Sunday, April 25, 2010

I Don't Care about Your Religion! - Part II

I have written a post here entitled "I Don't Care about Your Religion", I didn't plan then to write part 2, but here I am! 

Since the start of Facebook, everyone used it as a platform, not just to post simple things he/she likes, but also to post religious videos or talks that attack others' religions, whether Christians or Muslims. 

I have been on Facebook for 4 years or something, and since then, many Muslims on my list have posted controversial videos that insult Christianity, tell false things about the Holy Bible or whatever! At first, I didn't care about those stuff and simply removed those who would post such videos from my list, to save myself the headache of arguing, and also to relieve those people from dealing with "infidels" like myself. 

Lately, I was shocked to notice that such posts started to come from people I knew well, and I was deeply disappointed to see that some well-educated people posted things that surely hurt others' beliefs and religions. So, I started to reply to these posts by saying that there is no need whatsoever to post that type of controversial videos on Facebook, and that they can simple keep those videos to themselves or share them with a group of people who would be interested, since Facebook allows you to hide certain posts from groups of friends. However, hiding a post doesn't remove the fact that deep inside you, you disrespect others and want to insult them, because of their religious affiliation. So, I started to suggest to those people on my friend list that they would remove Christians from their list as long as Christianity bothers them that much, to the extinct that they keep adding Christian people to their list and at the same time keep posting videos about how great a religion is and how false another religion is. 
  
I don't know or understand exactly the reason behind posting something like that. Does it make you feel great and make you convince others that they are wrong? Why do you even want to prove to others that they are wrong about what they believe in? Why do you even care about what they believe in? Why don't you just focus on your beliefs and let the whole world believe in whatever they believe in!!

Plus, why do you go through the trouble of understanding others' beliefs just to prove they are WRONG?!  It wastes your time to do so. Instead, focus on going in depth into your religion. You are not qualified enough to judge others or attack them.

I don't know why we can't live in Egypt without thinking of religious disputes and attacks. But for me, I couldn't care less about any video or even about what anyone alive thinks or says about my religion. As I said, it is MY religion, and it is private. I'm keeping my relationship with God between Him and myself, not public on Facebook and not on others' walls and home pages. I post religious posts only to my Christian friends, and those religious posts target good religious hymns they can listen to or things that they can do to be closer to God, and not posts that show that other beliefs are nonsense. 

If you believe so well in your religion, you shouldn't feel the need to prove that other religions are wrong. Just keep your beliefs to yourself. 

I believe in the freedom of expression, as long as it doesn't hurt others, but more than that, I believe and totally respect the freedom of religion, I don't deal with you or judge you based on your religion, and I don't want to be judged in the same way either.

I remember very well that I once had to deal with an Agnostic person, and since I say "God's willing" or "Ensha2Allah" a lot, I thought that it wasn't a good idea to keep saying it while speaking with that person. I care about his feelings and it might insult him if I keep mentioning "God" (who he didn't believe in). So, I apologized to him and stopped saying "God". I did this simply because I wanted to show respect to this person, without insulting what he believes in, even if I didn't accept it.


Final thought:
If you don't post videos that attack others' religions, but still deep inside you, you disrespect those who are different from yourself and believe that they are "infidels" and should be convinced that their beliefs are nonsense, then, excuse me, you have a huge problem!

This post goes out to all the people I know. Please no more insults to anyone's religion. You have all the right to remove me from your list if you don't like this post. But please, if you keep me on your list, don't insult my religious beliefs or others'! Thank you..



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© Evronia Azer, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

5 comments:

Sokrata said...

well done said

Shenoda said...

may I disagree?
I do agree with all what you stated except the example of the atheist. Because the atheist is someone who *believes* in No God. Respecting each other is mutual. Why should sustain myself from mentioning God in respect of his beliefs, while s/he does not sustain her/him-self from mentioning No God, which are her/his believes that offend me?

I think it is not about what to say. We speak freely in our languages, let it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhism, or Atheism. But what we need, as you said, is to have respect to the person himself. That is to first, and before and above all, to love the other person.

Now, my language reflects not only my attitude towards the other, which I may be able to fake and usually we are good at it, but also my believes. If my language is then offensive, that means my believes needs a revision.

That is my reflection on what you said, I could be wrong though.. or miss-read your article.

Evronia said...

Thanks for passing by my blog Shenoda..

I respect your opinion a lot.. I didn't mean that I would deny God in front of others just to 'please' them. It was a single example that happened to me that I thought can send a message.

My friend didn't offend me by talking about his beliefs and I thought that by saying "God" then he might think I'm talking about my religious beliefs and humiliating him on purpose.

I totally agree with you that it's about respect to the person him/herself and love for everyone as Jesus said. But as I said, it was a situation that happened that I thought reflected something.

thanks again :)

Philip Verghese 'Ariel' said...

I agree with you in most of your opinion about this subject, but i feel we need to show our identity wherever it is needed, oh that person may get offended so i keep quiet or hide my identity or faith. I differ here, and suggest to reveal our identity or faith when it is required not by offending other person's faith. I too had a somewhat similar experience with a fellow author and he plainly said i can't agree with your opinion or religious feeling i belongs to a different category. i didn’t refute to him or tried to make an argument with him. I put a long full stop on that issue, in an early stage i was having the opinion that we must refute, and argue with such people and convince him to believe my faith. But at a later stage i have come to the conclusion that there is no meaning in such debate or argument. So generally such matters arise i put a long full stop there.
This is my opinion on this issue.
I am here via your knol in the other language on computer, pl do write in English at knol so that many be knowledgeable thru your wonderful writings. i am a kno author since 2008 pl do read my bio knol at knol http://bit.ly/cswehX
p v ariel
secunderabd

Evronia said...

Thank you sir for passing by my blog. thanks for your comment as well. I like what you are saying and I don't disagree, please check my previous reply.

I will do my best to write on Knol in English in the near future :)

thanks again