Papa don't preach: Hardline Islam 'breeding a generation of Egyptian atheists'

http://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/egypt-atheist-islam-463134

Papa don't preach: Hardline Islam 'breeding a generation of Egyptian atheists'

Published January 13th, 2013 - 05:35 GMT

Are Egyptians losing their religion?

“Son, it is time for Friday prayers, you will be late.”

“I am not going.”

“What? Why?"

“I am just…not going. I will pray here at home.”

And a discussion began where my friend pushed to know why her 17-year-old refused to go to mosque. After much coaxing, the boy said: “Why should I go where the imam keeps making me feel like an atheist, where my political ideology is under question and evaluated from a religious perspective, with the conclusion that I am an atheist?”

My friend stopped there. She was cornered and her son doesn’t go to the mosque anymore.

Another similar incident was with a mother of a 13-year-old, where her son refused to go pray at the mosque because the imam kept slandering unveiled women and the boy couldn’t take any more insults to his mother.

Religious education of their kids can be the biggest challenge facing middle class Egyptian women, specifically their boys because they are weekly exposed to sheikhs in mosques .

Egyptian society is probably the only one where millions of boys and men flock to mosques for Friday noon prayers regardless of how religious they are, or whether they in fact perform the rest of the week’s prayers. Egyptian men might be partying Thursday night, drinking and dancing, but they wake up on Friday to join the prayers .

More often than not, these boys and men eventually lean towards stopping whatever is deemed “sinful” as they grow older. This is why it is widely believed that Egyptians are religious “by nature”.

Regardless of whether the family is conservative or not, religious or not, Friday prayers are above question for Egyptian boys; they must go. Call it tradition, hidden religiosity, or even hypocrisy if you like, but this is who we are .

We send our children to international schools which give the worst Arabic and religious education possible, so we get private tutors to teach them religion. Regardless of how irreligious we are, this is what we do. We want our children to know their religion and we want them to be as good as they should be when it comes to their relationship with God.

We are a people who believe in heaven and hell, reward and punishment, sin and good deeds. We live by the saying that “good deeds erase your sins”, and we do both; we sin at night and wake up to Friday prayers, hoping for God’s mercy!

A shocking moment for me was when my 12-year-old suddenly started disrespecting sheikhs. Although I am not exactly a model of religiosity myself, it pained me to see such disdain from my boy towards those who are supposed to be holy men. And the worst part was that I could not defend the sheikhs, given that I do not want him to listen to the monstrosities these men utter.

We are now all torn between the reality of our religion, and the message coming from the bearded bunch. What are we supposed to tell our kids? Listen to the sheikh, or don’t listen? Go to the mosque, or don’t go? Should we monitor every speech they hear, every imam of every mosque, and pick a suitable rhetoric? Or should we drop this religious education altogether?

Now mothers are wondering what happens when their sons stop going to mosque every week. What happens if the religious curriculum at schools is modified to fit the ultra right-wing, conservative and mostly distorted ideology of our rulers?What happens when our children are pushed away from their religion?

Our rulers are letting those who defame and deform our religion speak in mosques and on television. They are leaving those who want to form morality police to do as they please on the streets. They turn a blind eye to those who are working to destroy the largest, most important Islamic institution in the world; Al-Azhar.

Left to themselves, our Islamist rulers will succeed in breeding an atheist generation. But will they be left to themselves? I think not, January 25 is impending.

By Rana Allam

Could the rise of Islam in Egypt lead to a generation of atheists? .................

This backlash was predictable ... Egypt just won't tolerate rigid forms of Islam.. they aren't going backwards even if the road is difficult.. Hey Abu, what do you think?

 

Well, yeah. Hardline religious folks of any religion will make people doubt them. That doubt then turns into atheism.

 

It's happening with Christians here in the US too.

I gave up my religion, and my wife and 3 of 4 children did as well.

When I think about it, I know a lot of atheist people these days.

 

Well.. I have mixed feelings on this.. I think it would be a shame to give up their faith entirely, but certainly right to question the bearded ones.

 

When you have a message defined by suffering, punishment, and filled with constant insults, you invite young people to question the very core of the belief system.

'Backlash' is a good way to describe it. However, the results IMO are best for all of us. Religion needs to go.

Voluntaryism

 

I would like to hear from Abu, moon, Mayerling and others on this issue.

 

I don't think it's giving on faith completly. You spend 12, 13, 14, 15, years of your life doing something, you don't forget it. You still have it with you. An example of this is one of my teachers was raised as a Catholic. She's now an atheist, but from time to time she finds herself muttering some prayer.

