How we can co-exist - either you're an atheist or religious individual

Religion and Politic are the most avoided topic in a conversation. Because, both topics often cause unnecessary drama, even causing fragile relationship. It appeals that often we can't really let our ego wears off. It is truly a personal choice. During a discussion, there is always a thought provoking questions here and there but that is simply because the person who writes that, wanted to challenge our understanding or even their own understanding. We can’t impose our beliefs to someone, but we can present them examples and valid proofs backing up our reasoning. The rest, let them decide to accept or not. It's not about which religion or politic is the most righteous but it's about embracing differences.

Before I go further, let's loosen up a bit.

Religion can be seen through many lenses. As the background, I don’t associate myself with any organized religion but I view scriptures through the lens of story, mythologies, folktales and try to connect what’s written to real life events. I also use scriptures to connect it to literature, art and movies.

Literature written all over us, contains religious cultures, symbology, mythology and reference even without our consciousness. We don’t understand, and we won’t understand unless we read the source of it.
The most influential reference to literature and art is the bible. The bible reference are scattered in books and movies. As an example, the infamous tree of knowledge, the Christmas, adam and eve, so forth.

As a basic atheist, lots of them tend to argue god doesn’t exist. They often stuck on creation theory, trying to justify, it doesn’t exist without looking further. Meanwhile, there’s what I call as advanced atheist, they look depth into the scripture itself, examining what was wrong, and what does seem inappropriate in order to make sense of everything.

I read through articles containing religion and there’s always people, who try to impose their believes, trying to prove their points are valid and seems rude. However, I am aware of fact, when it comes to written response, we are missing the tone which is crucial in determining the next responses. So, keep in mind, there’s always the missing tone. The choice of words might be harsh but you never get to see how they convey it, in a written form.

I recently conduct a small discussion with my peers, both of them coming from different background; a Muslim and a Christian. I started the discussion with a simple question
‘ What do you think Jesus looks like?’
My Christian friend replied ‘ I don’t know, we don’t really know how he look like, even though it’s painted on the wall of our church’ – this point made me understand why jesus has so many different portrayals and even meme about him.
Simultaneously, my Muslim friend replied ‘ I don’t think it’s necessary point, to even think on how they look like. The point is to learn their personality’—
His points linked me to Charlie hebdo events and how every muslim will get heated when someone attempted to portray their prophet as human being.
Then, I further question them, ‘Do you know the tree of knowledge? What is the translation in your language’
My Christian friend says ‘ According to our language, it translates as forbidden tree, not a tree of knowledge’
The other one said similar thing ‘ it’s also a forbidden tree, and that we don’t necessarily need to know which one that is, but it’s simply forbidden’ – this sounds to me like a blind beliefs because he wasn’t trying to find out other references as to why it was forbidden.
I further explain, knowledge and forbidden are clearly two different words. I also explained further about scriptures text, that when it gets translated, it somehow could switch the meaning and often a lost translation, therefore the chance of different perception exists.

My Christian friend replied ‘ I personally think it’s forbidden because when we eat the fruits which the tree was bearing, we could become like god, capable of knowing the evil and the good.’ – his points, were somehow sparks another question ‘ so, god loves ignorance then’

He furthers told me ‘ I have so many questions from the bible itself, then I ask my (father), he told me ‘ you have to feel and leave your logic away while reading the bible. He also asked me to pray before reading so I won’t go astray’. – and that is why the roots of radicalism, the roots of atheism.

Additionally, The scriptures in their language, is clearly different from the global version. Their language, does not have complex vocabulary and that, the source of knowledge was English and Arabic. Further, in their language, god doesn’t have a gender. It’s a neutral. It’s neither He or She. Meanwhile, The English version, it has a gender which is “ he” and even the Arabic ones shows that it’s a “ he”.

The conversation ended, as three of us have to attend events meeting. What I discovered was during the whole conversation, none of us raised our tone, none of us trying to impose our beliefs. It goes the same, with a person, I recently have had the chance to discuss religion and mythologies. If only everyone wears of their ego, leave them behind and talk through different lenses and learning to accept differences it would be a constructive discussion.

One thing for certain, religious and political discussions are endless. The only way I find to stop, is when I need to get my coffee or the other one have to do something. With all the knowledge in the world, millions of brains, just a simple sentence could mean so much and that it would take another year, to find the connector to finally reach final conclusion.
My point through writing above is to show that we could talk about religion, we could talk about politics without wanting to kill one another. It’s our ego, who drives us to do so. We don’t have to get sick when people talk about religion, because well it is an interesting field of study, if you find it uninteresting, try to switch your lenses. It goes to same, to every knowledge existed.

Do you want to learn so called “ ancient alients” ? It’s all there, the evidence is scattered in our world and that aliens, is not what Hollywood told us so. Do you want to learn hybrid creatures? It’s all there, each religion has it, want some evidence, there’s relief in temples for example. Don’t just see religion as justifying whether god exist or not. Switch your lenses every now and then. You’d get to see as to why our society has certain unspoken laws, rules and social standard.

Being atheist for me means, I am not bind to any of rules and that I can step out of the circle to learn more, seek knowledge, challenging myself each day. And that, neutralizing my points of view, standing in the middle of everything and observe.

Namaste...