Religion and Culture: The Confusion of Ethics and Morals

I’m a Lebanese guy who grew up Muslim but isn’t really practicing these days. Even so, I can’t just sit back and watch while people spread all this misinformation about Islam—the religion I studied and lived with from a young age. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s get real about it.

First off, let’s get one thing straight: societal and cultural norms are not the same as religious teachings. Look at history—the Holocaust wasn’t driven by any religion’s ethics. It was a monstrous societal and political atrocity. In the USA, Jim Crow laws weren’t about Christianity; they were about systemic, racial oppression endorsed by society. And those rules stopping women from driving in some countries? Totally cultural. Nothing to do with actual Islamic teachings. People confuse these things all the time, but the truth is, our messed-up societal norms often have little to do with the spiritual and ethical guidelines religion provides.

Take the Arabian Peninsula before Islam came around. We call that period Jahiliyyah—‘ignorance.’ This wasn’t just about people not knowing stuff; it was about paganism, brutal tribal wars, and deeply entrenched immoral practices. The arrival of Islam flipped the script, bringing a moral and ethical framework that stood in stark contrast to the chaos that came before it.

Islam made some radical changes back then. It started giving human rights that were unheard of. It promoted freeing slaves, condemned infanticide (seriously, people used to bury baby girls alive), and gave women rights that were pretty revolutionary for the time—like having a say in their marriages and the right to own property. Islam brought rules and ethics that were genuinely about improving lives and ensuring justice.

But here’s where it gets tricky. Culture and society have this nasty habit of twisting religious teachings to benefit a select few. Power hungry people bend religious rules to fit their own agendas, screwing up the original intent. Happens all the time, and it’s disgusting.

Take the Crusades. They spread Christianity with violence and bloodshed. That’s not what Christianity is about. The faith teaches love and peace, not conquest. But the Crusades were driven by political and social forces using religion as a cover. It was a betrayal of Christian teachings, plain and simple.

Back to Islam—what’s especially frustrating for me is the way its pure teachings have been hijacked by politics. Islam, at its heart, is a beautifully simple guide on how to live a good, ethical life. But organized religion and the politics within have totally turned me off. I’m not practicing now because I see how far removed the religious institutions are from the actual teachings of Allah and the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

In a world run by power dynamics and distorted narratives, we need to spot these manipulations. We need to return to the unadulterated essence of our faiths. The aim should be to live more just and moral lives, not to twist divine principles for selfish gains.

So, let’s strive for clarity. Let’s aim to be better. If we can separate cultural trash from religious treasure, we can foster a society that genuinely reflects the principles meant to uplift humanity.


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