My Skeptical Thoughts by Suleman Nasir (book club suggestions .txt) 📕

The contemporary world is oscillating like a pendulum, between secularism and extremism. Where excessive modernity and secularism have rendered religion irrelevant, on the other hand, some fanatics have molded religion to a war-horn; little do they know that without humanity and spirituality, religion is naught but only a set of rituals. By failing to adopt a well-balanced approach regarding religion or by employing warped and distorted versions of religion, we have failed badly in turning the institution of religion to our advantage. Owing to the torn and shredded standing of religion in the present-day world, the days of it being the opium of the masses are consigned to the past, unfortunately. The wolfish lust for power and affluence, dearth of morality and empathy, selfishness, and unkindliness are the aftermaths of casting off religion. Without religion, man is like a weed growing wildly.

It is still not late; the sands of time have not slipped from our hands entirely. By resorting to a fair, unprejudiced approach and reviving the deserving prominence of religion in our individual, as well as societal lives, we not only triumph in this life but can also earn a lofty place in the afterworld.

Chapter 7

The Weapon of Mass Instruction

“Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferules, without words of anger, without bread or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you seek them, they do not hide; if you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you. ”

–Richard de Bury

By any reckoning, a book is something that envelops magic from cover to cover. A book encompasses a whole new world, wherein one is ensnared in its beautifully woven web of words and refuses to return. A book not only indoctrinates us, strengthens our perspectives but also provides us with a congenial company. Hours or minutes spent engrossed in the pages of a book whisks its reader away from the worries of day to day life. A book is no less intoxicated than any other intoxicant; those who get drunk on it derive catharsis from it. Books are also an effective theriac for sadness, as they absorb our somber thoughts and prompt our cognitive activities.

A book enables its readers to experience thousands of lives by simply sitting in the comforts of their homes and libraries. An author inscribes adventures, escapades, triumphs, failures, and other experiences of his entire life in black and white, that a reader imbibes within a small amount of time and procures advantageous instructions from it, thereby equipping him to live his life in a much more fulfilled manner.

With the augmenting sway of technology, the vogue of reading has taken a back seat. Libraries and bookshops lay barren, while internet cafes and gaming hubs burst at the seams. This is not an emblem of a developing nation. By eschewing books, our society is weathering an intellectual famine. It is an acrid reality that our generation is the last one to have a semblance of affinity for books.

We must give a kiss of life to the trend of reading, so that our young ones may relish in all the intellect and pleasure that a book offers. A book is a faithful companion that speaks to us in its subtle ways. All we have to do is to pay heed to it and save this treasure from being thrown to the wind.

Chapter 8

A Rainbow Nation

“We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Wherever on God’s green earth, we inhabit ourselves, we may end up with a populace whose culture, religious rituals, customs, and traditions might contrast with that of ours. It is often witnessed that rituals that may be sacred for the believers of one religion may turn out to be blasphemous for the votaries of another religion. Eid-ul-Adha and Christmas are conspicuous cases in point. Slaughtering of cows and other domestic bovidae is hallowed for Muslims, as by doing so they commemorate Abraham’s sacrifice sprouting from his unwavering love for God; contrariwise, cows are creatures of unassailable reverence and enjoy the status of a god in Hinduism. For Hindus, slaughtering cows is tantamount to an egregious violation. In the same vein, at the twilight of every year, Christians all around the globe observe Christmas as the day of birth of Jesus; in Christianity, Jesus is reckoned to be the son of God and the second person of the trinity. On the other hand, Muslims hold Jesus as a penultimate prophet and strictly negate the notion of him being a progeny of God; as per the fundamental tenets of Islam, attributing anyone or anything with God is a flagrant and unpardonable sin. Though Muslims and Christians both concur with the prophesy of second coming of Jesus, but their views on how he departed from the world vary; it is a Christian belief that Jesus was crucified on a cross by the Romans, while Muslims are of the view that he was called back to heaven alive. These are only a few examples out of many innumerable ones. If religion is held akin to a flower then its sects are the petals that amount to it. Islam is polarized into two predominant camps: Shiites and Sunnis; Christianity into the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism; Judaism into Orthodox Judaism, Hasidic Judaism, Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, Humanistic Judaism, and Messianic Judaism; and Hinduism into Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism There also exist some intra-cultural divergences like language, region, caste, creed, color, race and sex that bring people at loggerheads. All these differences and variations have made adhesiveness of humanity a prospect as inexistent as gold dust.

