MiTHology (4.0)

Confession time! I’m about to get real honest here.

You may have noticed — or, probably not, who am I kidding — that MiTHology (4.0) has been down, or available only in a very abbreviated version, for a little while now. But it’s back! Why? What happened?

Well, a number of things. There’s been a lot of things happening in my irl life. One of which has been that I’ve been hitting a point of utter exhaustion — burnout, even — with regards to the whole identity crisis that has basically been the subject of this blog since its inception.

In recent times, I’ve found that it feels more tiring, more depressing than anything, trying to be a Traditional Catholic. Don’t get me wrong!, I’m fully aware that being Christian is not meant to be a cake walk; look to the examples of the martyrs and see that suffering is love, we must expect unhappiness in this world, and etc. etc. And I’ve never been big on feelings, anyway. Religion is an intellectual thing, for me, and always has been, so whether a religion is fun/pleasant or not isn’t really a deciding factor, for me, when it comes to whether it’s true.

However, I also don’t think the experience of being Catholic is supposed to look like “constant feelings of crippling social anxiety, self-doubt, and heart-pounding stress about not measuring up to some strict lifestyle standard.” I’m not even talking about religious scrupulosity. It’s more like a pathological case of “keeping up with the Joneses.” It’s not a noble struggle against sin and the world, or anything like that. It’s just a fucking drag.

For a long time, I was really feeling like: “the Traditional Church is no place for me, I simply cannot belong here, the social pressure is too much” – but at the same time, going back to the modern Church was no longer an option, now that I could see what a sad joke it is (I mean, “excommunicating” the SSPX, but meanwhile doing fuck-all about the “Proud Catholic” American politician who signed into effect a bill allowing abortion up until birth, for any reason? Give me a break!). I never stopped believing in Catholicism, but the whole system started to feel broken and uninhabitable, for me.

So, around this time, the time that I finally hit a burnout point with my Catholic life (and also at a low point, hormonally), I happened to stumble upon the topic of Islam.

As you may have seen in my other recent Top 10 post, a lot of things about it really appealed to me. A lot of things.

I said in that post that there was no part of me that was even remotely considering the possibility of converting. That was, actually, not entirely true.

Islam has a lot of things going for it. To someone who’s burnt out, and feels like living as a Catholic has become borderline impossible… it’s incredibly seductive.

I fear sounding “ecumenical” by praising the virtues of Islam here, but, you know what, I’m just going to be honest.

The really alluring thing, for me, was the simplicity. For someone whose faith is purely an intellectual endeavor, this is huge — Occam’s razor and all.

In Islam, it’s like this: there is one God, the Creator. Muhammad is his prophet, so do what the Quran says. End of story.

In Catholicism, it’s like: there is one God, the Creator. But also, God is a Trinity, Who begot the Son and they brought forth the Holy Ghost and don’t even bother trying to understand this because trying to express it in a way that makes sense is actually literally heresy. Also, Mary is conceived without original sin (which btw is a thing, which means that everyone, even newborns, are automatically guilty of something they never did and are born deserving of eternal hellfire; take a look at your newborn child and tell me this isn’t a counterintuitive teaching!) and is the Mother of God, i.e. of Jesus, Who is both God and man and was resurrected from the dead (!) and then ascended into Heaven in a cloud and also assumed His Mother up to Him soon thereafter, which is dogma although not in the Bible. Which btw is a collection of hard-to-interpret stories by many different authors from across the centuries and sometimes should be interpreted literally, other times poetically, so it’s authoritative but also you need an authority figure to interpret it for you. And if you don’t believe any of that you cannot call yourself Catholic.

What I’m saying is, Catholicism is complex and beautiful and has a lot going on, philosophically. It requires a lot more intellectual assent than Islam. A lot more prep work and formation. For me, who wasn’t raised Christian so struggled to get on board with Jesus and Mary, but never really struggled to believe in God, the basics of Islam line up much more effortlessly with what I know, at my core, without any kind of “intellectual assent” or “acceptance,” to be true.

