It always puzzled me that the religious perspective could be so overbearing and imposing on the human experience. While it recognizes the innate human ability to be drawn towards good and being repelled from evil, it is failing nowadays to trust this faculty by putting it to test. The aesthetic human faculty endows man with the ability to seek beauty and avoid ugliness. In the name of human protection and guaranteeing his sense of aestheticism, religion imposes its dogmatic divinely revealed rules. The process is carried with an innocence more fleeting than a the whisper of cold spring breeze on your cheek. Its impact is quite different. It is rather like a dagger at the heart of your aesthetic faculties. "La Darar Wa La Dirar", the prophetic hadith says, meaning "No harm shall be committed or received". It is one golden rule that is in synch with our humanity and can guide our actions. The religious classical doctrine will not accept the exclusivity and the precedence of the "no harm" prophetic rule. If a muslim refrains Vodka to avoid its harm over the mind and the body, not withstanding the Quranic revealed injunction, it is not considered enough by the mainstream. Should the Quranic rulings be treated as educational pointers rather than absolute injunctions ?
The answer to the above question will shape the future societies we are hoping to form at the outset of the arab spring.
Regards,
Walid.