The reason why there is a surge of intolerance among us is that we are being exposed to an absurd idea of tolerance. We reckon that tolerance alludes to explicit acceptance of all those rituals, customs, and traditions of other religions and cultures, that are antithetical to that of ours. This is preposterous. The word tolerance is self-explanatory; it means to tolerate something unacceptable to us. We need not accept or concur with anything that is incongruent with our religious views or our societal norms, but it is incumbent upon us to be respectful and exude kindliness in our conduct with devotees of other religions or cultures. Every man must be confident of his religion, but he should be tolerant towards other religions, for every man has his own way of reaching out to God. Religious beliefs are a matter of personal choice; every man has been awarded with the freedom and right to enroll himself in the religion he deems apt for himself. Tolerance is the true assessment of a civilization. It is by the virtue of intolerance that the earth is coughing blood. Sectarianism, extremism/radicalism, racial discrimination, and terrorism are child of the intolerant behavior of individuals. An effectual panacea to these ills is to erect a rainbow nation.

‘Rainbow nation’ points to a peaceful and harmonious co-existence of all ethnicities, religions, and races. The beauteous nature of a rainbow lies not in a single shade, but in the montage of all seven colors that are entirely diverse from each other, yet remain side by side. In the same line, our beauty lies in our diversities and our strength is enshrined in our unity. Regardless of every distinction, whole humanity is the family of God. Thus, unity is the only port in the storm of intolerance; we ought to erect bridges not walls, for before everything else, we are all the equal citizens of the world, and thereby only suit in togetherness. It is a truth universally acknowledged that differences exist among us, and there is nothing despicable about that; the only thing that welcomes upheaval and disorder is when we refuse to accept our differences and try to edit others according to our own frames of mind and beliefs. Before oppugning other’s religious or cultural preference we must ask ourselves that who has afforded us the right and authority to do so? Judging is only God’s domain; we are not authorized to do so.

Our creator has limned the sketch of this world with a multitude of colors, if He were to dye it with a single color, our world would have been an insipid and dull creation, contrary to as it is today. No artist appreciates his artistry to be met with ridicule or contempt, so how will the great artist, who painted the whole universe with beauteous and distinct colors, allow his creations to be met with derision and disdain.

Chapter 9

Men Do Not Cry

“Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.”

From cradle to grave, members of the male sex are being indoctrinated to reflect strength, valor, and masculinity in every act of theirs. Traits, like being athletic, rationality in decision making, being hard-nosed or not being touchy-feely, are imputed to masculinity and are widely encouraged for men. While, characteristics like being emotional or sentimental, sensitivity, and passiveness are deemed effeminate and are depreciated for men to opt various standards are set for both males and females by societies they reside in. People do not bat an eyelash to an aggressive, garrulous, and vitriolic nature of man, but if a female were to exude such traits, she will surely bring about a hornet’s nest to her ears, for she is expected to be meek, modest, passive, and laconic. The sum and substance of the matter is that all the aforementioned standards and criteria are merely social constructions, and do not pivot on the sex of an individual. Sex and gender are as different as apples and oranges; an individual can be born a male in reference to his sex, but whether he is masculine in his attitude or not rests solely upon his own volition.

Whether a boy of ten or a man of forty when sheds tears or shows sentiments, he is branded as weak and feminine. Aggressive, athletic and adventurous nature of men is by the dint of raging levels of testosterone in their body. But it is not a logical ground to curb him from being sentimental.

Sorrows and predicaments of life are blind to sex and gender. Both male and female weather myriad of emotional tempests throughout the time of their life, and everyone, regardless of sex, has the prerogative to allow the tears to trickle down when the pain turns ungovernable. Being too hard on oneself will only aggravate the suffering. There is no shame in crying. It is a natural mechanism that ameliorates the emotional burden to some degree.

We all, regardless of our sexes and genders, have permission to grieve. It is true that crying does not solve our troubles, but it triggers a placebo effect which grants consolation to us to some scale. Tears speak and advocate for us when our words fail to do so. Tears of a bereaved man depict how beloved the departed soul was to him. Tears of a man being jilted in love reflect how pure and true his love was, notwithstanding the unexpected ending. Tears flowing out of the failure of some sort show one’s desperation and helplessness. Tears of a man, who has been wronged, are so powerful that they summon the king of heaven to his help.

It is time that we redress and recast the standards that we have set for both men and woman, for everyone is a sovereign of the kingdom of their own being. Let us spurn the falsely spread notion that men do not cry, for they do and they rightly can. How beautifully Ahmed Faraz has put it:

Compulsion is necessary, but grief is the burden of the hour,