Easy to Get Down About Islam
Whenever I hear stories about Muslims doing evil, I get a down about Islam (ex. murdering family members for disobeying the man, death penalty for gays, oppression of minorities, etc). I have also had negative experiences with multiple Muslim men who might not have been evil but who were doing things that are bad and linking at least part of their behaviour to Islam. And then I have experience with a lot of Muslims, mostly converts, who take Islam in a way that I believe is completely against its spirit. They become judgemental, negative people who are in no way flexible to the ways of life of others...
With all these things done "for" Islam or "because of" Islam, I feel sometimes like I don't want to be a part of it all. With all the things done for ANY organized religion, I don't want to be part of any of them to an equal degree.
I want to be a spiritual person, connected with God and connected with His creation in a positive way.
Being Muslim is important to me and my spiritual journey but it is not important to me socially. I'm closer to God when I'm away from other Muslims to be honest. That's not to say that I'm closer to God when I'm with non-Muslims because that's not true either... I'm just definitely not close to God when I'm around people who frustrate me with their views on Islam or people who are flat-out doing wrong in the name of Islam (which is just the worst thing) and I can't seem to find a community of Muslims that inspire me to be better.
I hope that someday I can find that but in the meantime, I feel the need to focus on my religion in a personal, private way.
What will be transmitted to my children will hopefully be that everyone is on equal ground. There's no automatic superiority because you can never know what a person believes or even what they do. That God knows everything, humans don't. That any effort to be good and do good is an effort worth making. That you cannot depend on others to always be responsible for you and that you are responsable for your own actions and beliefs in the end. That love and mercy are important.
I don't know what point I'm trying to make. I don't really have one. This is just a personal post about where I'm at right now in November 2012. Who knows where I'll be in another few months or years... It changes little by little and as time goes by I grow as a person. I stall too, but that's just the way it goes.
I have some issues I need to work out about this religion. I find it very easy to get down about it all based on what idiot Muslims do in the name of this beautiful, pure religion. It's sickening... I always come back to it: Is Islam more than what Muslims are/do? It has to be... Because if it's not, then I'm surely not a part of it.