What struck me first of all in the reading was the discussion the image that we give Muslims: “Islamic terrorist, strapped with explosives, ready to be martyred for Allah, eager to take as many innocent people with him as possible. […] What has not changed, however, is the notion that Islam is a religion whose adherents have been embroiled in a perpetual state of holy war, or jihad, from the time of Muhammad to this very day.”[1] I am not sure where I want to go with this thought, but I guess something that bothers me is that human nature tends to place blame on the whole rather than the single. What I mean by that is that since Muslim’s are to blame for 9/11 all of them, in the whole world are bad. Since a few Catholic priests raped some children there is something wrong with all Catholics. One of the things I feel most uncomfortable, or perhaps do not understand, is what is exactly meant by a holy war. Perhaps our misconception is that the Jihad is not an act against a non-Muslim but one that is launched against acts of villainy in order to preserve “moral order”. When I look at Islam as a whole, I have seen it as a religion and state are unified or work as one. Then as Aslan went on to discuss how Buddhism and once Xianity in the Holy Roman Empire, were “enforcers” I felt dumb. A few weeks ago in the catholic group some were discussing how we should vote in the election-if it was morally right for us vote democratic since Obama is not 100% against abortion. I find myself now wondering if for Xian’s especially, do we really have a separation of Church and state here when we are looking back on our Christian morals to figure out how to vote. While I don’t find this completely wrong, I am not sure if it is completely right.
One thing I find really beautiful about Islam are the 5 Pillars. I am not sure why, but meaning and tradition behind it, and the emphasis put on Allah through it makes me wish we had something this sweet. I think it would be totally tight to have a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, like seriously totally wicked cool. I once tried to fast during Ramadan and got really hungry, so it failed. What if Christianity was less about objects, and more about experiences-in prayer, fasting, tithing? Sometimes I think we lost these, or lost the meanings behind them. And then I wonder too if some Muslims do this only out obligation of how serious most of them are about it. Xians are serious about things they want to be, sometimes extremely serious about them, and then lax or don’t give a turd about others. How would Xianity change if we were obligated to tithe, put as much emphasis on prayer and fasting, or had a Jesus walk.
[1] Reza Aslan. No god but God. Pg 79.
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