God is not yours by Yousra S, Egypt

I don’t believe you have to be part of a certain group, follow a “holy” person, or pray in a specific way to find god, I believe God can be found in many ways and forms; you can experience god’s beauty in someone you love, sense god’s peacefulness in a baby’s smile, or feel his presence while enjoying a beautiful sunset. And I just cannot accept that this would make you any less of a believer than anyone who chose to join a certain group or believe god left them a written script on how to live their lives.

Religions are supposedly here to help make us better people but unfortunately, they have been doing more harm than good. People seem to have missed (or maybe willingly decided to ignore) the beautiful side of believing and the feeling of unity, love, and compassion it brings not only to fellow humans but to every single thing around us, and instead of letting this shared belief bring them together, most followers of different religions keep searching for, and making a noticeable effort to find, anything to disagree on as if it’s a competition of who’s going to win God’s approval at the end. They focus too hard on getting other players out of the game than winning themselves. 

Everyone wants God to be theirs, and theirs alone. When two sides fight, they’re both fighting “in the name of God”.  There is not a clearer example than the 3 Abrahamic religions with their non-ending conflicts when they’re basically the same story with an additional character with every sequel. Take Jerusalem for example and how they’ve been fighting over it for God knows how long, each group undoubtedly believing God is on their side when it’s absolutely clear that God does NOT take sides.

Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad just wanted to talk about God and we got their message.
Know God. Believe in God. Love god. Fear God. That was the message from the very start so let’s take it to the one thing we have in common: God.

Everything else is a side story that I’m personally not interested in. Who really cares if it was Isaac, not Ismael getting sacrificed? It’s literally just a matter of names and it doesn’t take out or add anything to the story. So what if you believe Jesus is the son of God and your neighbour belief him a prophet? He’s still taking you to the same place anyway. To God. And as long as it lives and I’m allowed to visit whenever I want, I personally wouldn’t care if Mecca was ruled by apes.

Let’s be honest, we all think we’re something different and that we have this “special” bond with God that other groups will never know. Well, I’m sorry to burst your bubble but that’s just not true! God doesn’t have a favourite and no religion is better, smarter, or “the truth”. 

The world was never supposed to be divided between team “us” and team “them”, we’re more alike than we think and even our preachers, leaders, and politicians who divide us are more alike than they’d like to admit; they have the same arrogance, hate, and hypocrisy. 
God is not either with you or me, God is with you AND me. (Although, judging by what’s been happening lately, I highly doubt he’s with either of us!)

My mom once told me when I was a child to not try and imagine god, probably out of respect, but I can’t help but imagine him rolling his eyes at how ridiculous we all are because my mom also told me that knowing his many names and trying to live by them would get me closer to him and yes I can’t remember all of them (99, according to Islamic belief) but I’m pretty sure they didn’t include “shallow” “hateful” or “narrow-minded”. 

God is love. God is mercy. God is laughter. God is empathy. God is honour. God is forgiveness. 

The devil is anger. The devil is hate. The devil is arrogance. The devil is selfishness. The devil is hypocrisy.

So I’m not quite sure who is it exactly you’re trying to impress.