What I mean is, I know that God exists like I know that 2+2=4. All the other Catholic doctrines, I accept because I’m told it’s so and I believe the Church is trustworthy, that its teachings are beautifully, perfectly logical. But, it’s hard to believe, on a gut level. It’s hard to believe that the Resurrection, the Ascension, or the Assumption really happened, or that babies are born guilty, or that a human woman could be the Mother of God. Those things are mind-boggling and require a lot of humility to accept. But I do choose to accept them, as an act of faith, because it seems to add up and I want to believe it.

But that feels a lot different from knowing, the way I know there is one God, the Creator.

There are lots of other things about Islam that I liked, too. The clarity. In Catholicism, there’s a lot of gray area, with regards to whether certain things are permissible at certain times and for certain people. For example: the issues of music, family planning, enjoying art, and exactly how much to give when it comes to charitable giving. In Islam, there are very clear answers to all of these questions! There’s no “better ask your parish priest.” It’s just a yes or a no.

And even in issues where there’s more wiggle room/gray area, like family planning, the answers are much more clear: a simple “it’s permissible but not good, and never required” – such a concise reply to a question that had been plaguing me for years, and no Christian ever seemed to have such a short and sweet answer to!

And how much should I give charitably?? Another question that’s stressed me out since my conversion twelve years ago! Christians play it by ear, it’s a very case-by-case type of situation, but Muslims literally HAVE A CALCULATOR where you punch in your income, assets, bills, and debts, and it spits out the exact number you need to give. I freaking love that idea!

It just seemed to make so much sense! Everything felt so clean and bright! Certain things about it just clicked with me, such as alcohol, music, and dog drool all being haram/unclean. So clear, so simple, so right.

Not only that, but everything about Islam looked, to me, much more consistently aligned with the Old Testament. The apparent disparity between the religion/spirituality of the Old Testament and that of modern Christianity has always been a bit hard for me to understand (and yes, I know there is a Catholic explanation, which I do understand and agree with; but the Islamic answer is much easier to understand, and requires much less in the way of mental acuity and flexibility and reading comprehension).

The simple, uncomplicated core tenet of Islam – “there is one God, the Creator” – felt so right, so familiar to me. It felt like what I had naturally believed all along, like something already built into me. – And guess what! It’s not just me. Muslims actually have a word for this feeling (“Fitrah”)! They believe that everyone is essentially born Muslim at their heart, inclined to believe in and serve the one true God. That’s why all converts to Islam are called “reverts,” even if they were never technically Muslim before. When I learned that, about Fitrah and reversion, it honestly give me chills.

And plus! To me, it seemed rather telling that Muslims view Christians with respect, thinking they’re on the right track but sadly misguided, while Christians talk about Muslims as if they are absolutely the devil incarnate. The same reason (among the many reasons, that is) that I went with Catholicism over Orthodoxy. We Catholics think of the Orthodox as our sadly-separated brothers in Christ, while the Orthodox (or, at least the online Orthobros) view us as EVIL !! and HERETICS !! and GOING TO HELL. Typically, my instinct tells me that the more generous, level-headed, polemic-free side of any argument is probably onto something. Because the truth doesn’t need a bunch of heated polemicists raging to defend it, right?

So yes. I was a bit seduced. I began to wonder if if was true.

But at the same time… I didn’t trust. I didn’t trust my own feelings or thought process here. And the fact that I felt so strongly, made me trust myself even less. How could I be feeling so strongly about another religion when like five minutes ago I was claiming to be all about Catholicism? What is happening? Am I that big of a flake? Am I really just one of those loony, unstable religious maniacs who’s always converting? “Oh look, this week she’s a Hijabi, what’ll it be next week? And she expects everyone to take her seriously!” What will I be in ten years, then – a Hindu?! And am I going to drag my children along on this roller coaster with me?! That’s not fair to them, to have an unstable mom who keeps changing up the truth on them, whipping the rug out from under their tender feet!

(Luckily, I wasn’t gullible enough to actually introduce my children to Islam. No, this only went on for a few weeks, and remained a private experiment, because I knew I needed time to figure it out before speaking about it to anyone; there was never a question of making it a family affair anytime soon. At least I’m not that much of a maniac, I guess.)

But is there really no substance to me whatsoever? Am I really just completely empty inside after all? (Truly, this is the first time in my 36 years that I can say I know what it’s like to feel “empty inside.”)

