and I have no leader to lay my trust in fully, it grieves me...
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
God is so complicated if you don't believe, and so simple if you do. We want rational proofs, we want to KNOW. Faith is ridiculous to the rational mind. Faith is unjustified belief. Yet for a believer, faith is what brings calm and content and makes it natural to be virtuous. I believe, obviously, and I tell you that it changed over night. I literally went to bed not believing and received my sign in the morning that gave me justified belief that there is something greater than all of this, and that "thing" is God.
I tell you brother, there have been a thousand nights I have prayed with what I had thought was the last of me for any sign. I have come to the point where I don't even ask anymore because nothing has happened and I am beginning to question my sanity for even repeating the inquiry. How many times must an experiment fail before you stop experimenting? I'm so very tired of it... I do believe faith brings a calmness. Yet my rational mind will not allow me to have it. My rational mind continually whispers: Where is the intellectual integrity in believing in something that is not proven to exist? You are trading your logic in for contentment. And worse, you are trading in your virtue. For if a deity exists that created all this misery and you worship that, then you too are guilty for the misery. You are selling your morality for a hope of immortality and that is the anti-thesis of virtue... Bahh! The things my mind whispers, its a mess in there! And its made my "soul" tired, if that makes sense...
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
I started following Nicomachean Ethics and took Socrates as my "Jesus," my righteous example to emulate. But I still couldn't understand this divinity and God thing. I went to my most admirable professor, a devout Baptist, and I asked him, "How can you be so brilliant and believe in something for which you have no rational proof?" He didn't answer me. Instead, he instructed me. Roughly, "Go and tell God that you are looking for Him and that you want to know Him."
I couldn't believe this. How can you go to God if you don't believe in Him? He told me to just do whatever it takes to inform God that I want to understand Him. He said it could be as simple as sitting on my bed talking into the air with the intent to address God. So I went home and I said something like this: "God, if you exist, please help me make sense of you. If You are there, I want to believe, but I just don't have anything to justify believing in You! So... yeah, amen."
I went through my day, went to bed, went through another day, went to bed, and the next day, something happened that was enough for me. I knew that God had listened and given me something to verify His existence. It doesn't matter what it was, because you might just think it was a coincidence if I explained it, but I knew. And I was the most cynical and doubting person, yet I knew.
I have had moments like that many times, its the last vestige of hope, ya know? I remember when I started losing my faith in Christianity I would talk with God everynight: "Im running out of faith lord, fill me back up". Well, the conversations were much more intricate then that. I would yell about Bible verses which upset me, how the misery in this world is making me question all I was told, etc.
And then the conversations became more general after time: "If there is anything out there, I need to know you are there. I'm sick and alone and I'm running out of reasons to exist, I'm even running out of hope for doing this. If you are there, you have to help quell me, please! I want to know you, I want to know how I am supposed to live." Nothing... My last conversation like the last week of December 2008. My Father dying made me stop asking. The lack of response in those most needful times, pissed me off, crushed me, to be frank... I'm at the point where I am left with two thoughts: Either there is nothing there or what is there is a fiend and couldn't care less about those with those serious desire, in which case I don't want to know something like that. I know that sounds angry, but that's the point where I am now.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
I hope with what I have said thus far, you can relate. I don't know if this is any better than the first time I tried to write to you, but I tried.
I can relate and I thank you most sincerely for trying. It makes me feel good that there are people here who can be so open in regards to lack of belief. I have been around fundamentalists who are so hell bent on ****ation and bashing atheists that I was worried to even speak here. Its comforting to know that at least one person on this board can say: hey, I know where you are and why you are there, I don't think you are the devil for it. In fact, your post makes me feel more welcomed here, thank you for that.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
If I could advise one thing, I would say this: forget about religion and everything you have learned about it EXCEPT the virtues.
That's precisely what I am doing.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Khalil_Allah
God DOES listen if you go to Him. And I promise He will reveal Himself to you if you sincerely seek Him. But you have to have the intent. Even if you don't believe now, just sit in your closet when no one is looking or listening and ask for Him to reveal Himself in a way that makes sense to you. When it happens, all of your worries will fade. All of your pain, all of your frustration, everything in this world will fade away for that one moment of revelation.
Thats the problem brother. I feel as I have done this a thousand times already, and nothing has happened imsad I for many years thought why me, why do I not get an answer? What have I done so wrong? I beat myself up for every small conceivable "sin". But I did it for so long that now I am getting angry. I contemplate how I have embraced virtue, and how few have while proclaiming faith and then I feel mad at existence itself. Does that make sense?
I wish to thank you again for your post. In the very least it made me feel more welcome here, and that is a big task in and of itself.