How religion affects your daily life?

I am a muslim, only culturally though. So is my family. Where we're from islam is only in casual practice religiously, though it is "interwoven" in with the culture. Unfortunately there's a lot of of ultranationalistic religious zealouts who practice in the "extreme", think islam is superior and orthodox is a "scam religion" etc etc.... I used to be one of those intolerant people, but not anymore, I respect all religions now. But my father was one of those people and he made my life 'interesting'.

He always used 'scaremonging' to convince me that "ohhhh the orthodoxes hate the muslims, they are going to genocide our people if we all don't make big families to repopulate the homeland blah blah blah" so when i was 11-12 and started 'acting gay', he immediately 'emotionally disowned me' (I can't remember the word in english, sorry) and started his attepemts to guilt trip me out of being a 'homo'. Everything from screetching at me about how i don't support our ethnic people because gays can't have families, to claiming that i'd been 'liberalized by the degenerate west' and threatening to send me back home (we moved to canada when i was 8), to straight up beating me up for being the 'family shame'.

My mother on the other hand, was very accepting, for a time, until i was 16 and then she claimed it was 'un-islamic' for me to still be gay (she thought i'd outgrow it, apparently). She told me that if I didn't become straight and find myself a woman she was going to either set me up with a woman from back home or sign me up for conversion therapy. I didn't want neither, so i decided to become transgender. Currently, she is satisfied, she says that she'd "rather have a straight trans daughter than a normal gay son" Ok then. It hurts, but what am i gonna do, suicide?

So, yeah, it has shaped a lot of my past. In my daily life i'm still muslim today becuase i love my country, my people, and my culture, but at the same time, i feel like it's ruined my life. Or, at the very least, my parents have used it as a scapegoat for their constant bullying which has ruined my life. I don't blame them though. They are entitled to their opinions.

Anyway, sorry for the big and unneccacary personal post.

Weird, my brother is like that too. Extremely annoying, he always pray all 5 of the salah every single day. No problem with that, of course, but he and his wife always insist on screaming it. I used to be able to ignore them but it got more annoying due the Corona lockdown, now he always prays even more now and he always disrupts me when I want to sleep late or go to bed early even when I tell him "please be quiet". I don't know wtf wrong with them. Even when I explain to him "I pray quietly, why don't you do it like me?" he always makes up some performative excuse about how "ohhhh it's not valid if Allah can't hear you" and then he accuses me of being a 'fake muslim', 'westernized', 'soft', etc -__-

and i'm just like... "dude, i am not a 'fake muslim', i just respect other peoples right to quietness. is it really necessary to scream while you make duaa (personal worship) for the entire family at 2am ????"

Sometimes i think he is just insecure, so he is projecting and overcompensating for what he feels are his shortcomings.

Oh, lucky you. My family is not even allowing me to listen music today. No playing, no listening, I swear I'm gonna die

 

So "god" is hard of hearing?

I don't think that is how it works. A straight woman is not just a gay man who decided one day to not be a man.

 

Didn't get it.

 

According to my brother and his wife, yes -_-

"The louder you are, the more you get Allah's attention" / "The faster He can hear you" according to their 'logic'

Sorry, I should have been more clearer. English is my 3rd language and i never formally 'learned' it, so sometimes i make errors or use google translate.

What i meant by that was, in the part where i wrote "started his attempts to guilt trip me out of being a 'homo'.", I couldn't find the correct word so I just wrote 'homo'. There's a specific word in my language which means something like 'homo', and is usually used to refer to gays, but refers to feminine men. I realize that 'homo' in english doesn't have the same connotations (oops) - the closest words would be 'sissy' or i guess 'femboy', but both seem kinda rude so i didn't used them. Replace 'homo' with 'sissy' or 'femboy' and you can kinda understand better what i am talking about.

"I didn't want neither, so i decided to become transgender. Currently, she is satisfied, she says that she'd "rather have a straight trans daughter than a normal gay son"

"I decided to become transgender" is a grammar error, sorry. It should be "I decided to start my transition". Google translate messed that one up.

