Commentary
Wednesday, March 29, 1995
Page 5
Religion: The food we live on
It may be argued that in this
space age, when humans are
preoccupied with scientific discov
eries of celestial bodies, why
should man preoccupy himself with
religion?
Science makes it more difficult
for the modem human to accept
any religion, as these religions are
based on dogma that cannot be
tested by scientific axioms.
Man is entirely surrounded by
scientific and materialistic ad
vancements; as a result, there is
much skepticism about religion.
But still, I believe there is a
necessity for religion.
I grew up in a religious atmo
sphere, which was in a sense a
social need for recognition in the
society, also. Prayers were manda
tory and religious studies a must. In
that atmosphere, religion was
everything. I never challenged my
beliefs. There was no room for it:
Religion was always right. The
days passed, and my religious roots
became stronger and deeper as they
were tied to the social religious
fabric woven around me. If I didn’t
pray, it bothered me, as if some
thing was missing from the daily
routine.
If a sin was committed, I turned
towards Allah, wept and cried on
the prayer mg and asked for
forgiveness. This self-change came
in my later years of high school.
Everyone was happy and I was,
too. That was the time my father
had faith in me and sent me to
America. Sometimes I think
America was the need for my
change.
As soon as I arrived here, it
didn’t take me long to feel the need
for religion vanishing. Social
acceptance wasn’t through prayers
anymore, it was through parties. No
one asked if I prayed or not, and I
didn’t bother to pray.
Yousuf Bashir
Then, for the first time, I
questioned my beliefs. It was scary,
and I was confused. All the
irrationalities of religion beyond
experience became hard to digest.
They were no longer logical to me.
My beliefs were not actually mine;
instead, they were my parents’.
Denying my beliefs was like
denying all the people I trusted.
The existence of God became a
mystery.
It was then that I decided to
study more about my religion.
History tells us that religion has
played an important part in human
activities. The worshipping instinct
in man has always been linked with
some kind of deity. This passion
for devotion to a Supreme Being is
the dominant feature of man’s
mind. Religion has been regarded
as a necessary human institution
from the days of Adam. Today it is
accepted that the Marxist-Lenin
philosophy merely replaced one
religion with another.
Religion is something human
nature demands. It is said there are
three basic needs: food, clothing
and shelter. Beyond these are our
spiritual needs, which science and
philosophy fail to satisfy. The
human soul remains unsatisfied and
therefore festive until answers to
the important questions are re
ceived. Religion, therefore, fulfills
the spiritual requirements of man
by providing for suitable answers
to the fundamental human prob
lems.
The fundamental problems of
human life, which are metaphysical
in character, cannot be solved by
any means other than religion.
Sense, perception, reason and
meditation — all these devices
have failed to solve them.
The principles of science have
changed. Similarly, philosophical
views have been changing while
moral values have also witnessed
fluctuation. The importance of
religion, however, has never
diminished; rather, it has been
ever-increasing.
The secular ideologies, in spite
of their best efforts, have miserably
failed to gain their hold on human
behaviors. Their beliefs stand for
the division of life and not for the
unity of life. Religion, on the other
hand, stands for the unity of life.
Toynbee, a philosopher
historian of modem times, opines
that only religion can secure one’s
emancipation in this atomic age,
wherein every attempt is being
made to divide life into depart
ments instead of unifying these
departments into a whole. He
further says that every human
attempt to solve fundamental
problems of life through materialis
tic solutions has failed, and all the
false promises of secular philoso
phies have been exposed.
The human ills cannot be cured
in the absence of God. The greatest
need of the present day is the
promotion of faith in an omnipotent
God.
Like feelings, faith cannot be
defined. Both these phenomena
exist in life. Religion puts one on
the path towards God, and faith is a
stairway to it.
Bashir is a senior food science major and
a Daily Nebraskan columnist
Clinton ignoring foreign policy
I have never been too intrigued
by American politics or policy
making. After all, there isn’t much
that is too interesting — two parties
that are basically the same, labor
unions that are faded images of
what they should be and a foreign
policy with no direction. However,
the recent events concerning the
unlucky Middle East escapade of
two American U.S. defense
contractors resembled an act from
Shakespeare’s “A Comedy of
Errors.”
It has always been a known fact
that American tourists abroad don’t
shine for their knowledge of
languages, nor for their sense of
orientation. So it was not surprising
when David Daliberti and William
Barloon were found March 13
wandering in Iraqi territory after
accidentally crossing the border.
The two defense contractors,
probably fascinated by the vastness
of the sky in that portion of the
desert, evidently got carried away
and before they knew it, found
themselves in enemy territory. You
can certainly accuse them of bad
timing, given the not-so-ancient
Gulf War, and a rotten sense of
direction.
But calling them spies would
seem extremely unflattering to the
entire American spy system.
Although it looks dubious, we can
almost certainly exclude the spy
theory; after all, what espionage
mission would entail a solo ride
across the border through a closely
observed desert only to fall into the
hands of the enemy? I certainly
hope, for America’s sake, that the
CIA can devise better plans than
that. But then again, the CIA did
come up with the Bay of Pigs
invasion.
Nevertheless, Daliberti and
Barloon stood trial and were
sentenced to eight years in prison
Simon Uveranl
for illegally entering the country.
They can probably consider
themselves lucky that they were nol
convicted for sabotage, which
carries a minimum of 20 years in
prison and possibly the death
sentence. There is probably hope
for leniency on the part of the Iraqi
government, despite anti-American
sentiments in that country.
