Wisconsin, USA

Started by fireheart47, December 16, 2024, 05:18:37 AM

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fireheart47

Dear Quran's Message forum,

My journey to Islam is a recent personal choice. For me it is a private personal thing, rather than belonging to a community and interacting with other people who identify as Muslim. I believe the essence of our beliefs can be found in many who don't identify as such, and that my obligation is simply to worship God and treat others with sympathy, empathy, compassion, respect and give to them when I can.

The ultimate reason why I believe Islam is attractive, is because the concept of س-ل-مً and ש-ל-ם as a sense of completeness is important in resolving identity issues. As a Latino in largely Germanic society, I've felt half much of my life. I look darker and different than my mom and her side, and the majority of people around me. Yet, I was raised here and culturally I feel more comfortable. I don't like either the conflict and dislike from the Latino community against people who are white and English speaking. It is difficult to find peace with these parameters.

I've longed to be part of this society, yet my struggles have prevented such from happening. When I was a kid I was popular and didn't feel different, yet that quickly changed. I started to suffer from sadness due to school misbehavior, shameful sexual experiences, and unable to get the emotional support I wanted. Doctors prescribed me psychiatric medication, and then my condition worsened. I would cry and yell, and from my family's perspective it was part of my disease, yet later as an adult I realized it was part of the side-effects of the medication. I was prescribed around 7 different psychiatric medications before I became 16. I believe this affected my brain development and is one reason for my current suffering.

At 16 I was sent away to a wilderness program and boarding school by force for selling and smoking weed, skipping school, failing freshman year and kicked out of summer school because I missed 3 days of summer school, because I stayed home sick, not because I purposely didn't go. At the wilderness program I spent 2 months hiking outside in Utah with the expectation I'd be back in 30 days, and was transferred to a boarding school, despite my that wilderness colleagues got to go home. There I had been told I was going to go home after 6 months and stayed for 2 years.

The authorities in charge didn't care about my excuses, they simply wanted me to accept my situation and to work the program. In order to do that I began to gravitate towards Taoism and Buddhist thought to cope with the trauma. Eventually I would realize the skills I learned during this time would help me immensely.

With the guidance of a staff member I began to read the Bible, and began to think more about it. I grew up catholic, yet I would often sleep in church and doubted the idea of God early on in my youth. I felt agnostic or atheist.

I began to smoke weed and drink again two years after program, which was 1 year after highschool. I didn't go to college, and quit making music (my intended profession). I think my lungs reacted poorly, because in highschool we used to smoke out of soda cans and I would ignorantly make pipes out of axe spray cans. Reflecting on this causes me to think about the lack of guidance we had because smoking weed was illegal, taboo in certain families, and we had to hide it, and also the difficult chemical environment we have to navigate in the modern world.

During this time I learned about Arabic, Islam. I would go in chat rooms. The shame of smoking and leaving music, influenced me to talk about controversial topics and bully people. Then I think someone attempted to hurt me by putting dangerous substances in my underwear, and also began to receive phone calls and other strange activity.

During this time, I decided to study German. When I was a kid I would play WW2 videogames and WW2 movies. I was fascinated by Nazis and went through a neo-Nazi phase, despite having Jewish friends and other types of friends. Learning German later in life helped me make sense of this, and provided me with information to learn what I believed in before was false. Although my family didn't like it and I felt alone because people didn't receive me, rather I continued to feel like a foreigner.

During and bit before college I began to seriously read the Bible again and tried to live the words by forgiving people and helping others. Early on I experienced strange things, which led me to believe I had sold my soul to the devil. I met a Uber driver who told me you can't sell what's not yours. This led me to learn about Satan and devil in Bible with help of people like Dan McClellan.

I finally went to college, transferred schools, took semesters off, and barely graduated. My health is declining, and I'm not very productive. It is difficult to study and to accomplish what I intended to, which was to garden and study plants.

Near the end of college I went to a wedding and drank heavily, I ended up alone and drove home, stopped at a Walgreens and hit my head against glass door. That's when I stopped drinking and stopped smoking around that time. Since then I haven't drank nor smoked weed, yet I smoked tobacco recently and felt terribly ill.

