What Do You Follow?
Everyone has filled out some
application asking them to state their religious beliefs or abstain from doing
so. Of course, this is for reasons of diversity, ensuring that there is a
‘cross-section of society’ (whatever THAT means) within an organisation. But
why do we care so much about religion? If I were to approach 10 people in the
city centre, I’d probably find 2 or 3 people from the same religion. I probably
don’t know about half of the religions that exist in the world yet, when it
comes to mainstream religions e.g. Christianity, Sikhism, Islam, Hinduism etc
we are so concerned with labels because everyone has to ‘belong’ to some group
of beliefs, even if that is no belief.
But it doesn’t stop there! Because
once you’ve attached a label to yourself, you’re expected to conform to the
standard, expected to follow every single inch of the religion in the same way
everyone else does. Of course I can only talk from my own experience as a
muslim, but there have been many many times when I’ve heard people telling
other people what they should or shouldn’t be doing. Before I get my head
bitten off here, I understand that we should GUIDE people however there is a
very fine line between guiding and imposing and that is what so many people fail
to realise.
