While surfing the net yesterday I saw something that really caught my attention, and even though it is not my habit to pick on innocent bystanders but this one really shows the chains of religion on (what seems like) a young man who is trying to understand what is the right thing to do. When you read and understand this you will also understand how it is very possible for believers to murder babies in the name of god, since even their own mother will not escape the harsh religious and cultural sentence.
A link got me to a site called “turn to Islam”, a forum with people discussing many things, but this one looked special, check it out
There is no information about this young man, but from the way he uses English I think its a safe bet to say that he is living in the West (“Blow off steam”), and it also seems like his mother has been divorced for a very long time, without it being a huge deal, also an indication that this post is not coming from someone living in Arabia. Even if this person is not living in the West it is still a testimony for the terrible problems that religions causes, in this case Islam, but to be honest it could have easily been any other religion.
“Zina” is a very strong word, it does not translate well into English and it carries with it very strong meaning of fornication and adultery, the punishment for this “crime” is death in some Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran (who knew, right?) and can also be imprisonment and lashing (separately or a combo), the normal procedure in the Arab world is stoning the couple.
This might be a good time to say that views differ on the subject of the punishment, and that it is much more a cultural thing then the actual word of God in the book, however it is done in the name of religion, and in the case before us it is very easy to understand that the writer is above all in a state of overwhelming fear that his mother will be stoned.
Let’s think for a moment about how this could play itself in a modern secular family. A young adult has a reason to believe that his mother is having sex with a guy who he know is still married, he could be concerned about the future, the guy’s intentions, his mother’s feelings etc. He might be brave enough to ask his mother to have a serious talk with him, and he might discover that the guy is getting a divorce, that his wife is actually cheating on him for years, or any other thing that would make the situation look differently. Our believing writer here does not have a chance.
He is torn between fear and the need to show solid evidence against his own mother so that his brothers and sisters come to his help in removing the sex offender from their home and lives, the whole part of him thinking about placing a hidden camera in his mother’s bedroom so he can film her having sex (!) only to show it to all his siblings and go after her with the proof he so desperately needs to save her from stoning.
The totalitarian nature of religion removes that thought of the individual, even of the group, we can see how he has no concern for his mother’s feelings and sexual needs, to the guy’s family or to anyone in this situation, he is obsessed with following the religious process and stamping his mother guilty.
Scroll down and you will see the sound advice other believers give him, “get your brothers and kick him out” is basically it, no one stands to protect that mother, no one gives pause to any kind of human feeling, its all God’s prescribed movements that they are taking, and we should all be very concerned that in November of 2011 this kind of robotic behavior is displayed, because if they care not for their own mothers that will not care for our children.