In college I met a Saudi from Najran who gave me calligraphy pens and books, and eventually my father bought me a Qur'an after always telling him my opinions about it. I knew about Hebrew because of Jewish childhood friend. I began to study it from a skeptical point of view, then began to believe more in it's authenticity and true value. I still believe that religious scriptures have some flaws and that the simple teachings (Surah Al—Bayyinah) are the most important.

Much of what I've learned about Qur'an I've learned in the past year and mostly in the last couple weeks.

Islam to me is about being 100% me, and not feeling half-Latino or half-less, and at peace with who I am. I believe science confirms this also because we are all unique organisms products of meiosis, and all DNA analysis requires the statistical grouping of other unique individuals, which excludes outliers, relies mostly on modern living samples (not distant ancestors), and prepares conclusions which are meaningful to the pre-conceived boundaries between people groups. When compared to plant genetics, plant morphology and evolution found in fossil record (300MY), we humans are all so very similar(>1MY).

Islam is also part of my Christian faith, which is simply my reverence of Jesus, who I always believed was a prophet. As a Christian I was non-denominational, and attended church dinners or prayed at home instead of going to church physically, yet sometimes made exceptions. I study the Bible and learn from what others say. I question doctrine, dogma, and tradition, in order to seek truth. I believe Jesus embodied the teachings found in the Qur'an.

For me, Islam is a concept, and there also exists a religion we call Islam, which is organized. I feel there has been a big miscommunication which causes divisions amongst good people. It causes people to fight, demean and kill each other in the name of the all-merciful all-encompassing and living hidden God, we call Allah.

In the Bible, Jesus preaches about Kingdom of God, and in many ways it is a rhetorical tool to unite people, while the Kingdom of Judah was being destroyed by Roman Empire. He is quoted saying that the Kingdom of God is among those who accept that his good works are not from Satan, which would mean a Kingdom divided. He is quoted saying the Kingdom of God is neither here nor there, but amongst the religious authorities who mocked him. And so I hope to further holistic thinking, which sees the whole and focuses on the relationships between things, rather than analyzing and breaking everything apart into groups and describing them in isolation.

Thank you for reading this and may Allah bless you and keep you on the path.

Fireheart47




fireheart47

Dear Quran's Message forum,

I have been careless. The previous message was written on mobile phone, in order to preoccupy my time in a moment of distress.

Here are more details regarding my choice, which might help others.

One of my Jewish friends invited me to celebrate Hannukah. As they studied to become a Bar Mitzvah, I began to study Hebrew myself, as a wanna-be, mostly copying the letters and doing simple exercises. My main interest was calligraphy. During this time I was also interested in Albert Einstein. Although this may seem irrelevant, it was important, because it helped me feel more connected and interested in Arabic and later the Qur'an and finally Islam.

When I was in boarding school, I read some books about Taoism and Buddhism, yet mostly spent time thinking rather than learning or feeling like I belonged to those religions. One thing which stood out to me were these verses which made no sense, and it was said, these were the most popular verses, because they had not been understood yet. They said, the goal is to arrive to the conclusion that we cannot make sense of it. Similarly, I was given a modern book by a staff member, which was entirely incoherent, completely random made-up words, which didn't make any sense at all. After our workdays, we watched Stone by Edward Norton, and I spent a lot of time thinking about this fictional religion, Zukangor.

In highschool I became friends with African-American people, who were interested in ancient Egypt. After many years of knowing them, I began to consider what they said, and figured it would be good for me to learn what they are interested in. I was amazed by how much African-Americans have discovered about ancient Egypt, even though they are criticized and made fun of, because people think they are not related, and delusional. Learning from them helped me make later conclusions, even though these people on YouTube criticize Abrahamic religions, because of the violence they inflicted on their people. It helped me learn how to discern truth from conjecture, and the importance of being open-minded, and the benefit and advantage one can receive if they do that. Similarly, I try to be very open and honest about my influence by them (Baba Heru, Chester Higgins, Ashra Kwesi, Dr. Ishakamusa Barashango, etc...) and merciful with my criticism, because black people in America have inspired many great things, and many never get the recognition they deserve. For example, many think George Washington Carver was just the peanut-butter guy, yet he was a pioneering biochemist, and also wrote many articles about sustainable farming and soil conservation. He was originally a painter, specializing in botanical art, then became one of the leading minds in the field of chemurgy. He was also a devout person, and believed God showed him things in nature.

