Don’t Submit to Stupid Rules

The line from Push The Limits on Enigma’s The Screen Behind the Mirror seems appropriate.”Don’t submit to stupid rules.” I think if everyone followed this principle, there could be no organized religion. Common sense, people!

According to this article, Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khameini has been taking online questions about Ramadan on his website. Let’s put aside for a minute the absurdity and health risks of fasting (without even drinking water) during daylight hours for over a month. Especially in a place with high temperatures. People have been doing this for centuries.

Now they are requesting clarification about which things are haram (forbidden). Among them:

• You can only drink water “while standing” at night.
• You cannot take part in meetings where both men and women are present.
• You can marry a foreign woman, but only “if they are serious in contracting marriage and it is done with her father’s permission if she is a virgin.” (Let’s not even discuss the absurdity of the concept of virginity.)
• You cannot masturbate: “…if he intends masturbation or he knows that he usually discharges semen by this process and semen really comes out, it is intentional breaking fasting.”

It’s obviously not just Islam. There are lists that are equally absurd for Catholics, Protestants, and others. And let’s not get started with Jewish dietary laws which were written when there was no refrigeration. The church I grew up in barred people from the chapel (on an honor system) for a month if they masturbated. I think the place would have been empty if people really followed that rule. What’s the message here? Assuming ‘god’ made us, he created these needs and wants in our bodies, and expected us to ignore the messages our brains were sending? If that were true, ‘god’ would be a sadist pure and simple.

Remember these are, in all cases, grown adults getting instructions from another adult. They actually think it matters whether you stand up or sit down while drinking water. And what kind of a fast is it anyway when you break it at night? What’s up with people who have such low self-esteem, they can’t make these decisions on their own?

Don’t submit to stupid rules
Be yourself and not a fool
Don’t accept average habits
Open your heart and push the limits