Look at the moon, not the clouds

When I read about depression and its symptoms in people, I am amazed how they are applicable to nations (as a whole, beyond individuals) as well. In that sense coulsd you call a nation or society depressed? if yes middle eastern societies, in general, are good examples for depression at national level.
Can a society be manic-depressive? Or schizophrenic?

There are principal flaws in the Shia belief which is totally against what Islam was or claimed to offer initially. One thing that is stressed a lot in Qur'an is monotheism and the uniqueness of God and that he has created the world alongside with the rules to govern it. Superstition has been attacked from the first days of Islam and that ideology gave the new Moslems' minds the courage to get free from chaos and go to discover those rules. Now after so many years we are defying those early principles and the chaos is back in our minds and lives.
I am talking about Emam_e_Zamaan and Tavassol.

If we, the moslems could take the pain of believing that God is not there to take care of us, nothing is going to change or to be different for us, and if you don't take care of yourself and your people nobody including God will.

I am approaching forty. I feel I am getting into the famous mid life crisis. This is somehow difficult to manage these days, you should take care of the work and the family, you don't want your kids pay for your hesitation, no time to think about existential questions and no solitude, Which is alright, that is my choice. The worse thing is the feeling that you do not know exactly who you are and you are not understanding and doing things properly especially concerning the belief, values and ethics.

Is God Fair?

I am really oscillating between belief and disbelief. The image of god the way which is explained in Abrahamic religions has some contradictions in it. He is all powerful and able to do anything and he is fair. At the same time under his command the most unfair things are happening. There are two possibilities for me, the first one is that God is not fair, or fairness should be redefined.
If I am capable of preventing innocent people from suffering , but I don't then I am not fair, at least in human standards.

I don't believe in the good nature of the human being. I think we are animals, like many other animals that if not instructed will operate exclusively under the influence of our instincts. The difference, I mean the big difference is in our intelligence.
Look at the small kids and toddlers, how selfish and cruel they are (with smaller ones or weaker) and if there is no do and don't from the parent they won't realize the good from the bad (the human values ) by themselves. Conclusion: the human values and what we know as humanity is the product of the human mind and intelligence, a system of values is a must for social life, otherwise we never could come to have a collective life in a big society.

I am reaching to a painful and disturbing conclusion concerning God and religion. There is no solid proof (the kind of proof we like and we are used to in science and our everyday life) for the existence of God. I have rased and told as if such thing exists and that God as defined in Abrahamic religions is such an obvious concept. No doubt, there are signs of him being there but they are signs mostly backed up by our biased common sense.
I would not even listen to anybody who claims to offer any solid proof about existence of God.
Does it really matter? Isn't that the same thing as Molavi said: the people of reason (philosophers and scientists) got wooden feet?
Believing in God and rest of it is a very personal matter (I don't like widely encouraged concept of collective activities in religion which avoids the "wandering about" and "Doubt") , a matter of heart and not reason.
In that case what religeons are all about?

Ahmadi nejad does not deserve the position he is holding. He is dealing and talking to international community the same way he would and is resolving national issues. He is making a very easy military target out of Iran. If he continues to behave irresponsibly (as a president) I don't think after a while any foreign country specially Isreal would need any strong justification for any preemptive strike against Iranian targets. Actually Ahmadi Nejad is ruining very quickly what khatami had done in 8 years.
May be Ahmadi nejad is what is needed at national level for people and the moderate elite to find out a way out of this mess just for the sake of Iran and the nation.

The whole concept of the necessity of the existence of the religious elites to make people understand the Quran is a fallacious one. That was true when the majority of the people could not read but now considering that most of the people can read we do not really need those guys in their traditional forms. Good translators and literature experts are needed more a million times. In Quran at the end of the Sura of Smoke (Ad Dokhan) it is explicitly affirmed that Quran has been created simple for people to understand (in arabic though) so that people can use it. If clergies have been using Quran for their own purpose by interpreting the clear messages into not really clear populist propaganda is again related to the unavailability of a nice simple translation that people can use. For me the language is the most important barrier not the clarity of the messages.

I was talking to a friend of mine about how I am thinking about life and specially about God and religion. The comments which are made concerning the people's beliefs should be very careful. First of all my friend is a strong believer in Moslem beliefs as a whole and in Shia teachings in particular second this matters are not part of his preoccupations at all. I had a hard time to get out of the discussion that I started myself and that finally was possible just by admitting that I was wrong and mislead by reading just the literal translations of the religious texts in general without the proper interpretation.
Shia teaching for me is more of a political movement rather than a religious one. Shia doctrine is heavily loaded with political biases which consequently shapes the shia traditions and practices, which I think is practical. For me it is using religion for a political purpose, even a national one.

I have got three english translations of Qur'an. This is a shame that we don't have a popular farsi translation that you can take and read like any other book. The translations are either ugly or full of gramatically mixed up sentences. You would say whoever did these tranlations did not know enough either farsi or arabic.
The oxford calssic collection is the best one to read like a book but not for making refferences. The only problem with it is that the name of the sura is there only in english.

Prophethood?

I believe prophethood is a spiritual move starting from humans. Prophets are smart and thoughtful beings who started the move toward the meaning. Unlike the traditional believes, I believe the messengers of God picked up the torch by their own initiative and their conviction of the status quo being awfully wrong. I don't believe God chose any of his messengers. The difference between the successful and not successful religions goes back to how smart has been the corresponding prophet and how deep has been his spiritual experience.

Happy Ramazan
This is the beginning of Ramazan. I don't fast and I don't believe in God the way the majority of Moslems do. But from bottom of my heart I envy them. I miss the days that (not so long ago!) I thought there is a purpose for whatever happens. I still believe there is a God out there but I admit I know nothing about him.

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It is a long time now since my last post. Well I don't have had enough motivation to write anything. I have gone through a mental storm, I don't know what I believe in any more. On the other hand I am not reading good news about Iran at all. Not so encouraging!
Anyways I hope I can write something, that helps me.

I lost my son. Ryan passed away 4 months ago. Without any warning, no sign, no illness, no nothing. In a beutiful day of august, when Rosie took him and his brother for a bath, he just fainted and that was it.
It just happened when we thought everything was going to be alright, it was 3 months that I was at my new job and they were just back from a pleasant 3 months visit to Iran.
Once, when they were in Iran, I told a colleague that I could not remember Ryan's face and I was scared, I took a few of his picture and put it just in front of me at work. We miss him so much, I am patient, one day we will join him, that is the silver lining.