I feel extremely frustrated, agitated, disenchanted and cold. Passionately upset and cold at the same time, weird eh? Well it happens at times. This isn’t a post about religions and conflicts but merely a post about internal emotional conflict when it comes to ones faith, belief, personal meaning of God and acceptance for who we think we are.

Going back to passionately upset and cold, there are times in life when one is so angry and so passionate about a certain cause they can kill for it. There are other times when such a situation leaves you cold and makes you shut down. I today, for the first time felt perhaps a real insight into why people care enough to riot, murder or demolish homes for their belief in their Gods or religions.

Religion, belief in God or non-belief in his/its existence form a sublime part of who we truly are as people. It defines our intrinsic characters; it helps define our principles, it helps form our perceptions of right or wrong, it gives structure to our philosophies, it gives us an identity in terms of where we comes from, where we are going and how we will deal with things on the way.

We do not talk about God or our faiths all the time nor do we consciously see our belief in any real form in day to day life. Occasionally we have intellectual conversations about it with our loved ones and friends. We debate each other’s views and understanding of the subject. We try to decipher what God means to different people, why people believe in God and why some don’t. Since it is something we do not talk about often, the words are new. When they spill out of our mouths we constantly wonder if those particular adjectives have truly summed up what we mean or whether the description we have just given is enough to really explain to the other person what we mean by it. Yet we do discuss what we truly feel unknowingly opening ourselves in a vulnerable manner to the other person by sharing some of our deepest thoughts, beliefs, convictions, confusions and motivations. We expect to learn more from these discussions but more importantly, as human beings we expect to be accepted as who we are.

It is a big enough thing to simply declare that ‘I believe in God’ and to actually sit down and try to explain to someone you care about what exactly he means to you. Especially when you know this person doesn’t believe in God. I have a definition of God and idols or a person who is omnipresent and omnipotent do not fall under that definition. Yet I believe my definition of God to be true and enough to reassure me. I do not believe there is a conventionally accepted definition of God especially in a world where there are so many varied religions, faiths and perceptions of God such as the infinite mind. My definition might be totally different from the entire generations of my parents, aunts and uncles but it is mine and I believe in it. It may not be the same God as theirs but I believe in God.

I opened my heart out to someone I love explaining my belief and I was told that under conventional definitions I do not believe in God. According to them, just because I do not believe in prayer to some deity but instead I believe in strife I am more an atheist than a theist. Does anyone have the authority to tell someone what they believe in is not really the right thing and that they have named it God but what they believe in is not really God. Can God be put into brackets and faith be defined?

What hurts me is that the statement does not question my faith nor does it ask me to defend it. It does worse than that. It simply decreed that what i believe in is untrue under some conventional norms. It shows intolerance of my belief. I am not averse to discussion and explanations but isn’t this a form of non-acceptance? Nobody needs to agree with you on your beliefs. Nobody needs to believe what you believe in. But for a subject like God, does anyone have the right to say you are wrong in saying you believe in God because it does not come under any conventional brackets? Is there any right or wrong in such a space? Isn’t assuming that someone’s faith is in a wrong category a form of non-acceptance? Isn’t that disrespect for their belief?

So what happens when someone refuses to accept your beliefs but insists on you being wrong or in the wrong bracket? What happens when someone refuses to accept at face value when you say ‘I am X’ and he still insists on saying ‘you are Y’? How helpless, agitated and forlorn you must feel? It is possible to ignore strangers and walk away from them unhurt because it doesn’t matter if they refuse to accept your identity. But you feel gutted when someone you are close to refuses to accept this belief of you, this identity of you. It’s almost like a son saying ‘dad I’m Gay’ but the dad saying ‘no, you also like women…you are simply confused. You are in fact very straight. You can call it being Gay if you want by giving it your own definitions but you are not Gay under the conventional definitions of Gay’. Where is that son supposed to go without acceptance and understanding from his own father? At least in this case one might argue that there is an agreed definition of who might be Gay and might not be but when it comes to God or faith there has never been such a conclusive agreed upon definition.

I feel cold. I feel like I’ve hit a stone wall. There are tears burning at the back of my eyes but a part of me says to hell with it…I don’t care. But as a last thing to say, tolerance of others feelings, opinions and beliefs is very important. You can believe in whatever you want to believe but you have no right to take someone else’s belief and cut it up into little pieces especially if you aren’t talking about a science or proved law but a subjective feeling that defines a part of someone’s identity.

I felt like I understood a rioters emotions for a second. No, I am not in any way justifying what people do. I am only at a basic level trying to explain that it comes from a deep sense of frustration and agitation. We all have the right to be who we are without someone telling us we are wrong in our belief. A Muslim has his faith in his Allah, a Hindu in his various Gods, a Sufi saint in God universally and an atheist in his disbelief. We are all entitled to hold our faiths and definitions without being wrong, without being challenged, without being questioned about our most basic beliefs. This is tolerance…tolerance of each other’s beliefs and respect for it. We have the right to support our convictions with reason and explanations. We as human beings do not have the right to strip someone else’s convictions. We have the right as free beings to question someone else’s faith but we do not have the right to tell them that what they believe in is actually wrong. That is intolerance…whether mild or vehement, it is intolerance none the less.

Tags: Atheist, Faith, God, Religions, right, Theist, Tolerance