The handling of this crisis by the
Clinton administration is reflective
of the lack of a clear vision on the
part of the leadership of this
country. An incident of this sort is
either solved within a short time, or
more radical views might take
over. Some of the members of the
Republican congress have sug
gested the use of the military to
free Americans. Maybe they could
ask Sylvester Stallone to head the
mission.
Aside from these far-fetched
ideas, the solution will come only
if the United States decides to
bargain with Baghdad on equal
terms. An option would be to ask
the Iraqis to allow the Americans tc
serve frie sentence in a U.S.
penitentiary. After all, these men
did spark an international incident
with their careless wanderings.
Clinton, however, is too busy
sending his wife and daughter
around the world for a refreshing
vacation on taxpayers’ money. The
theme for this tour of Asia is the
development of Asian women and
children, or something of that sort.
It’s a unique opportunity to give
the White House teen-ager a
cosmopolitan education and, at the
same time, change the lives of
millions of women forever. I can
see it now: a testimonial of
women’s rights from one woman
(Hillary Clinton), who left her
career to follow her husband, to
another woman, who was elected
prime minister in a Muslim country
(Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan). What
could Hillary ever tell her about
women’s rights?
Unfortunately, the first lady’s
charitable escapades are the only
signs of American foreign policy,
since Clinton has decided to turn
away from a role of prominence in
world affairs and turn his attention
to domestic issues.
The result of the absence of a
strong world power can be seen in
Bosnia, where fighting continues
despite continual empty threats
from the United Nations. The
United Nations’ blue helmets are
not only sitting ducks for sniper
fire, but also die symbol of a
vacuum in world leadership that the
United States had promised to fill
after the Gulf War, but never fully
secured.
Foreign policy evidently does
not have a prominent role in
Clinton’s agenda, but the world
cannot wait too long for the
western giant to wake up and take
responsibility for its actions. The
breakup of the eastern bloc was the
aim of American policy for almost
five decades.
Now the problem is where to
find another enemy. Maybe the
“spy” incident could come in
handy.
Llveranl is a senior advertising maj or aad
a Dally Nebraskaa colanudst
Go on, eat to your
heart’s discontent
lvutnaei jacooson sounded
genuinely puzzled and a little
hurt.
“It surprises me how the
media attacks US for our work,”
he said last week. “All we do is
provide information for people
to make smart decisions about
their health.”
For more than 20 years, his
organization, the Center for
Science in the Public Interest,
has been giving us advice on
what we should and shouldn’t
eat if we want to avoid the
discomfort of massive chest
pains and the social embarrass
ment of bulging eyeballs and
loud death rattles.
They’re the people who told
us about the deadly buttered
popcorn, the killer egg rolls, the
murderous taco, the savage
fettuccine Alfredo and dozens of
other homicidal food choices.
Only this week, they came out
with a warning about the sadistic
deli sandwich, all plump and
juicy and slathered in death
dealing mayo.
But how do most of us in
media thank Jacobson for his
concerns about our health?
“I’ve seen a lot of snideness
in editorials,” he says, “calling
us the food police. I find that
ironic and shocking.
“It’s killing the messenger. A
newspaper is a messenger of
news, but newspapers are trying
to kill the messenger.
“There have been editorials,
especially in the Southwest, that
said: ‘We don’t want to hear this
stuff. We don’t want to know.’
But all these same newspapers
care about the cost of health
care, and if we ate a better diet,
we’d save billions of dollars.”
Jacobson’s puzzlement is
understandable. His organization
goes to all the effort of telling us
not to plunge our heads into a
vat of whipped cream, and all we
do is tell him to go mind his own
tofU.
Which isn’t a nice way to
treat someone who is simply
worrying about our arteries
getting clogged with bitty pieces
of pork shank or Big Mac.
After a while, it becomes easy
to resent someone who pushes a
sliced turkey sandwich when
what you really want is a bacon
and Cheddar cheeseburger with
fries, and Twinkies on the side.
A shrink might even say that
there is more to our hostility. For
people of my generation, it
might be a dislike that dates
back to our formative years and
all those hungry children in
China.
Yes, those hungry children of
China. We heard so much about
them, they seemed almost like
Mike Royko
relatives or neighbors.
All we had to do was try to
leave something uneaten on our
plates - broccoli or cabbage or
rhubarb - and our mothers would
say: “Finish everything. Re
member, all those hungry
children in China.”
So we’d force the unpleasant
stuff down our throats, even
though I never understood how
my eating some steamed broc
coli could make life better for
some hungry children in China. I
might have understood if it was
sweet and sour pork, or even
chop suey. But I was sure that
even hungry children in China
hated steamed broccoli as much
as I did.
But when I raised the ques
tion, all my mother would say
was: “Don’t talk with your
mouth full,” even when it was
empty.
Not that it happened very
often. Without being told,
Gramps had compassion for
thirsty Chinese lushes.
Years later, I found myself
trying to do the same thing to my
children when they couldn’t
finish their dinners.
But they were a different
generation. They responded: “if
they are hungry, it is not my
fault. They should blame the
failed agricultural policies of
Mao and the rest of their oppres
sive communist leaders.”
And when I’ve tried the same
thing with the grandchildren,
they say: “Why should I worry
about them? They have all those
great Mandarin and Szechwan
joints to go to and order General
Wingwang’s chicken or garlic
beef, while we have to sit here
and eat the same old tuna
casserole.”
So from now on, when
Jacobson tells me not to eat
something I really like, I’m
going to think about some
hungry guy in China who
wouldn’t dream of leaving a
perfectly good pork shank on his
plate.
And I’ll eat it as an act of
compassion.
(c) 1995 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
T
Mike Luckovldi