Islam and Catholicism: clearly, one of these religions is right and the other is wrong. The fact that I felt drawn to both, inevitably implies that somewhere along the way, I’d fallen for Satan’s wiles. It was all just massively discouraging.

Luckily, this whole time, I had a quiet intuition that I would never actually convert away from Catholicism. I think I somehow knew I couldn’t. This fascination with Islam, it was like developing a crush on someone new while you’re in a committed relationship. They say that when you first fall in love with someone, all their little quirks are so charming and endearing, and you’ll happily make excuses for anything they do – but after you’ve been together a while, those same quirks start to annoy you. (Husband, if you’re reading this, I’m not talking about you; it’s just an oft-repeated trope about long-term relationships; you do not annoy me.) If hypothetically I had chosen to think about converting… at this point, I had to admit, with a deep sigh, I could already foresee myself wanting to convert again in a matter of months or years. (And in Islam you’re liable to be killed if you do that, lol. No joke, that’s in the Quran.)

And besides my own utter emptiness and flakiness, which led me to believe that I can’t really be trusted to choose my own religion at all, there were several other things that turned me off from the whole Islam thing, and made me content to stay where I am.

And these aren’t your typical “Why I’m Not a Muslim” arguments. Believe me, I listened to and read a lot of those! And some of the most popular ones, I honestly didn’t find very compelling. I was even prepared to defend it in some of these regards:

I wasn’t swayed by accusations of it being “the religion of violence.” Because the Old Testament is seriously comprised of like 40% stories about the Israelites slaughtering entire cities, including women and children, to win the land for God. And that was seen as a good thing, a victory. If we believe in that, then why are we appalled by the idea that God is violent sometimes, even today? I don’t like the idea any more than you do, but, what if? As Flannery O’Connor famously quoted, the Bible itself says “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.” I think our modern society is so pacifistic, so estranged from death, that we have lost touch with that primitive, bloody religiosity that we see in the O.T. and in Islam. And we Christians say that our religion was spread peacefully, “by the blood of martyrs,” but it’s not like the Crusades and the European conquest of the Americas didn’t happen. And besides all that, the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful folks who mind their own business, anyway.

Nor was I swayed by the accusations that the Quran is highly imperfect, that it was originally written with bad spelling and grammar, or that it’s not perfectly preserved as some claim. For one, Muhammad was illiterate, so it makes sense that if he (or his scribes) were writing down what God had spoken to him, there’d probably be grammatical/spelling errors. And even if there are slightly different versions of the Quran floating around in the world, I think it’s probably still more consistent, content-wise, than the Bible, which, we followers of Christ can’t even agree on how many books it has.

Nor was I swayed by the “just because it’s beautiful doesn’t mean it’s from God” argument. I wasn’t sold on the argument from beauty yet, but didn’t think I could dismiss it entirely without having some familiarity with Arabic. Apparently, the beauty and poetry of the language of the Quran in the original Arabic is unrivaled, so sublime as to be impossible for a human to mimic. “Well so what,” some Christians say. “Shakespeare wrote beautiful poetry, does that mean he was God?” I don’t think we should be so quick to throw this argument out without knowing the language. There are degrees of beauty, some things are more beautiful than others, and you can’t really compare when they’re not even written in the same alphabet. Shakespeare may be good, but no one was ever inspired to say of his works that “there’s no way a human wrote this.” There must be something to the Quran, then, maybe, I thought.

Nor even by the arguments from science, which normally go like this: a Muslim says “the Quran expresses scientific truths that someone in 600AD Arabia couldn’t possibly have known, things that humans wouldn’t discover to be scientifically true until centuries later!” To which a Christian replies, sarcastically: “you mean like that the moon was literally split in two, or that the sun descends into a pond when it sets, or that semen is produced between a man’s backbone and ribs?”

