This article is for non-Muslims only. 18 PL : contains elements which include religious, social or political aspects that people may find objectionable. Readers discretion advised. Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love; this is an eternal truth.

I wanted to start this piece with “in the name God, most merciful, most awesome”, but then love in my heart whispered to my mind, “really Lings? God has a name? Merciful? Why?”. Recently my understanding of God has changed. I no longer believe in a God that has human emotions, I realized that the main stream understanding of God is a product of the human mind. The conception that God gets angry, runs some sort of merit system, punishes natural behavior like sex with fires of hell, and awards those that obey with virgins in heaven, is by my standards ridiculous.

Don’t get me wrong I’m nowhere near becoming an atheist. I still believe in God, just not in the conventional sense. Ironically, the incident that triggered this change was the latest violence in Gaza. I was very angry at what happened in Gaza. So angry, that i wondered how does such injustice take place. I sat and thought about the Palestinian conflict with the barbaric bastards with dangerous technologies, like I never did before.

Stuck in my head like a broken record was the question why? How does such a supreme entity allow such injustice?. I discarded my anger, took a deep breath, it felt like I was about to commit a crime. I abandoned the merciful God that is so bothered about sexuality. I detached from the love of God the savior, and gave up on the equally heroic Krishna. I told myself, the creator cannot be any of those; God is too awesome for all of that.

Deep in me, a sincere thought occurred, and I assure no devil or angel planted this into my mind. It was the same faculty that made sense of what infinity is, the same faculty that gasped what is happening in Palestine, the same faculty that my life depends on every second. A thought so honest, so simple that it has always been there, but somehow I failed to acknowledge it. Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong places?

The holy scriptures, scriptures that a self-obsessed God inspired to save mankind. That doesn’t even make any sense, why did I look for God in scriptures? I had the stars, the moon, and the whole universe in the sky, but why did I look down into books? Why did I allow tales of fallen angels heaven and hell which I cannot bear witness to guide my decisions in life? Why was I so afraid to look into my soul for God?

Amazingly I felt peace, which was the moment I actually understood God the infinite, the everlasting, the most natural, the honest mind defying truth. God does exist; evidence of God is all around us, asking for one is like asking for evidence of oxygen. What happened in Gaza is of oppression, God is no human persona to have any judgment on it, and neither did God plan the death of those women and children. We are responsible for what happened in Gaza. We allowed the bastards to oppress; we did nothing to stop them.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We prayed for God to save Gaza, the heroic merciful omniscience King in heaven that allowed that outrage to happen in the first place. I wonder why that made any sense at all. I had enough of all that nonsense. It does not matter to me what your sexual orientation is or who you fornicate with, or what you pray to. There is something seriously wrong with humanity, and it needs rectification.

Individually, we can’t do much, but in solidarity we can change the world. Gaza marks a spiritual revolution in me. I have restructured my goals in life now. Religion is of no importance to me now; I understand life as it is. I have come to realize that the greatest evil of the 21st century are entities that run organized religion, corporations, and governments. I no longer live to escape hell, or attain nirvana; I have decided to do all I can to help bring justice to the oppressed.

 

Lingswaran Singh has been a LoyarBurokker since he was 5. He speaks an open but disinterested language, dictated not by passion but that of humanity. Independence is his happiness. His country is the world,...

9 replies on “In The Name of God Most Merciful”

  1. yas, i'm sorry but I don't agree. it's not that we have forgotten god/gods.. it's that we have been either obsessed with the idea of these deities or just completely absorbed in our own interests. it's funny that the author started this piece with a statement that it's only for non-moslems when his humbled and hopeful words are worth sharing to all regardless of beliefs. thank you for your honesty.

    Also, we malaysians should stop being so one-sided. the labels do nothing but divide. research your truths. are you finding your thoughts echoing some ingrained teaching? or plain old gossip? it's easy to judge, but the truth is we don't know jack about what's really going on. it's sad for the innocent people of Palestinia and Israel to have to go through violence they didn't ask. Don't just jump into the most popular bandwagon, use some brains.

  2. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Templeton Adddres, 1983;

    More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.

    Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.

  3. It's KARMA. Nobody ask to be born a Palestinian, to worry every day about being bombed or an Ethiopian child dying of hunger. If we are all God's children, why are some born to suffer and others to have a good life, like Mahathir's or Nazri's children. The only reason I can think of is KARMA. You do something bad in your previous life, you pay in this life. As for Mahathir's and Nazri's children, since they did not take this opportunity to improve spiritually but instead turn bad, they will suffer in their next life. Maybe they will reborn as Palestinians.

  4. in malaysia, the easiest way out to comment about the israel-palenstein conflict is to condemn israel on the first instance, since we are a muslim-majority state. but ask ourselves: what is our sources of all the info regarding this conflict? aren't all news about this issue reported by all the tv, radio and papers in malaysia being filtered by bernama? are we sure we have heard from both sides? why we are banned from visiting israel? isn't it better for us to go there and take a real look at the real situation and confirm about all their condemnations about israel? even the usa doesn't ban it's citizens from visiting n.korea, iran, nor cuba, even if uncle sam declares them openly as rouge states.

  5. Lingswaran Singh,

    Just a few of points.

    1/ I am no Zionist or Israeli apologist. Anyway,I can always count on some Malaysians to be one-sided about the sins of the Israeli defence forces.

    Not too many Malaysians will discuss the sins of Hamas. I guess it is because we receive little news about it.

    2/ Hamas has a very bad habit of hiding weapons caches in civilian buildings and mosques, installing operational infrastructure amongst civilian areas and firing their rockets from within civilian areas.

    My understanding is that Hamas does not subscribe to any recognised rules of engagement.

    For Hamas to use civilians as a shield for their activities is reprehensilble.

    3/ The picture you have of Chomsky above is correct in that Hamas has not got much in the way of air power, etc.

    However, Hamas does have many rockets and does have many well-armed fighting groups.

    4/ There are many Palestinians AND Israelis who are sick and tired of the fighting and the killing.

    Unfortunately, these peace loving folks have been cowed in silence by the war-mongers in Hamas and Israel who are only interested in money and power.

  6. Ling, you should get Israel side of the story. Is it true that Hamas who is the govt chosen by Palestinians practises a policy to annihilate Israel, and have been sending bomb rockets into Israel, threatening the peace in Israel? But, because Israel has a superior defence technology, they are able to shoot down thoz rockets, so u don't see that much destruction. On the other hand, when Israel bombed Palestine, they couldn't defend well and thus you get to see thoz atrocities, and you blame Israel when the whole thing was actually tiggered by Hamas.

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