This is a sequel to another article I wrote back in January, Believing in God , which is meant as a reminder to myself most of all, as a moment of sensibility and wakefulness that needs to be recorded to refer back to it in other moments of weakness of mind and forgetfulness.
I talked before about how believing in the existence of God is a matter of the heart first and before any logic intervenes to confirm that feeling. If an unbeliever's heart is hardened against this belief, no argument no matter how logical can turn that heart, and to him God will only be a debate issue raised and resolved repeatedly without any definite conclusions unless God takes over that heart.
Religion is a different matter. Once you've acknowledged the existence of God you have to use logic to choose how you would follow Him. That is, for a true believer in God, the most important choice ever made in life. If you truly believe in God, it follows that you recognize Him as The Creator of you, of humanity, of all other living and nonliving things, of time, of this universe itself. Follows this also that He knows everything that has ever been or will ever be in this earthly universe and what lies after it, He knows and sees it all, He is everything and He is everywhere. Lastly the recognition of the incomparable humbleness of your powers, your judgment and your knowledge next to His, meaning you should submit. The submission part is why following a religion is the most important decision to be made ever. It will reflect on every action and every other choice that will ever be made by you in your life. Following a religion means that you will have to consult with who you have acknowledged as the source of all knowledge, the source of all wisdom, and see everything through His eyes as He has created them to be seen and act based on that.
The concept of choosing a religion may not be very familiar in the middle east as almost all of us are born into a religion. Being born into a religion doesn't mean that you don't have to make that choice, on the contrary, we make that choice everyday. With the first lesson about religion we hear in our lives while our brains are old enough to understand and analyse things, we start comparing what we hear about who is God with who we suppose or believe God should be, and the comparison either brings you closer to God or pushes you away. With everything we choose to do or not do, to hang on to or let go, to indulge in tasting or to throw away, we make that decision. Some people's way of making that choice is by following a religion in name only, while nothing in their daily actions or choices submits to the power they have acknowledged as their Creator. Religion can never be confined to a prayer in a mosque or a church or a temple, or just a feeling you carry around in your heart while making everyday choices that contradicts it. The whole point of religion is like the manual on how to know God and how to practice that in the life He brought you to. So, it's kind of a contradiction if you say you believe in God, and that you have chosen a certain religion as a way of knowing Him, but you refuse to act as He wishes and declare Him confined to where prayers are formally held only. It means something has went wrong with the logic chain of belief. You can't believe in Him as The Supreme Wisdom and refuse to obey Him at the same time and call that common sense. That means you haven't really decided on that subject yet, you need to revise your chain, you need to revise your basic choices, you need to make that unmade decision.
Note that I am not talking here about the mistakes, the disobedience we all commit everyday unintentionally or because of moments of weakness no matter how great the mistakes are, as long as we know ourselves in the wrong, as long as we repent, as long as we wake up everyday determined not to repeat the other day's mistakes, determined to try again. It means we acknowledge Him and His power even if we keep on falling out of pace because of our weakness, but we're on the right track. I am talking about refusing to call them mistakes in the first place.
Many cultures have decided to put religion aside and "keep God in the heart", a statement that clearly contradicts itself as you can't carry a belief in your heart and put it aside at the same time, due to their experiences with eras through which religion has over-ruled. Religion has been the most commonly used tool by tyrants to oppress their people. There way has been through claiming themselves the executors of the word of God on Earth, and declaring anyone who opposes them as infidels. The problem has never been with religion itself but with the people themselves. If they haven't used religion as their tool it would have been anything else. Religion is but a constitution that its followers believe has been put by God Himself, which means it's the most proper of all, the more just than any other constitution that can be written by His creation. Denouncing a divine constitution because we have allowed people to misuse it instead of denouncing those who have misused it and blaming the whole thing on religion is fatal, fatal to this life and fatal to the afterlife. As a Muslim I can only speak for Islam. Islam has proofed itself against its misuse by making us all equal. None of us is divine, none of us is sacred, none of us is to be followed blindly without further discussions, none of us has the power of declaring others infidels. Whenever Islam has been misused it has always started by breaking this golden rule of equality and turning a human figure into a sacred being who is almost worshiped and followed like God is. That actually falls in Islam in the category of polytheism and thus all the evils follow. It's not the fault of Islam itself then, it's the fault of those who have broken one of its basic golden laws. The answer then is not putting Islam aside, it is actually in committing to its laws and never underestimating any of its commands or giving ourselves the right to classify some as "important" and others as "to be followed only if you're in the mood for it" unless clearly stated in the book of God or in the sunnah of His prophet that a certain practice is optional.
Your life and consequently your afterlife depends on a basic belief followed by a basic choice. So do yourself the favor of allowing the mind and the time and the sincerity for making a solid decision on that unbelievably fundamental subject. Make sure you are aware of what you believe in your heart and be honest with yourself. It's never too late to reconsider. And at the end we take full responsibility for our beliefs, our choices and consequently our actions.
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