As humans, we ask questions. Be it a child asking his mother for a treat at the grocery store, or a student asking a professor a question about micro-cells, we are constantly questioning things in order to gain knowledge.
However, there are deeper questions that beg to be answered: Why are we here? What is our purpose? What happens after we die? How do we determine our after-death fate while we’re alive? What makes a person “good?” Who is in control? Are there consequences for our actions?
These questions are fully based on morals and beliefs because there is no scientific proof of any other answers. That’s where religion steps in. We turn to religion to help fill in the gaps and make sense of the questions left unanswered.
By definition, religion is “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.”
Religion, like many things, differs among cultures and races. Most Muslim people are Islamic, most Indians are Hindus, most Caucasian people are Christian, most Chinese people are Buddhist. You get the point. (Now, in no way do those statistics always hold true for every single person of every race, but generally, these stereotypes are reality among these cultures and races.)
Growing up in a certain geographical location usually pre-determines the religion you will be most susceptible to learning about and believing in. Growing up in the “Bible Belt” of the southern United States, one is very likely to grow up attending a church of some denomination of Christianity, while growing up in southern Asia, one is most likely to learn and live by Islamic beliefs.
If you were born in another country, it’s more than likely that you wouldn’t have the same faith you have today. Just like if you were born to a different family, you’d be a completely different person than who you were raised to be by your family.
Each person in this world has the ability to have faith in something, just as we are all able to form our own thoughts and ideas. Faith is the trust or belief in something or someone. Having and practicing a religion is an act of faith and growing your faith.
So, if a Christian has their faith in their religion and a Muslim has their faith in their religion, who has any right to tell the other that their faith is wrong? Isn’t that like telling someone that they’re thinking wrong?
As strongly as some believe in their religions, some people have trouble believing there is a greater power. One of history’s most talented musicians, John Lennon, wrote and produced a song called “Imagine.” Through the lyrics, Lennon uses this song to direct his audience to imagine the world as simply the world. To imagine that this is it, our life here on Earth is all we get.
“Imagine there’s no heaven, It’s easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky.”
All we know, for a fact, is that no one knows the answers to the seven questions I listed earlier. But that’s OK, because Jesus Christ gives Christians those answers and Muhammad gives Muslims those answers and Hindu gods give Hindus those answers and Buddha gives Buddhists those answers.
You have the answers based on what you believe in. Will it always be the same as someone else? Absolutely not. Will you always agree with everyone else? No way. Do your answers that you have through your faith and your religion give you any right to judge someone else’s? No. Who are you to take away their religious freedom? Who are you to degrade their relationship with their god?
Religion and faith are social concepts created to give us hope and satisfaction. Using religion as a sense of superiority is counteractive of the very basis of most religious teachings. Religion is a beautiful concept that exists to fulfill your soul; it’s not something to kill over or to debate about.
If you have faith in or a relationship with a being of greater power than you, then you would probably say it provides you with hope and peace in times of great sorrow, and thankfulness in times of joy. Why would you allow yourself to take that away from someone who has it, too, simply because you don’t have the same view?
*The above article is an op-ed I wrote in 2015 that was published in the Asheboro Courier Tribune. It has been edited for clarity and flow.
On July 11, 2017, I read an article published by BBC releasing the details of violence that has been erupting in West Bengal, India between Muslims and Hindus. They report that one man had been killed and dozens injured over an offensive cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
I decided to edit this old article of mine in hopes that more would hear and understand this message: Just because your faith isn’t the same as someone else’s, doesn’t mean they’re wrong. We have faith because we cannot see. How can you tell someone that what they do not see is wrong and what you do not see is right?