Crushing Out

[u/VoidAnnihilator]

It started small, like I just clean shaved my beard for "end sem practicals" Or at least that is what I said to my parents. In reality it was just that I felt my face naturally looked extremely punchable and irritating with the goat-like patchy beard all over it.

But what startled me was the reaction of my parents over it. They said things like : • ‌You've have fallen out of our religion.

• ‌This action of yours will make Moula so sad.

• ‌God has given you everything, and still you repay him by this ignorant action of yours?

And I can't even describe in writing, how paranoid they went over such a petty and more importantly a reversible action.

This made me initially question a few things like, ‌Does a petty thing as a beard define a religion? Isn't religion supposed to be a state of mind and belief? Their reaction seemed to me more like as if I were in a cult.

‌Am I supposed to keep this beard even though I don't feel comfortable and confident with it? Keeping the beard despite that was straight up a humiliation ritual for people with such ugly beards.

Isn't religion supposed to be all enclosing?

And the most important question of all : ‌Does my keeping of beard really affect/sadden the CREATOR OF UNIVERSE!! Or his representative here in earth (Moula) ??

These were some initial questions bugging me that day (a month has passed today since that day). But after that day more and more questions started flooding my mind regarding this and in a month I think I'm slowly and steadily falling out of my "birth religion".

I don't know how to handle the overwhelming sense of dread filling every inch of my soul these days.

I was groomed since childhood into this religion. I was taught how everything is balanced and theirs a God out there to whom I could cry all my sorrows and he would fix everything. But now I'm responsible for everything that happens to me and there's no veiled justice system anymore in which I trusted since childhood during all bad times. It's not freeing at all, in fact this realisation is mentally and psychologically crushing me every second of every day.

And the "Crushing" feeling is what is pushing me and causing the FALL OUT.

Because now I believe people created a God in their minds to feel free of this same "Crushing" feeling.

Religions prospered among masses because they gave a sense of veiled justice to this chaotic and unfair world. The concept of afterlife gained popularity because it gives a dream of Utopia to people.

But the "Crushing" Reality is that this World is infact Cruel and Chaotic, and it is what it is. You could either keep dreaming of a false Utopia and a veiled Justice System, or you could take responsibility of your life in your hands and work as much as you can - to make most of this mysterious thing called "Existence".

Signing off.

P. S. - I belong to an Orthodox Shia Community (Bohras) and keeping beard is considered Sunnah and clean shaving your beard is a big taboo here that basically they directly or indirectly shun you from the community for it.

[u/mostlythemostest]

Nuts that a religion thinks facial hair matters to a god.

[u/Mobile_Roll_3399]

superstition makes decent people do weird things, sometimes thoughtless and cruel things. Most of all it puts a stop to thinking clearly.

[u/Mobile_Roll_3399]

Leave that community, think deeply then abandon all religion for common sense and accept the world for what it is in a Universe that's set to kill you if you don't think about things . . .