 

Look at the obvious here.. If the bearded one tells a boy his mother is sinful because she doesn't cover her face, her son KNOWS that's a lie.

 

There's that.

 

Maybe some people.

I gave it up and now completely despise religion.

 

It depends on the experience.

 

Well, as Westerners learn more about Islam, there will be another sort of backlash... against the Islamophobes.

Consider that, janpor ....

 

And you're also correct there. It happened to me.

 

The night after 911, I had to attend a business dinner and I was positively in a blue funk. A senior exec with IBM leaned over and said.. This will all work out. It will take time, but Americans aren't stupid.. they will learn about Islam and the Arab culture and in a decade there will be Shawarma stands on every corner. He reminded me that there were Vietnamese restaurants and manicure salons everywhere.

- - - Updated - - -

The night after 911, I had to attend a business dinner and I was positively in a blue funk. A senior exec with IBM leaned over and said.. This will all work out. It will take time, but Americans aren't stupid.. they will learn about Islam and the Arab culture and in a decade there will be Shawarma stands on every corner. He reminded me that there were Vietnamese restaurants and manicure salons everywhere.

 

Education will set them free, it is not because they are becoming atheist it is because they are becoming more educated to understand that Islam especially the hardcore or extremist Islam is wrong. That is why Islam is very much against freedom, education and knowledge I won't be surprise if Muslim leaders start to send out religious police to enforce their will and suppress freedom and education.

 

The religious police in Saudi Arabia had been reduced in numbers and warned not to be pests. They were thrown out of the International Book Fair in Jeddah and have been rounded up for retraining.

Your assumptions of course are negative..

 

FYI.............

 

I am an American expat who moved to the Muslim country of Indonesia 12 years ago. I have see a big change in Muslims. Islam is a religion of rules - they call them pillars. Pray 5 times a day, go to the Mosque on Friday, etc. I believe most cultures that have adopted Islam come from a strong tribal background - where you must follow the leader for survival. Abstract thinking will only get you in trouble. And so this carries into Islam. With the exception of a few religious leaders, most Muslims generally follow the traditions like robots, but never really think about religion. However, they are very defensive about their religion, and the prolonged wars against Islamic countries (Afghanistan, etc), have stirred up anger against Western countries.

In the 12 years I have been here parabolic TV and ever increasing exposure to the rest of the world (through imports/exports + tourists) have put a whole new perspective on life. The local TV programs are increasingly sexy and the internet also exposes global ideas.

I see a dilemma with many young people. While clearly seeing the contradictions between strict Islam and the behavior of the Western world, they really have no alternative ways to think. Atheism is a huge leap for someone who hears the mosque chant and sees their peers going through the usual Muslim prayer/mosque routine. In time, Islam will collapse (as will other religions of the world). But in the interim 50 years or so the best thing we can do is to maintain good relations whenever possible, stay out of other countries business, give up the idea that democracy fits everybody, and try to tame your Islamiaphobia.

 

This is why I'm optimistic.
It may take a generation or two, but the kids are smart.
They will figure out that blaming everybody else for our faults and being full of hate and promoting death culture is not a way to build a healthy society.
The process of growing up has began and no number of 7 century Imams is going to stop it.

 

You need to do your part as well.

 

Islam is probably the most Abrahamic religion that encourages education and knowledge. Islam encouraged the building of libraries etc at the time when these type of buildings were being destroyed by Christian based religion. However, in hundred years I expect all religions based on past persons to disappear. The only "religions" that will survive, IMO, are those based on Earth being our god.

 

Listen to Ala'a Al Aswany on it.

For a long time now Saudi Wahabism has been spreading into Egypt.
It's competing with the world famous moderate Al Azhar.

Saudi channels come in two types

The mad beards and this kind of trash currently being shown on MBC that they buy from the USA and broadcast here.

Our kids are caught in the middle of US and Saudi Wahabi madness!

Tell me Margot if you were an Egyptian teenager what would you be thinking after watching the Wahabi beard on one channel and this on the other?

[video=youtube;ZA1aP5IDglo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1aP5IDglo[/video]

 

Yeah, Man vs. Food is just destroying kids' lives...

 

World famous Egyptian author Ala'a Al Aswany on the Wahabis influence in Egypt

[video=youtube;sjZrmeg3EtI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sjZrmeg3EtI[/video]

 

I can't get the video to play.. I get an error message.