I was living as a feminine male, then i decided to start transitioning to female. My mother is satisfied about that because she sees it as better to have a transgender daughter who can 'pass' as a straight girl, instead of a regular son who is gay, feminine, and crossdresser. It hurts because she never accepted me before, and she only 'tolerates' (is satisfied) with me now. I hope that clears up the misunderstanding

Yes, I'm originally from albania, i live in canada now. Weirdly enough, muslims and catholic christians get along quite well, but muslims and orthodox christians have had many tensions before, mostly due to the breakup of the yugoslavia and serbia's trying to exert control over kosovo and republika srpska, blah blah blah.... I'm not gonna get into politics, in case i start a flame war. It's pretty hard to explain to someone whos not from there, lol

But anyway, yes, my brother is a hypocrite. I guess he just want's to feel more self righteous over other people. He often claims to be better than me and he always says "I came to the west and didn't westernized, I still retained all the islamic practices, I am in tune with my culture, blah blah blah" and every single time i always tell him "bro if you love 'the islamic culture' so much then why not go back? or move to some other nation, algeria, lebanon, saudi, qatar?" I know that he has had a hard time (see my last paragraph below) but really.....i don't think he needs to rub it in everyone's faces how much more muslim he is than everyone else.... Weirdly he says that he is ''more in tune with our culture'' and therefore better than me because he is decided to learn arabic.....yet we aren't of arab culture -_- He does not care though, he will do anything to seem 'more islamic', especially when he gets to claim superiority. It's like an obsession for him.

No we are Bektashi (Sufi). Arba'een (and a lot of the other Shia holidays) is observed by the Sufi too. Though, Sunni is popular with balkan muslims also.

Ah ha, sounds like your country is going through the opposite of what mine has gone through. Back in late 1960s the Communists decided that there should be no more religion, they destroyed all the churches and mosques and underwent complete ban on religion in albania, all religion was made illegal, as well as religious symbols, holidays, the Bible/Koran, and so on. But in 1985 the communist party leader died, and the person who replaced him had a calmer attitude to religion. He lifted the ban in 1990, and religion was restored. In the 90's there was somewhat of a religious revival of both catholicism and islam, but islam ended up being the most popular, due to the history mostly - albania was ruled my the ottoman empire in the medieval times. They brought islam, and we 'clung onto it'. Also because of the wars, in kosovo especially, where the orthodox serbians bombed mosques and tore down islamic heritage sites, rebuilding islam was seen as part of rebuilding the nation. This is a oversimplication, but you get the picture

You're right about my family liking islam though. My father was a teenager/early 20s in the 80s and 90s, so he has experienced the secular state and the return of islam. He has also fought in both the albanian civil war and the kosovo war and risked his life to defend his country and his culture, so i don't blame him for being so zealoutous. My brother too, he was 7 years old in 1999 when the kosovo war happened. And being the child of a soldier, he often times lived 'near the action' in the soldier residences where solders and their families lived (although it's important to mention that the war was targeting civilians too). He never had anything bad happened to him, but he witnessed the war 'first hand', as a civilian - he always tells the story about how one time he saw a mosque being blown up, from 25m away. And that alone was enough to convince him to "hold on to islam because muslims are being wiped out". I am too young to remember any of these things because I was born after the "great destruction of the late 1990s" so i know that i don't fully understand. I know he's tramatised and all that, so really i don't blame him for being so fanatical. But i wish he'd have a respect and be less annoying about it -__-

I'm kinda curious about your brother, though. How has been his experience with islam? Is he a fanatical just for the sake of being one? Does he has islamic obsession? Maybe he thinks that praying more louder and more often will solve all his problems, or he feels that Allah does not hear him. You mentioned that his wife is divorcing him, so maybe he has reached 'rock bottom' and is looking for something, anything, to hold onto his sanity, or whatever shred of hope he has left to keep is life from falling apart. Maybe he just wants to feel 'in control' of the situation.