In college I met another friend through church dinners, who also had an open-mind about other religions and cultures, yet was devout Christian and was surrounded by many other people. These church dinners helped introduce to me how different people perceived the Bible, and how fluid movements of believers and their attempts to create a free-spirited movement often crystalize and become another sect. The dinners taught me to overlook strangeness in worship, and differences in beliefs, and find people who cared enough to have dinner with me. I maintained some friendships, yet stopped attending them. Later, I attended a Bible-study group which also was helpful to be together with people. Throughout my journey I've met many people, some strange, some imposing, mostly normal and casual. I try to keep an open mind and find the truths in what people say, rather than try to ascertain whether everything they say is true or not, trying to question things, especially after I strongly believe something and then find out I was wrong. This has been my learning technique also when studying on YouTube and listening to what others have to say.

My friend from Najran was a colleague, and he invited me to Eid al-Adha sacrifice, and dinner. He bought me Arabic calligraphy pens and books. He never talked to me about Islam, nor tried to convince me. He simply treated me with kindness, and when I talked about Jesus and giving money to homeless people, he told me wisely how it is also important to talk to them and spend time with them, because some people use money to hurt themselves, if I remember correctly. He talked about blessings and good deeds. Later I began chatting with someone from Egypt, who also talked about the same and recited Qur'an to me, teaching things about Islam.

Thanks again. May Allah guide you and bless you.

Fireheart47



fireheart47

Important: For those who are taking psychiatric medication, consult your doctor if you want to stop, because stopping immediately can also affect behavior and mood in a bad way. The boarding school suggested I stop taking my medication while I was under their supervision, with the support of a psychiatrist, who helped me ween off of the medication. In college, I was temporarily prescribed psychiatric medication until we came to an agreement, after I told them I did not want to take it because of side-effects and childhood experiences. I know people who take psychiatric medication, and I do not bother them about it, yet I have told them my perspective. It has been very important to practice forgiveness and live in the present moment.

The boarding school was based on Alcoholics Anonymous program, and ABC method of analyzing emotions. They believed we can choose our emotional responses and outlooks on life's problems. I don't believe this is completely true, because some reactions are uncontrollable and it is unfair to expect that of others, especially if they are not in the same condition as you (authority, freedom, privilege, social class, ethnic class, appearance, etc...). However, it is a strength one can learn with practice, and it has great rewards. In my experience, and from wisdom of ancient Egyptian fans, physical illness and chronic issues can affect your mind and its capacity to think rationally. I've heard them talk about upper and lower self. The upper self is the conscious self, the good and the bad elaborate ideas in our mind (ex: wisdom, intelligence, machiavillian, evil plans, etc...). The lower self is the unconscious self, the good and bad instinctual responses in our body (ex: fight-or-flight responses, gut reactions [saving a person, helping, not just bad], urges, etc...). They say illnesses, especially in the gut and related to diet, can affect the influence of the lower self over the higher self.

fireheart47

Additionally, after studying plant science, I warn others that plants cannot move a lot, and thus can not run away from predators, so they use chemicals to protect themselves. Plants can be dangerous, and are not to be messed around with.

fireheart47

One of the things which I've been reminded to consider is my privilege to be able to do what I do without immediate consequences. For example, the privilege to read the Bible and the Qur'an. I also come from a place with resources, education and other advantages. If it wasn't for the struggles, I wouldn't have pursued trying to understand the Qur'an and scriptures the way I have. I feel as if good to acknowledge the constructive role of bad things to alleviate worries. Yet, it is the material advantage which allows me to do what I do. My hope is that I can flow and be part of the many.

I feel as if I should still provide my perspective when it is needed or requested, however I seek to be more conscious of the differences between people, and what role I play and how I influence. Forgive me if I misguide you. May God guide us. May God protect us from people and keep us and our loved ones safe.