I originally wrote this for the Ex-Christians.Net forum, but, since I thought a few people might be enjoy reading it here as well, I'm sharing it on these forums.

Quote:I've already posted how I went from a Christian to a Baha'i. Perhaps some noticed one religion missing from the list of faiths I'd investigated: Islam. I still hadn't gotten over the Islamaphobia I had been raised with at this time, and so I didn't read the Quran and I didn't even consider Islam.

And something that made it difficult for me to become a Baha'i was: Muhammad is considered one of God's Messengers. But everything else just drew me in, and in the end I accepted anyone. So I accepted that Muhammad was a Prophet. But His followers? What am I to think of them?

Not long after becoming a Baha'i, I learned about the horrors that Babis and Baha'is have faced, and are still facing, in Muslim countries. Just another thing to add to the list of reasons not to like Muslims.

Right?

Except I wasn't looking at it correctly. According to the Baha'i teachings, I'm not supposed to be making lists of reasons not to like people, but instead I'm supposed to be finding reasons to love them! And I certainly couldn't create a list of reasons to dislike an entire GROUP of people, connected only by their religion.

"Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship." Baha'u'llah said.

Well then, I suppose the first place to start was to meet a Muslim. While there are a few Muslims in Little Rock, there weren't any in the rural area of Arkansas I was living in at the time, so how the heck was I supposed to meet a Muslim?

Why, the internet of course.

Long before I became a Baha'i, I was fascinated by the artificial language Esperanto. I thought, even with its many flaws, it had a lot of potential. I guess I was right, because it ended up being the reason I contacted Amin.

Amin and I met eachother through an Esperanto learning site. We became friends on Facebook, and I soon found out that he was an Iranian Muslim, but he didn't learn of my faith for a while.

I was amazed by this man. I had been conditioned by my upbringing and my culture to believe that Muslims, and Iranians in general, were backward, hat-mongering, anti-American murderers! (this is actually a lot tamer than the things my parents often said about Muslims...)
But Amin was intelligent, although severely lacking in his English (his Esperanto was even worse!), modern, and quite kind. He was a musician, and a talented one too! We quickly became friends, and were discussing various topics online almost every day. One day, he revealed to me that he would like to come to America, but was afraid of the anti-Muslim sentiments here.

"You should move to a community with a lot of Baha'is, " I told him, "you won't have to deal with Islamaphobia from them."
"Oh no, Alexander!" he said, "Baha'is are not good, Baha'is are bad to Muslims!"
"Amin, " I responded, "I'm a Baha'i!"

He could hardly believe it! He had been brought up to view Baha'is negatively, just as I had been brought up to view Muslims negatively. So when he learned that someone he had been enjoying so much conversation with was a Baha'i, he was shocked. I explained to him that Baha'is weren't what he had been conditioned to believe, that we were quite the opposite! We didn't talk much more that day, but we continued to discuss the subject later.

One day, I was reading a the Seven Valleys online, and Amin messaged me on Facebook. We started talking, and he asked what I was doing.
"Reading a book." I said.
"What book?"
"One of the Baha'i holy books, the Seven Valleys. It's really good."

He asked if I could provide him with a link, and I did. He messaged me again saying:
"You're a lot like Muslims."

Amin had changed how I viewed Muslims. And I had changed how he viewed Baha'is. Together we had taken a step towards the realization of Baha'u'llah's dream, that all people would be able to live together in a spirit of harmony and friendship. It was a small step, but a step, nonetheless.

Having lived in Iran as a child, I feel comfortable saying that we Americans have been propagandized to an incredible extent concerning both Iran and Islam. It's only because of my four years there that I know that much if not most of what I read or see in the media is grade-A horseshit.

I hope one day they get a government worthy of their finer qualities.

They certainly deserve a better one.

I'm not replying to your post, but I was just curious, why do you, as a theist, are interested in participating in a forum mainly composed by agnostic atheists? Just curious.

(June 29, 2014 at 10:09 pm)blackout94 Wrote: I'm not replying to your post, but I was just curious, why do you, as a theist, are interested in participating in a forum mainly composed by agnostic atheists? Just curious.

Well, I actually registered in order to respond to a question directed at theists. I decided to stick around because I was the only theist responding to the question that wasn't a total nutjob, and felt a little positive representation was in order.

(June 29, 2014 at 11:24 pm)zanOTK Wrote: I decided to stick around because I was the only theist responding to the question that wasn't a total nutjob, and felt a little positive representation was in order.

The other theists undoubtedly feel the same way about themselves.

(June 30, 2014 at 2:10 am)Insanity Wrote:

(June 29, 2014 at 11:24 pm)zanOTK Wrote: I decided to stick around because I was the only theist responding to the question that wasn't a total nutjob, and felt a little positive representation was in order.

The other theists undoubtedly feel the same way about themselves.

Most certainly so. But I, at least, can spell and don't answer every question with "God did it."

Zan, If you and your muslim friend are still labelling each other with your respective religions then what have you really proved? Only if you can drop all thoughts of religion when you talk to each other and shoot the shit about any subject without worrying about it, then it will be a friendship. Your religions should be irrelevant to your interaction.

We discuss many things that have nothing to do with our religions. I do ask him how Ramadan is going (which is, of course, religious), but mostly because I know how difficult it is to fast (Baha'is have a similar fast). We occasionally discuss religion, but always with respect to our different beliefs. For the most part, we discuss his music (I think I mentioned in the story of us becoming friends that he's a great singer), Esperanto (how we met), my fiction writing (which is pretty awful, to be honest), the current situation in the Middle East, cinima, international politics, and languages (I'm helping him with his English, he's helping me with my Farsi).

However, what exactly gives you the right to decide what constitutes a true friendship between two individuals other than yourself? We consider one another friends, we keep up with what's going on in our lives, we check up on one another when we hear something worrying is happening in our respective regions, and we make a point of praying for one another. And let me tell you, I am very grateful for his prayers. I need them! Religion is part of our lives. This means it will also play a part in our friendship. But it plays a positive part. We learn from one another, enjoy discussing our different perspectives. It helps us each grow.

Dear Zan, you have my apology sir. I did indeed have no right to criticize your friendship. The day I wrote that post I was just in a mood to go hunting whale and thought I would throw a harpoon and see where it landed and if it would hit something soft and vital.