"Why don't you drink?"
This is my reasoning for why I don't drink - and in fact more generally, an explanation of my value system which is what I like to live by. This is a narrative of my
personal journey and my thoughts along the way to answer a question specifically about me - so please don't take offence from any of this.
Begin with a typical lifespan (pls bear with me - this is mighty relevant )
Go to school/university, graduate, get a job, socialise, wait for Friday to hit every week, eat pizza and watch TV on the weekend or some other entertainment, go on a vacation 2-3 times a year, get married - lovey jubby to begin with before the 'other 4 stages' of marriage kick in :). Then have a few kids, get the best house(s)/car(s) possible, move a couple of jobs in your career either hoping to become intellectually superior, get promoted etc., more ski&sun vacations, go through the usual hell and occasional delight with teenage kids, get old, retire, spend last days watching TV, reading the paper and generally relaxing - eventually end on a bed somewhere with relatives visiting occasionally - or maybe just Christmas. Then offspring grow up to do exactly the same thing .
Of course some people's lives might have some twists and turns to this but this is not too far from what happens in most people's lives.
This video explains what I mean - although it's specifically about just the one aspect of marriage (have a look at the interesting comments by users too). This was the question I mulled over for a long time - and, like the commentators on this video, the inevitability of life seems extremely sad for me.
What's the point? I've heard this 'meaningless life' realization - even for very wealthy people - hits many people at 40+ (but I guess it got to me early?). This all sounds depressing but I make no apologies - to me such an existence seemed entirely miserable, especially given how incredibly capable humans have evolved to become. Dawkins explains in the final chapter of
The God Delusion, 'A much needed gap', that acquiring knowledge of the beauties of the diverse universe is one such pursuit we can find comfort in. However, this was something I've already enjoyed doing from a young age - and certainly following my faith was never a barrier to this, nor does it help in this perplexity.
Quite interestingly, some people consider they're not in this cycle because they don't have kids or aren't married or have an occupation a source of perpetual happiness. This veers off topic but I really feel this is for a sense of self comfort that they're not in this cycle. However, having personally been through the 'kiddy-like excitement' phase at various stages of the youth that is so fiery and hasty and involved in all other sorts of entertainment, I understand there are moments of happiness - I can't say it's a permanent peace/happiness though. Like every other aspect - kids, marriage, a new job, Ben&Jerry's Chocolate Dough Ice Cream - it's a temporary mood elevation. The mental unrest/turmoil still persists.
Upon looking around to see what others were saying and generally looking deeper, it seemed this melancholy affects many people. Rather than giving a link to a white paper describing this psychological phenomenon -
here's another video! - of a stand-up comedian Dane Cook (un?)knowingly explaining one symptom of this. We might look at others and think they're wealthy and happy - but we find much later on, they didn't quite have
the perfect life they seemed to have on the outset. With that prelude of my outlook on life...
... it was a ~2-week semi-solitary period I spent with some books that changed - I can now say in hindsight - everything for me. I knew God wanted us to behave good, never lie, give to charity, pray at certain times and do other rituals,etc, but this never resonated with me - though admittedly I did some of these some of the time because of my upbringing. I always thought it a bit repetitive, a formality, time that could be spent better - thinking that perhaps maybe at a later age I'd understand better. So it was in this solitary period where I actually concentrated and prayed hard to know if He did exist. I didn't get my wish. But I did realize something very profound - out of the theism books I had with me, I noticed that although most faiths consider God to be 'Living', in reality they considered him dead. For example, most faiths will say God only communicates with prophets or specially chosen people - not the ordinary person. I don't mean communication in the form of signs - like healing miracles where a patient had 'virtually no chance' of surviving but yet did. (To adduce this as proof of His existence is extremely brittle and certainly cannot provide the certainty of God's existence that is like - for instance - the absolute certainty of knowing you have 2 hands). However, the interpretation of Islam given by one movement claimed there is a 'Living God' in a sense that seemed logical to me - one who communicates unambiguously to any and all desirous to go along the route to find Him. For me,
it was this one ideology that made me drop everything and set out to seek Him sincerely through this method. After all, if God wanted us to love Him more than our partners, children, parents, how can that be possible without any reciprocation if an attempt is made to achieve nearness to Him. Although tempting to go all out - like some faiths requiring a hermit-like existence - the route I was choosing required me to maintain a balance including work and family life too. In hindsight, this has turned out to be immensely useful in progressing along the spiritual route - details of which would could probably take up an entire blog post in it's own. Somehow, it wasn't just a phase - and a year on - I still don't have the money&power greed that characterized me during my uni years. Nor the several other traits that led me to chase other things ... somewhat like the tazmanian devil in retrospect! Could be strong resolve - but as anyone 'chasing' knows, the love of money has an immense pull. I believe it's one of the initial stages of spiritual development - as is stated "turning to God with such sincerity that their love of the world has become quite cold". I dare not be so pompous as to say that I am x much full of sincerity - I hope this is what has happened to me, it certainly feels like it. God only knows - certainly if it is, this is only an initial stage of development. The lofty goal of acquiring certainty of Him requires hard work, humility in everything and sincere prayers just as the accounts of those who've reached such heights tell us - all of which admittedly have been impossible to do without removing the cynicism and arrogance leading to straight denial of God.
