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When has Religion irked you personally and why?


Ideal Singh

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A pretty general question, but what I am looking for are the incidentz when someone else's insistence on pushing their religiouz viewz on you affected you personally?

Hmm... Here is an example: My friend was married last week to a woman from another faith, and they wanted to incorporate a lot of their customs (and language) into the ceremony. All went surprisingly except that my friendz mother couldn't accept that maybe the new couple wanted to make their own traditions...

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Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa

Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

I have had a bad experience also. A Muslim tried to force Islaam onto me, pretending to be doing this as part of what 'good friends' do to help out mates, some of you may remember me mentioning this in another post.

I did get very close to him, and I was at one point tempted to look into Islaam with the intention of converting. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I had a lot of problems at home, and these people can sense when someone is emotionally vulnerable and use that to exploit people. Also, my knowledge of Sikhi was not good and it was only after researching that I found out what I was about to lose.

Luckily, Vaheguru saved me through the help of a good friend who put me back on track and I'm so grateful to him. I recently took Amrit and when I think back to that time in Uni, I realise how close I was to ruining my life. Ironically it took a fanatical Muslim to change me for the better :LOL:

I just feel when someone is trying just that extra bit hard to shove religion down your throat it's usually because that person is insecure about their faith themselves. I have had this experience with some Hindu colleagues at work too. They just think all Sikhs are Hindu's inside because we believe in reincarnation too :roll:

Gurfateh

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Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa

Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

I have had a bad experience also. A Muslim tried to force Islaam onto me, pretending to be doing this as part of what 'good friends' do to help out mates, some of you may remember me mentioning this in another post.

I did get very close to him, and I was at one point tempted to look into Islaam with the intention of converting. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I had a lot of problems at home, and these people can sense when someone is emotionally vulnerable and use that to exploit people. Also, my knowledge of Sikhi was not good and it was only after researching that I found out what I was about to lose.

Luckily, Vaheguru saved me through the help of a good friend who put me back on track and I'm so grateful to him. I recently took Amrit and when I think back to that time in Uni, I realise how close I was to ruining my life. Ironically it took a fanatical Muslim to change me for the better :LOL:

I just feel when someone is trying just that extra bit hard to shove religion down your throat it's usually because that person is insecure about their faith themselves. I have had this experience with some Hindu colleagues at work too. They just think all Sikhs are Hindu's inside because we believe in reincarnation too :roll:

Gurfateh

Nice. I respect and admire. This line is classic.

Ironically it took a fanatical Muslim to change me for the better :LOL:

On to ur question IDEAL. didn't have any of this sort of experience.

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  • 3 weeks later...

When I was in college, there was a cult-like Protestant group that was spreading like wildfire. I saw some of my classmates get involved in it and act like they were brainwashed. What was kind of sad is that their technique was to find young, single, lonely-looking people (at the grocery store, in the laundromat, on the subway) and try to befriend them...not to necessarily be friends, but in hopes of recruiting them.

One time, about 10 years ago I was dropping a friend off at the Amtrak station I ran in one of my former classmates. She seemed happy to see me...too happy I thought. Sure enough, she launched in to a pitch to get me to come to a bible study. I politely declined. She insisted on pushing me.

"But, Jenny," I stammered. "I'm Catholic!"

"CATHOLIC??!!??" she retorted. "I always thought Catholics were anti-God!!

"Anti-God"??? Never could figure that one out.

I've met a few fundamentalist Protestant Christians that have left me convinced that these people are addicted to religion just like some people get addicted to drugs or booze. I really do not like people with additctive personalities, and I found thse proseletysers to be loathsome. I began to loathe them becaue they were driving a wedge in between me and the sincerity I felt when I worshipped.

Although, had it not been for them, I may never have had my eyes open wide enough to find the Gurmat path.

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I was riding the subway last year and picked up a freebie newspaper to read while I was waiting for the train. The newspaper was largely about the local music/art scene. I started flipping through the story, and stopped on a page showing a white guy with an alcoholic-lined face. The article described him as a local blues singer with a gravelly voice. The interviewer asked the singer how he got such a rough voice, and the guy said "5 shots of whiskey a day". The interviewer laughed...but a comment the musician made to follow up made me think that the comment was not really a joke.

The article went on to speak of a marriage that failed, passing out on the street after a perfromance, and a relationship with a Danish girl that went horribly wrong. All the trappings of living a life of maya.

But something made me read through the article. For some reason there was somthing about his vivid descriptions of overindulgence that transfixed me to the page. A life of serving, what? The devil?

Some people got just as extreme with what they thought was service to God.

Several years ago, I was a wide-eyed college freshman, away from home and friends for the first time, and realized that to adjust to this new life I needed to make friends, quick! I remember being introduced to a young boy named Rick by my best friend...and I remember his huge smile and warm handshake. "Hey! You are a new freshman too? Nice to meet you!" I remember hearing him sit in the hallways of our dorm playing his guitar. He was a music major, and was gifted with talent. I remember how he loved to make people smile with his music, and how he was quick to laugh.

I remember how he disappeared from school. I remember how my best friend used to ask "Whatever happened to Rick?" And no one seemed to know.

We found out what happened, not long after that. I was on the subway with my best friend heading to a very poor residential neighborhood. This was an area that was not usually inhabited by students due to its isolation from the rest of the city. As we got to our destination, we were climbing the steps up to the neighborhood....and we saw our friend Rick. We both shrieked with delight, asking where he had been. He told us that he had gotten married, and was sharing a small apartment with another couple from "the church"...and wasn't that great because he could dedicate all of his time to "the church." We asked him, what about his guitar playing? He said...no time, "the church" takes it all. Hadn't been to see his parents in a year, even though they lived 2 hours a way in a neighboring state. That was his life of devotion.

We left, and walked to our destination in silence. The shock took away our words.

He had fallen in to the same cult. We never saw him again.

Until last year, when I realized...the alcoholic, maya-filled, gravelly-voiced blues singer was my friend Rick. Gone was the wide-eyed love of life. And apparantly, gone was any love of God. I'm not a wimpy person, but the sight of my young friend that befriended me the first week of classes as a ragged alcoholic was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

It leaves me silently shouting WHY?? HOW??

How many more Rick's are out there? I'm afraid to know. Whether they are named Rick or Juanita or Makoto or Harpreet....this must happen everywhere.

It's scary.

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