Is the West’s goal respecting all religions? And, if it is, is this truly happening? In this Guest Voice post Iranian freelance writer and blogger Kourosh Ziabari takes a look at the issue of religion and respecting religions.TMV runs Guest Voice posts of various viewpoints. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers.
Violence against religion: Road toward freedom
By Kourosh Ziabari
Most of us have esteemed religions and creeds. We believe in a certain faith, prophet(s) and a holy book, pray to a unique God and struggle to behave in a way that pleases Him — or so we believe.
To followers of monotheistic religions including Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Islam, there is just one God who is supposed to be the owner and creator of the whole universe and its components. While believers might assign various names to this creator and possessor of everything, which is natural due to cultural and linguistic differences, it does not make any difference in the nature, unity and almighty nature of the Lord.
The thing is: we believe a single and unparalleled God has created us, assisted us and guided us through a firm path in his unity. Such a God who is able to design the construction of man’s mind with its endless capabilities, design the arrayed rotation of four seasons without any disorder — and design millions of flower species with special smells for each of them — would undoubtedly have no collaborator, and needs no help to manifest his privileges and powers. Otherwise, he would not be called as the “creator”.
Many of us don’t attribute each natural resource and power to a special god and don’t believe in a group of gods who co-work with each other to manage and maintain the world’s incidents. Such a belief is potentially unacceptable and rejected since all of us know well that creation is not a patrol job to be shifted by reserve guardians.
Creation means making something appear from “nothing”; endowing existence to something that was not existing before. By the exact means of the word, creation should be interpreted as an exclusive business which does not come from humankind.
Have you ever thought about the industrial or scientific inventions?
What do the innovators do? Do they create something new? Of course not!
They just use previously existing materials, fix and mix them together, handle them in a different way and produce something. I’ve to confess that their process of working is too
complicated, requiring creativity and originality which most of ordinary people lack — but their work is not to produce things by using their own-made “materials” and “tools”.
Such a clear and realistic way of thinking is due to monotheistic religions’ progressive doctrine that leads mankind towards advanced thought. Assuming numerous gods dominate rains, snows, days, nights, love, hate,childhood and adolescence in my opinion indicates the shortsightedness and perhaps illiteracy of some of our ancestors in ancient civilizations.
But this problem exists elsewhere.
We have the irreligious who don’t assume any creator made the enormous cosmos which they live in. They think that the world came into existence accidentally, without any former plans or schedule, and its inhabitants also “tumbled” on the earth suddenly rather than being “created”.
However, I am not going to criticize the viewpoints of non-believers — since believing in nothing is somehow a type of belief itself.
In this brief debate, I have also nothing to bring to the table to agnostics, atheists, seculars or the others who believe that religion does not play any role in the daily life. Of course, they aren’t concerned about “the other world.” They’re not afraid of punishment as a consequence of their sins and unlawful acts. They don’t worry about a superior observer who witnesses all of their deeds, rarely preventing themselves from “wining and dining”.
Sometimes, you may begrudge those who live and commit liberally with no restrictions, feeling responsible to nobody but to their desires and wishes, not bothering to take part in prayers and rituals and apparently enjoying life.
This doesn’t mean that a religious believer is deprived of material joys, but he tries to live in a way pleasing to his God, with little regard for superficial entertainment. He is confident that whatever he does will be luxuriously rewarded someday — and somewhere.
All of the earth’s 6 billion people have their particular religious, political and personal beliefs. And nobody is allowed to convict and interrogate them because of “having” them. Beliefs are an individual’s private territory and privacy is respectable, something not to be threatened.
But the question is how these personal ideologies and beliefs sometimes violate others’ privacy. Others who have certain kinds of freedoms and rights like us.
It is an accepted fact everywhere in the world that “freedom of religion” must be respected. All of us are free to choose our beloved religions and act upon them without being offended by others.
The interesting matter is that some of the Western countries believe in this “freedom of religion” in a slightly distorted way; it has become “the freedom of no religion,” or even “the freedom of not being bothered by any religion.” They declare that people are free to having no religion and those who are irreligious are under absolute support and security.
If the purpose was the protection of all believers and non-believers in an equal way without disr discrimination, that would be OK, but evidently, a goal of western states is not to advocate freedom of religion, but to propagate atheism and irreligiousness, while sometimes not protecting believers of Abrahamic faiths.
In some European countries and North America, some mosques are destroyed or replaced by railroads.
In Denmark, newspapers can publish insulting cartoons for a divine prophet under the pretext of media freedom. In the United States, to some, being Muslim is seen as a a serious threat and
makes everyone suspicious of you.
How did we get to a point where some American soldiers could allow themselves to point their guns toward the Holy Quran and shoot it? Is it because they see themselves as coming from the beacon of freedom and the other countries as being part of “the axis of evil?”
How did we get to a point in France where hijab-wearing female students could be banned from universities because of obeying the Islamic clothing and not dressing up in the strange western styles?
In Britain, the writer of “Satanic verses” is honored to receive the Knight title because of introducing some innovative ways of insulting Muslims and Islam.
In the Netherlands, a parliament member is called the “symbol of freedom” because of producing an affronting movie which insults those who adhere to Islam, and practice it in their daily lives.
I don’t know exactly that what will happen under the flag of “freedom” and “democracy” in the future, but it might be better to evacuate the entire world from a type of democracy which only deals with “insult”, “aspersion” and “outrage”.
I am wondering that whether this “Made in the West” democracy has other functions rather than spreading disagreement among people and exacerbating atrocities.
As a non-aligned, independent and freelance journalist, I prefer to be considered “stupid”, “uninformed” or “unlettered” if blasphemy and insulting the values of billions of people is a sign of “intellectuality” and “freedom of speech.”
Among many other things, Kourosh Ziabari has appeared on the BBC outlook program and is a member of Stony Brook University Publications editorial board. His writings have been translated into Italian, German , Arabic, Spanish and Bulgarian and have been published on several websites and online magazines.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.