So it is this route, this path, this journey I have chosen to undertaken that has an effect on all my actions. It's the most difficult thing I've ever done/am doing - for so many reasons I can't begin to explain - but thankfully, I get stronger. In retrospect, it's made me a better person not just wrt setting out to fulfil the purpose of my life (as I believe of course is wrt God) but to society generally - again, in many ways I won't enumerate - but all due to this route. Mental unrest has receded leaving a calmness within me - and literally as I write this, I'm reminded of the verse from scripture " It is in the remembrance of God that hearts can find comfort. "
Now I can start to address the question. So - my aim from that point onwards had become - and is - to attain nearness and certainty of God. As with any objective, this requires following instructions and guidelines diligently to achieve the desired aim. Not drinking alcohol is one of them. Another is to watch what you gaze at (i.e.ogling). I choose not to go to pubs as otherwise it would imply my condonement of that institution and, as a secondary effect, the packed nature of pubs means wherever you look, it's all too easy to ogle (and more)! This might seem a bit ott as I could always just have a coke instead, but it's not much different to trying to go to KFC with a devoted PETA activist and telling them they can order the Veg Burger !
My Faith - True Islam
So my faith is Islam - the Ahmadiyya movement specifically. Islam has
the privilege of having preserved the pure teachings from the origins - if you look for them - and it is this Islam that I follow. An Islam far removed from the practices of the likes of the government of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or the Wootton Bassett protesters. An untainted Islam I fell in love with after reading
this one book. Subsequent theological study during the past 1 year+ has been delightful, enlightening and rubber-stamped my belief in what I follow. Some hardliners say this is a softening of Islam to make it 'hippy' to suit the liberal West. If that was the case - and my reading dictates it is not - I would be disgusted to be part of such a weak community that claimed to have faith in God. In actual fact, looking at Muhammad(peace be on him)'s life, liberalisation in worship is exactly the doctrine he practised. Interestingly, there
would be a clash if the West were to stop Muslims like myself practicing our faith, resulting in emigration of those who follow this - what I believe - the untainted teaching of Islam. But hopefully that'll never happen - Britain's awesome. And I really like the rain actually for it's therapeutic melody.
In reality, I genuinely don't believe it's possible to behave good, never lie, love God (as required by faith), give freely to charity, etc. etc. without the aim of attaining nearness and certainty to God in mind - and only going on heresay about the 'hereafter' - quite frankly, the 'hereafter' for me was never incentive enough to change. Acquisition of certainty was and I believe is, the only way to know for sure God exists - it cannot be achieved by reasoned arguments or any level of research. (It's no wonder then that senior religious ministers are involved in extremist activities, pedophilia, hate campaigns, military occupation, monetary/political corruption, suppression, etc.- if they had genuine certainty of a God whose attributes are as described in their respective holy books, they wouldn't come near such activities. I don't say all ministers of any particular faith are like this - but history bears testimony that it's more than some insignificant outliers.)
I started writing summaries to remove some myths in my belief but realized this post was getting too long - so here's the condensed one liners:
- Islam claims it's peaceful teachings are fully capable of bringing about peace within a person, between people and between nations.
- Islam (alone) denies having a monopoly of truth and says all people of all religions had Divine guidance
- God communicates with mankind as before and has not barred the avenues to reach Him. Everyone is invited to experiment for himself/herself.
- Islam does not compel us to believe what we don't understand.
- Apostasy is not punishable by death.
- Women have rights to occupational work just like men - forcing men or women into a particular way of life or wearing veils,etc. is baseless in Islam (though muslim women should obviously consider why this teaching is in place for them)
- Shariah law does not force anything - not even Shariah Law if you don't want it! Wonderful.
Finally
If you do believe in a particular faith - but do so nominally to say, appease your partner or maintain family relations, I humbly ask you to treat your God-revealed faith as a most solemn journey. You already have the benefit of being open-minded to your religion; find the truth within it, find what makes sense and consider your faith in the light of new scientific proofs rather than shun it's core teaching for the allure of the world. Look past the rituals.
Finally, if you do not believe in God, all I ask is you consider the possibility of God with an open mind - as this may well be the only post you ever come across in your life asking you to :) Surely worth the consideration and time once at least - if anything, it would give understanding of what religion seeks to instill in people. I hope the online books on the link at the bottom might have something of interest.
Finally finally (promise), the most important takeaway from this blog post I would say - if anyone is interested in pursuing this further - is that arrogance and cynicism have to be dropped before even trying to investigate further. Logically, wouldn't it be a disgrace for a Mighty Being who purportedly orchestrated this masterpiece of a universe to be 'discovered' by an arrogant strutting cynic? Wouldn't a humble seeker more likely to gain favour with this Being? As mentioned earlier, knowledge alone will not give you that certainty - it's for you to try and see. Otherwise, you could spend years on
online forums debating and reading the endless pro- and anti- God books without any real conclusion. In fact, the cynic could even dispute each and every single thing on this post.
Some readers might consider this request, others would laugh, yet others would ridicule, others still would hate - that's everyone's right I guess :) I only hope there might be the few open-minded people who go on to take that time out to reflect and do their own research into this.
** Apologies for the lack of references but for brevity and flow control, they have been omitted. Many of these teachings can all be
viewed online - drop a comment for anything specific. **