 

Thank you for clearing that up. I know that garbage translate is trash, it also messes up things in the language that I am trying to learn now.

Because of my own issues I have to refrain from commenting on the family "tolerance" matters that you are talking about.

 

@musicals so you never went through any surgical procedure for converting male to female. You just started living like female? I m sorry but it takes time for me to understand fully. I apologise for it. But this knowledge of him/her is required to build rapport on correct grounds. You are from Albania and english is your third language. First two? If you wish to share?

 

Yes, i never had any surgery, and i do not want any sugery. I did start HRT when i was 18, as it was easy to get and i already was seeing a gender therapist for around a year at that point. My gender transition was more of a social transition - change my name, pronouns, etc. I was already wearing makeup and womens clothes, and had been growing my hair out for a couple years, so i looked very 'feminine' and i could 'pass' fairly well anyway, due to my chubby face and being fairly skinny, so there no need for anything beyond hormone treatment. I wanna keep my dick, lol

I'm not sure what you mean by "This knowledge of him/her is required to build rapport on correct grounds" ....

Yes, i am Albanian <3 and proud of it! My native language is "Gjuha Shqipe" (Albanian Language) as it is called. My second language is French, I learned it when i moved to canada because the place in canada where i live is primarily french-speaking, so i had to learn it. I never did get a opportunity to learn english formally but i picked it up casually by listening music, watching series, and reading and writing posts on forums and sosial media. And if it counts, i understand some arabic. Understand only though, not speak, read, or write it.

 

Wow, it is very surprising to meet someone who does not know about the orthodox role in the balkan/yugoslav wars I've always seen the yugo wars being referred to as the ''20th century orthodox holy war'' but i guess that not everyone refers to it that way, lol

The orthodoxes had a very big role, actually - it was the serbians (who were orthodoxes) who started their 'manifest destiny' as we call it, reckless expansion to build up a new nation ethnostate of ''greater serbia''. They took all the territories with a high population of ethnic serbs and annexed them into Serbia (Vojvodina, Macedonia, Montenegro) and forcible created smaller serb states in non-serb regions (Kosovo (albanians), Krajina (croatians), Republike Srpske (bosnians) ), sometimes genociding the natives because they saw the native religions (catholicism, islam) as 'culturally incompatible' with the 'superior' orthodox christianity.

As Radovan Karadžić former leader of the serb republic in Bosnia once said about the genociding of muslims in Bosnia: “Muslims will disappear, that people will disappear from the face of the earth if they start now. Our offer was their only chance. They will be up to their necks in blood and the Muslim people would disappear. In just a couple of days, Sarajevo will be gone and there will be five hundred thousand dead, in one month Muslims will be annihilated in Bosnia.” and claimed that he ''recognise ancient danger by the toxic all-destructive Islamic octopus that skillfully takes on various guises but which is with all its variability and ambiguity constant in its irreconcilable poisonousness toward the Serbian Orthodox being." (lots more of his quotes justifying the genocide can be found here: https://www.icty.org/x/cases/karadzic/trans/en/140929ED.htm)

And also, this article, which says about the things the orthodox church said and did : https://www.gfbv.de/de/news/the-serbian-orthodox-church-supported-the-genocide-of-bosnians-2804/

Also, it was not only Serbia, Greece also justifyed the orthodox supremacy by siding with Slobodan Milošević, who was most notably responsible for the destruction of Kosovo. Also, they had paramilitaries fighting alongside serbs in Bosnia, gave funding to the Greek Serb Friendship Association, etc. (you can read about that here: http://www.bosniafacts.info/history/serbian-aggression/unholy-alliance-greece-and-milosevic-s-serbia) And also, they refused to recognize Kosovo as an independent ethnic Albanian territory back in 2008, instead insisting that 'Kosovo is Serbia' - an insult to injury considering the fact that the Greeks supported a leader who, 10 years earlier, had nearly succeeded in a full-blown genocide, ethnic cleansing, and forcibly takeover.