To which Mith replies: eh, so what? Science is cool but it doesn’t really sway me either way, when it comes to this stuff, because it seems that “trusting the science” is just as much a matter of faith as any religion. We humans love to think we’ve got it all figured out because We Did the Science. But trusting our own perceptions, or, to remove it even a step further, the perceptions of the authorities in academia just because they’re in academia, is a bold move. This is why I don’t have an opinion on things like evolution, the reality of dinosaurs, the literal or non-literal nature of the Genesis creation story, whether the moon was split, or where semen actually comes from. I think there’s more to the natural world than meets the eye, and the best we humans can do is infer… but I don’t necessarily trust it, anymore than I trust my own wishy-washy religious sentiments.

So no, the science argument didn’t sway me, nor did several other Christian counterarguments. But! There were some things I learned that did sway me back toward Catholicism. And here they are:

10. Islam’s prohibition on music, art, and dance. This was the first thing I learned about Islam that made me go: hmm, wait a minute, that doesn’t seem right.

However, as you know, I don’t trust my own feelings, so I didn’t let that sway me; after all, if I just follow whatever “feels right” to me, then my only religion is myself, right? I’m aware that the idea is to follow God not because He makes sense to us, but because He is God. So if He says “don’t make art or music,” then that’s that… right?

And plus, to further support the notion of an art ban: in the King James Version of the Christian Bible, the Fourth Commandment actually is translated as saying “thou shalt not make any likeness of any living thing.” – Not saying that I put too much stock in a Protestant interpretation. The Catholic interpretation here is that we are not to make any idols out of objects that we make ourselves. Which makes more sense, considering that right there in the same book, God commands Moses and the Israelites to construct the serpent on Moses’s staff and the angels on the Ark of the Covenant. So I think we Catholics got it right, with this one.

Drawing, dancing, and singing are such a natural part of being human. Kids start doing them when they’re still babies. It’s how they learn. If for adults these are sinful to do… at what age do they become sinful? How can something that’s good for little kids to do (because Islam even admits that kids should sing, draw, and play with dolls) become a sin after a certain age? It doesn’t add up, to me.

It’d be like if we were told it was sinful to have friends or to play or to laugh; just essential parts of being human.

Now, I get that something being natural doesn’t make that thing good. Plenty of things that humans do by nature are bad. But, those things are things that we teach our kids not to do. They aren’t things that are educational in the formative years and then become bad. That just doesn’t make sense. Bad is always bad.

I think the reason for the ban against drawing likenesses of living things, is because humans shouldn’t presume to try to be like God.

Which brings me to another interesting difference between Catholicism and Islam. As Christians, our goal is what the Orthodox call “theosis:” becoming God. Reducing the self until we are one with God, so that His will is our will, and we can be wholly united to Him in Heaven. Art – beautiful art, that is – aids in this process because, in creating, we are co-creators with God. Imitating Him and His goodness. Creativity is, after all, a gift that He has given us, made in His image as we are. And beautiful art can teach people about the goodness of God.

In Islam there is no such thing as theosis. Humans cannot be like God and shouldn’t even presume to try. Only God can create life, and to try to imitate Him is haram.

Personally, I think the Christian approach feels more right and more edifying. “It’s just that you’re an indoctrinated Westerner,” a Muslim might tell me, “and an art school alumna at that!” – but, creativity is universal, isn’t it? Is it really likely that something we encourage in our children, for their education, is actually satanic? I’m not buying it.

9. Ideas about marriage. The Quran explicitly tells husbands to “beat” their wives as discipline when they act up. And this is the literal word of God?! I’m no feminist, and am all for traditional gender roles in marriage, but I firmly believe that wife-beating is never Godly behavior. A Godly man can lead his wife without hurting her. “Love your wives as Christ loves His Church” is, imo, a much holier instruction for marriage.

And, the Quran tells men to take multiple wives – up to four, I think. And Muhammad himself had more than that.

Now, I’m aware that we see this a lot in the Old Testament, and if consistency with the Old Testament matters so much, then why should polygamy bother me?

Well, in the New Testament Christ specifically tells us that God allowed the Israelites to practice divorce because they were weak and God is merciful – but that does not mean that divorce is good. Makes sense that the same probably applies to polygamy. God made Eve for Adam; one man + one woman just makes sense; the nuclear family is written into the laws of nature, and it’s silly to argue that it’s not. It’s pretty evident to me that Christ clarified, sanctified, and perfected natural law marriage. Along with a lot of other things about the Old Testament.

