One thing that kept jumping out to me was how the text kept
coming back to how if Allah chose you, then you wouldn’t be doing wrong or
evil. It highlights to me one of what I believe to a major driving factors for
the spread of religions: exclusivity. If the text can arouse the suspicion that
there may be a degree of truth within it to the reader, that reader would
likely feel very left out if Allah hadn’t called him or her to His ways. I
think that this is a very important part to drawing people in because by simply
making a conscious decision to praise Allah, those individuals are able to
become part of a very exclusive group; a group consisting of only those which
an omnipotent being “chose”. So a paradox is created within the believer in that if they believe, but are not chosen, they get destruction in the end. If they are chosen, however, they get paradise. It seems then that a person can alter themselves to meet the qualifications of what a chosen person does, thus making that individual "chosen".
You raise a very interesting point about the validity of humans engrossed in religion. Do we, as humans, want to be involved in a religion because we genuinely buy into the teachings and messages, or do we just want to feel like we are included? What qualifies as an individual as "chosen" versus an average participant? Why is one valued so highly over another, despite the fact that they are both a part of the same exact religion and abide by the same teachings?
ReplyDeleteI definitely felt that exclusiveness of a religion while reading selections from the Quran. Religions, in general, have always led me to ask what about the people that aren't religious. Where do they belong?
ReplyDeleteThe exclusivity of the religion really surprised me as well (like everyone else said). In response to Amanda, it is hard thing to grapple with. In such an exclusive text, it seems that those who do not adhere to the region would be completely struck off and almost banished, which is a frightening thought.
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