This is another oversimplication, religion was only one of the major parts in the war. It played a big part sure, but the war was also about ethnicity, territory, and to a lesser extent, asserting superiority through imperialism.

Anyway, that is enough about the war, i think. I feel like i have derailed entire thread with this, oops.

Yes, much of Sufi Islam has historical roots in Iran i think. I know that the Qadiri tariqa, the oldest Sufi order, or one of the oldest, was developed by an Iranian and is now the most popular of the Sufi orders and influenced many of the others. I also know a little bit about the Nematollahi tariqa, that one is iranian too I think.

And the Bektashis do praise Ali too. But we are slightly different, we see Ali and Muhammad as 'comparable' to 'gods' in their own right. I don't really remember a lot about the other Sufi orders, but i think that most see Ali and Muhammad as equals, but on a lower level than 'divinity'.

Something similar happened in albania during the communism too, they used to execute or deport people who openly converted to any religion, or openly practiced a religion other than 'state atheism'. Religious leaders especially were punished hard.

I find that chart quite interesting though. Is Zoroastrianism really that popular in Iran still? I don't know much about it but I do remember that it was some kind of ancient Persian religion (correct me if i'm wrong...) and it's really surprising that a folk religion would make such a comeback in the modern age. But, is probably illegal and practiced in secret, like you said. Is the goverment working to destroy all 'folk tradition' or is it only the religions that are illegal?

I can understand the want for a not islamic government. Religion is always better when it's something you choose to practice (or not practice), instead of being forced on you by the government. Also being able to choose a religion instead of being forced into the state religion.

But your brother being supporting Israel and the USA is mildly amusing to me, lol. He loves islam and his loud prayers, yet he supports the two places that would be most intolerant of those things ?? Wow.

 

Thank you for the knowledge and facts given. I always had the least of knowledge of this area of globe. Literally I didn't know why fighting was going on there. Thanks for update.

 

Religion has impacted on my life hardly at all. I think “agnostic” is the word. If not atheistic.
My father took me to church for about 8 weeks when I was about 11 so the local vicar would sign a letter to confirm I was a “regular” churchgoer and I could then get in to the local Church of England school. Once accepted in to the school I never went again.
Since then, religion has been Nothing more than a source of sadness about how wars and hatred have shaped the way the world works... or fails to work.
The misery, and disgusting acts, in the name of religion make me very very depressed.

 

Interesting your thoughts are. I too have my own set of questions regarding religion besides the fact I consider and put myself on thiest side and believer of God at my guts.
These days I am fighting on the point that if we go to the level above all religions no matter what each of it says but they all agree to a common point that God exists.
Here is where I am fighting to find answer from past one week whether God is actually a reality or just an ideology that had emerged out from phychosis of human being.
So is it a human(s) among us human beings who considers and maintains the ideology that there is a thing called God and exists and He runs this world.(here your quoted thoughts meet mine that when He runs or say He is the creator of this world why there is misery and why we can't feel Him physically)

Now I am anxious about the living style of another group who does not have this ideology of God. How do they live? How do they treat another human being or any other entity? And how do run their daily business? Becoz for me behaviour as expected by religious texts has been my base or say as far as I remember since childhood I have found my default behaviour has been as praised by religious texts. (May be I am not being able to go deep down further in my memories)
Coming back in short I want to know on what ideology their everyday activities are based for people who do not believe in the ideology of God.

 

I am an antireligionist and apatheist who happens to believe that there is no supreme or superior being that created the universe or is watching over things.

I am a decent person who cares about others. I am nice to those around me. I help people where I can (I have worked with others to feed homeless people and I have handed out food and other things to people). I do not need some "superior" power threatening me or commanding me to be kind, I just am.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. So you don't pray or feel the need to pray?

 

If by prayer you meant talking to or making requests of "god" or any superior being then no, why would I talk to something that I do not believe exists?

I do meditate which is similar in some aspects to prayer but it is inner contemplation instead. It helps keep me calm. I got into it to deal with physical pain but found that it also helps me in other ways like keeping me calmer.

 

I'm Muslim. It's alright.