Brief history on the creator of this page
As a favorite pastime and hobby of mine I’ve always been interested in the many diverse religions and spiritual teachings of the world. I’ve always had this drive to find the absolute truth of man’s creation…call me crazy but I’ve been known to stay up on the computer till 7 in the morning or later reading different religious texts/websites and comparing the arguments between multiple sources and views.
Your next question might be: “What’s wrong with you? Why do you feel like you have to know the truth behind man’s creation? Well basically to sum up my curious nature let me tell you about the diverse person that is - me - and why this diversity has compelled me to question humanity’s many claims to the truthful path of Spiritual Enlightenment or “Salvation” as some may call it.
So to the point; half of my family is Catholic, the other half is Muslim. By Heritage I’m a quarter French, a quarter Polish, and half Libyan with a little bit of Turkish (my great grandmother was from Istanbul, formally Constantinople which also just happens to be the first capital of Christendom during the Byzantium Empire).
Interestingly enough, the region my father's family is from in Libya include the cities of Shahatt and Darnah, located near the ancient city of Cyrene which was Greek founded and at one time the most important North African Colony to the Ancient Greeks. Also, just as a random side note; from the city of Cyrene came a man named Simon who helped carry the reported cross of Jesus in today’s New Testament.
"And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross." (Matthew 27:32)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_of_Cyrene
So I am of mixed North African Arab/Indigenous, East/West European decent. Also to add to my diversity I’ve lived in 3 different continents, and 3 different countries: America-a Christian nation (sort of), Turkey-a Muslim nation, and Japan-a Buddhist nation (all demographically speaking ofcourse).
While in Turkey my family and I visited the alleged final residence of the Virgin Mary.
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/ephesus-house-of-the-virgin.htm .
Another interesting fact about Turkey that a lot of people don’t often realize is that Christianity’s ‘Paul of Tarsus’ wrote a very large part of the New Testament in his native Asia Minor (present day Turkey), not too far from where I used to live as a child.
So back to my diversity; my older sister whom I consider my second mother is half African American, we have the same mother but different fathers. She played a very integral role in raising me and my brother.
Anyhow, with all this diversity in my character build I stand here as a human soul of this world seeking the truth behind our creation without any bias’ views or any nationalistic or religious preference. I mean honestly how can I be bias towards any one thing or ideal when I myself am the product of many of these things and ideals?
So all in all, my hopes are that my brief historical breakdown is enough to give you, the reader, somewhat of a guarantee of my diverse makeup…Whereas this makeup supports the integrity and honest view of my life long spiritual search for the TRUTH as truly an unbiased mission and not some sort of common “Oh, my father is THIS so I am THIS and you should be THIS!"...type of deal.
In fact, growing up in my household neither of my parents followed their familial religious practices to the T. However, both were and are still extremely loving and supportive parents to me and the rest of my family. To them I am forever indebted.
Anyhow, all that historical Jazz was basically to bring home the fact that I never grew up in any one specific institutionalized religion or religious train of thought per se. Everything that I’ve come to believe in today has stemmed from my own research as just another man trying to understand his role and place on Earth. However, to say that no one in my immediate environment had an influence on me would be to bend the truth to say the least...We are all products of our environment to a certain extent, but individuals nontheless.
Additionally, one of the main reason's that I've yearned to understand my creation and place on Earth has had to do in a big way with some of the things I've experienced in my life (as many of us can relate). By the age of 22, I'd known 6 personal friends that passed away; 3 were accidents, 2 were suicides, and 1 was murder. The first accidental death of a friend, I witnessed at 18, one month before I moved a thousand miles away from my home in Michigan to attend college in Florida.
As he lay there bleeding to death, face turning to blue, I saw the fear in his eyes...I felt his anxiety, the state of shock he was in...When you see things like this it really makes a person think of his/her own mortality...I mean with the example of my friend, just imagine the questions going through his mind as he lay there; "Did I live a pious life? What will happen to me now? What about my family? Will God forgive my sins?"
I thought to myself this could've easily been me instead of him. Put yourself in his shoes, would you be ready to die? Would you have any regrets in this life? So these tragic events in my life have had an enormous effect on my overall outlook.
From this I've realized how precious life is and have also realized the importance of knowing and understanding true inner peace, and how to harness that peace with our creator because when our term is up in this world there's nothing that can be done to avoid it. As human beings the one thing that we all have in common is that we were all born on this Earth and we shall all die one day, there's no escaping death.
The inner questions we all ask ourselves whether you admit it or not are: “Why was I born? What’s my purpose in life? Who created me? And where shall I go after my body in this world ceases to exist?” And for those people who simply answer these questions with “we don’t have a purpose, we are just random coincidences of matter”… that statement in it of itself is actually a very unintuitive answer and is rather illogical when simply analyzed.
Instead of me explaining in some long scientific way the reason why this overly simple thought is illogical, let me just attach a simple analogy that makes complete sense and is undeniable: A simple observation; everything on Earth and around us has a purpose, from something as simple as a spoon, to a pencil, to fire, to water, or even your toes.
Take for example your eye’s purpose is to see, your ears - to hear, your legs - to walk, your fingers - for manipulating objects, your tongue - for taste, and etc, etc…the list goes on just look around your room right now, I’m sure your room is full of many PURPOSEFUL items.
So what I’m trying to say is HOW CAN everything around us and that is part of us have a REASON or PURPOSE of existence except the very nature that is US, our overall physical/spiritual being.
We, as humans have a PURPOSE, it’s as simple as that, many people are just not aware of their purpose. I mean it’s definitely true that God helps those who help themselves but if you never take the time to research your own spiritual path or meaning do you honestly think that God will just miraculously put all the knowledge in your head without applying yourself at all.
There’s nothing wrong with searching out knowledge…and it’s easy in our age of information, we have the Internet it’s not like you actually have to go to the library or even spend money at some bookstore. Perhaps one of the most intriguing things that attracted me to Islam was its emphasis on learning and questioning everything, even the basis of my own faith! Cool right?
Muslims around the world will tell you that the “search for knowledge” is regarded as a duty in Islam and also a form of worship. Personally, I’ve read both bias and unbias websites/books just so that I could train my eye to recognize fact from fiction.
I think with any form of search the researcher should know the arguments of both sides. I’m a true believer of sorting the facts from the heresy within the bounds of a logical and fair approach.