8. Still continuing with the topic of marriage: one of Muhammad’s wives was literally six years old when he married her! And he was in his fifties at the time! Oh but don’t worry!, he didn’t consummate the marriage until she was nine… nine…!, and this man is supposed to be the ultimate model of virtue, the paragon of goodness, the example of exactly how we should behave, as humans. Hard pass. I’m aware that societal norms were different in 600AD Arabia, but I just don’t think there was ever a time or place in which it was morally okay for a 50 year old man to sleep with a 9 year old.

7. Allah literally calls himself “The Great Deceiver,” at one point in the Quran. Yikes! That freaked me out a bit. It directly contradicts what we Catholics say in the Act of Faith: “… I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived.” The latter sounds more like the God that my heart believes in. The former sounds… kinda like the opposite.

6. Which brings me to this one historical tidbit. Apparently, when Muhammad first received his divine vision, he was horrified, and thought it was satan, and immediately wanted to commit suicide because of it. Does that sound like something that came from God? How could anything from God make a person want to kill themselves? That doesn’t sound right to me; I couldn’t quite get past this one.

5. The Islamic idea of heaven, or Jannah, doesn’t sound as heavenly to me as the Christian Heaven.

This goes back to the theosis thing I discussed in item #10. In Catholicism (and Orthodoxy), for us to enter Heaven, we must become like God. Because Heaven is basically being one with God, engaged in eternal worship of God: the eternal glory of perfect love, of participation in the love of the Blessed Trinity, of singing the praises of God forever. That’s why, per a Catholic understanding, most people don’t actually want to go to Heaven, even though they might think they do. Most people just want satisfaction of their self-centered desires – a condition which is better suited to life in hell. Most people, if they could glimpse Heaven, would probably actually choose hell because it’s easier, and you’re more able to focus on yourself and your own desires. It’s more familiar, basically. This is why so few people go to Heaven – because so few people actually want to! If we truly want to, of course Christ will welcome us in. But to be a member of God we must actually let ourselves be made members of God via theosis.

So that’s the Christian take on Heaven. It’s challenging, it’s edifying, it’s beautiful, and it makes sense.

Muslims don’t do theosis. For them, Jannah is like an eternal dessert: a prize for being good on earth, a paradise of eternal pleasure. If I understand it correctly, it’s a place where Allah will let them enjoy whatever they want: beautiful spouses, delicious food, comfortable houses, just sheer pleasure and delight for all eternity.

It sounds appealing, sure!, but, imo this take on Heaven also kind of… demeans the human person? “Material pleasure is the best thing you can hope to achieve” – but, we’re not animals. And frankly, wouldn’t all that pleasure get kind of boring after a few millennia? This idea of heaven doesn’t really require you to become perfect. Just following the letter of the law doesn’t make you good, as Christ very well taught us. So I have a hard time believing that this is God’s design for humanity. God as I understand Him wants real happiness for us, i.e. the destruction of selfish appetites and living entirely in union with Him.

4. This one is more of a subjective reason than an argument, but, religion, after all, should be both subjective and objective, for us, so it makes sense that some of my reasons are subjective. Such a legalistic, black-and-white system can easily lead to despair, in my experience.

Case in point: as I became interested in Islam, for a brief period I started trying to copy their prayer style, to like try it on for size, if you will, while still praying as a Catholic; thinking maybe I could borrow some of the elements of their faith that I liked, and apply them to a Catholic lifestyle. So I had alarms in my phone. When the alarm goes off, you have a set amount of time to drop whatever you’re currently doing and do your prayers. If you don’t do them in that set amount of time, or if you don’t wash properly beforehand, or if you don’t have your feet and hands in the correct positions, or if something distracts you and you have to pause and talk to someone, your prayers are worthless. Or if there’s a picture hanging on your wall, your prayers in that room are worthless. Whew! I realize that the idea is that God just wants you to do your best and that’s what counts… but also, this mindset of “it must be a certain way at a certain time or it doesn’t count”… in my experience, which was just a few days, it made me just want to give up. I couldn’t do it on time, I couldn’t not be interrupted, so why bother. I didn’t know what to say anymore. My prayer life suffered.

