Life's a short trip...

As many of you know, Turkey is an Islamic country. Turkey is also a secular country. Turkey has both a Christian and Muslim past. As a part of the Roman Empire, Istanbul and much of Turkey was Eastern Orthodox. Some of the finest Christian art is displayed in Istanbul just as some the finest Islamic art is as well.

When the Ottomans conquered Turkey and Istanbul, they did not force the Muslim religion on anyone. They wanted a successful empire, thus they allowed people to practice what customs they wanted too. However, Sultans wanted build their legacies. Often this meant expanding the empire or building a Mosque. Sometimes they took the Christian churches (famously, the Aya Sofia and Chora) and turned them into Mosques. Covering all Christian art, the Mosaics of Jesus, the paintings of angels, all of it. They added minarets to the churches as well as Sultan's worship stations and Muslim art. This is what makes Istanbul Mosques so unique, they have domes from Roman architecture unlike the rest of the Middle East.

Moving on, Turkey today is a secular nation. They are around 80,000 Mosques in Turkey. The call to prayer goes off at 5 am and then 4 more times during the day and yet, Turkey is secular, women have lots of rights, and men can whatever breads they want.They have taken some of the churches that were turned into Mosques and made them into museums (i.e - Aya Sofia and Chora). They have gone under great restoration. The Muslim decorations remain as the Christian art is being uncovered. It is amazing. Islamic political parties are not happy about it, just like human rights groups are not happy the headscarves are banned at government sponsor schools (to promote secularism).

There are little things like that happening all over the world as well as big things like terrorist attacks. All because of religion. I must say I do not understand it. I am catholic and I take certain elements of that very seriously and others not so much. For example, I believe and accept the trinity on faith alone, but I also believe in a woman's right to choose. I understand that in some peoples eyes that may make me hypocritical, but I argue what right does religion have to dictate every aspect of life. I believe in God and I also believe in karma- good things should happen to good people because thats God blessing them. I don't believe God when put limitations on love.  What right does a God have to tell that one cannot use birth control nor can one get an abortion? Where in the bible does say that living together before marriage is bad? The bible says love thy neighbor, feed the hungry - this is the religion I believe in.

That's me though. There are others who take religion much more seriously and thats fine. But I just wished that before they judge me, they would understand this. There are lots of religions, three of them - Christianity, Judaism and Islam- are all breed from the same ancestry line. They all believe Abraham was the father, Ishmael the son, King David was a prophet, Moses saved their people from Egypt, Israel is the promise land. So someone tell me what's the fight about? I believe Jesus is the savior, Muslim believe in Muhammad, and the Jewish people are still waiting for theirs. Its just seems childish to fight over something so similar. Sure, the Muslim extremists (its a very small group of Muslims) preach against America and Western Culture, because it's liberal and full of sin in their minds. But are we really that different? America has a Christian right sect that is very strict, very judgmental, and very weary of American culture. So really what is different between us and them? Honestly, is it really worth all the destruction it has caused not just recently but over all of history? We are far too similar to be arguing over details.