A Comment that has lost its way..

I'm sorry to deviate a bit from the goal of Fantasia's World. But I got so intrigued by a number of posts from Samir-Thoughts, that I so much wanted to comment on. Allow me to use this space for once to write my long comment.
Samir was describing a scene that we see often in our daily life, seeking the blessing from the dead religious icons. You can read his post to get a better idea, or you may read along and you'll discover a link between his subject and the message of this blog.

Dear Samir,
I find that our Eastern culture as whole is built on the same basis of seeking blessing and believing in the supernatural. Remember that we live in the land of mythology and religions. It's here that humanity have started its route to civilization, which has to have something side to side with its material (let's say concrete) achievements. This side had to do with the supernatural and it has spread to inspire all the coming civilizations that would follow the same pattern. But we kept our place as the pioneers. It's here that all religions started, and it's here that we are stuck with the supernatural when the whole world had moved forward to the age of science and technology. Revolution after revolution, we kept missing the train of one after the other.. The industrial revolution, the scientific revolution, (in all its phases, starting from astronomy to physics, to biology to genome) the technological revolution, and finally globalization. We failed miserably in them all, that we decided to lock ourselves into the shell of the supernatural and claim ourselves to be the guardians of moral ethics and preserves of the word of God on earth.

Anyone else from other parts of the world that have enjoyed the benefits of those revolutions and have evolved into better civilization, we labeled them as atheists and perverts. Although they worship the same God and follow the same religions, yet they dared do something productive for their world. They are happy, they look after their health, they play sports, and they want to live longer. They want to enjoy the beautiful life they have created through long work, until they reached democracy (nothing is perfect), the fruits of science and technology which made them richer, and research which made them fight diseases. They simply enjoy a higher quality of life, that we, immersed as we are in dictatorship, poverty, ignorance, and diseases, can never have hope of attaining. They have reasons to love life and seek to live longer, while we have our reasons to hate our life and look forward to death.

But we are looking for a hope in death, something that will relieve us from the suffering on earth. Thus we all wish to enter paradise, we want to enjoy the rivers of milk and honey. But we want to enter it from the wrong gates. We failed to do what God ordered us to do. We failed to create our paradise on earth. We misused all the faculties that God gave us, and we disdained his most precious gift, the human brain. We've made thinking and creativity the equivalent of a crime. So, do we have any hope in salvation?
The creators of myth have come up with the keys to the backdoors of paradise. You are to quit enjoying life, in all its simplest forms (Yeah, as if there is anything to enjoy!). You have to focus on fighting the evil ones who want to prolong their lives. You have to wrap your women in black cloth. You have to scare your children of doom and hell. You have to offer your whole life to death, so that when your time comes, you are as pure as a diamond. Then, and then only, can you enter the pearly gates. What about those who can't wait? What about those who want to secure their places fast and enjoy the 73 virgin maidens now. The numerous youth who can't sin or get married, what about them? Well, there is always a shortcut. You can go kill the atheists who don't obey. You can turn yourself into a bomb in the service of God. Go kill the naked tourists on the beaches, go kill the people who work to serve them and entertain them, go kill those who sell them souvenirs to take back home from our holy pure land. Then you'll be there in a snap of a finger. There's always a solution in death. There is always a way to reach paradise. Nobody comes back to tell us which gates he entered. Nobody comes back to tell his story. Nobody comes back to break the spell.
Now, Samir, you may know why people would write on the canvas of the Saints. It's the same reason why people would go to El Sayyeda and Hussein. It's Yehia Haqy's Qandeel Om Hashem. It's Osama Fawzy's Ba7eb E'seema. It's the life we are living in this part of the world.