3. Besides, upon further research, I found that Islamic moral philosophy is not always so black and white after all. Just like in Catholicism, you have your progressives and you have your Rad Trads. Opinions vary widely, from “the hijab is not required” to “women should cover even their fingernails, and must never speak in public because even their voice is ‘awrah.’” Likewise, some say “all music is haram because it intoxicates the mind, just listen to the Quran instead”; others contest this by saying “it’s really only music made on certain kinds of instruments that’s haram, so, it’s totally licit if you’re making music on a computer.” Or, “only certain lyrics and genres are haram, but classical is fine.” Same exact deal as us over here in the West! So, if you’re looking for a refuge of total clarity, I can report that this actually isn’t the way to go.

2. Going back to number four and the despair thing: in trying to think about things in Islamic-ish terms, I quickly became overwhelmed by a feeling that I was hated by God and certainly hellbound.

See, in theory, I like that Islam emphasizes God as sovereign creator instead of warm-and-fuzzy loving Father. I like that prayer focuses on “God is the Greatest” instead of “Hey Daddy God, here are all my wittle pwoblems, please make me feel better.” As a cerebral person who doesn’t feel love easily, the former feels more right to me.

In Islam, people are not God’s children, but his slaves. I initially found that a refreshing approach, and much easier to believe (because, seriously, it really boggles the mind to think that the great Eternal God cares a whit about little old me and my dumb little problems!). But, given the logistical difficulty of following every single little rule, in Islam, it’s super easy to fall into thinking “I’m a bad slave.”

Which is a terrible way to think. It’s one thing to realize that you are a beloved but disobedient child. That’s a challenge; it’s convicting and encouraging at the same time. You have to do better because God your Father cares about you. But, a bad slave – what’s even the point of your existence, now. Who cares about you? You’re not even wanted. You’re just trash, like, on like a cosmic level, you are literally trash. So, in trying to try on a semi-Islamic mindset, I very quickly felt hated by God (and am still kind of battling with this). In Catholicism, this is actually a sin – despairing of God’s mercy. So, this was a major red flag to me.

Love, while difficult, is, imo, a pretty important aspect of God, which is evident from our lived experience as human beings (love is the greatest thing we can experience, the greatest thing we are capable of, and the thing we desire most of all; why would we be designed this way if God were not, Himself, love?).

And finally:

1. It just didn’t make sense for me, practically. I had a creeping sense that I was following a bread-crumb trail of some knowledge not meant for me; that God had already given me the right religion; that He didn’t require me to go down a million Internet rabbit holes to find the true Faith. (YouTube really shouldn’t be where we get our religious formation.) I have a Christian husband and four little Christian children, and a great church near me. And there’s actually a scene in the Quran where some Jews come up to Muhammad and ask him to judge some conflict for them, and he points at the Torah and basically says: “that’s your judge!, why’d you come to me?” So… even Muslims believe that the Bible is a set of instructions from God for the Christian people. It just led me to believe that I already had found the right religion.

I don’t think it should be that difficult. I don’t think God requires us to jump through a million hoops to worship Him correctly. Catholicism is the universal religion, it’s literally everywhere, in every culture.

Sometimes I really think the Internet is a curse. We know too much. The internet is undoing the fall of the Tower of Babel. There are no more language/culture barriers. We need those. Humans aren’t designed to have that much free access to knowledge. Some things, we shouldn’t know about. Some things are dangerous for us to learn about.

.

I’m not going to be like one of those Christian polemicists who goes on screaming about how Islam is satanic. I don’t know for sure if it is. It has a lot of things going for it, but also some major problems. All I know is, I intend to remain Catholic.

So, that’s my take for now. This whole experience has caused me to completely lose any amount of confidence that I had in myself, as a religious person, tbh, so, I hope I will never wander even a single theoretical hypothetical inch from Catholicism again, and never intend to, but I’m such an idiot that who’s to say. Maybe I’ll get seduced by the Ba’hai Faith next. 🙄 Good grief. We really are such fickle and stupid creatures, humans. So anyway, I’m back now, still Catholic, still weird, still filling up your WordPress feed with my nonsense.