Changing and Re-tweaking the Blog for the Future and Beyond

This is going to be tricky. Three and a half years ago, I did something with the blogger template to get a great layout without any coding whatsoever. The software changed when I wasn’t paying much attention. I’m not entirely sure I can navigate the blogger to make the necessary changes. I’m almost certain I’ll break something if I try to remove the headers, labels or move things around ..etc. I should proceed with caution when tempering with the layout.

On the content: I’ve finally decided topic of interests which I’ll be pursuing (as of now):

As you can see, I’m big on writing about politics, current events, and social issues. And that’s because as humans, we are always interested and attracted to what other human are doing with their life.

Book reviews: I’m not much of a book reader. I’ve no time to read books especially when everything you need to know can be googled easily, but still, a book review segment may be helpful in identifying good books that could potentially be read by others (not me personally). I could envision how this could easily become a community service where I tell my visitors about interesting books; they in turn read the book and share what they have learned with others who might benefit and I don’t have to waste my precious time.

Article reviews: Hopefully, I’ll be doing more of this in the future. Academic articles are shorter, straight forward and to the point so they can be digest easily and have proven to be very useful, at least to me.

Women. This is a fairly interesting topic. Women in most part of the world are still seen and treated like a second class citizen. In the Islamic context, I’m interested to see how they are viewed, historically and also in the modern time, socially, culturally and religiously.

Philosophy in general has added another perspective/dimension to most religion in the world. The use of philosophy in the Islamic faith has proven to be very useful and seen as an inseparable part of the religion.

Al-Quran: The only Islamic literature that many consider reliable and trustworthy. Widely read in the Islamic world but very little is understood or acted upon. While the book is in an unfamiliar language not spoken by many, the faithful believers have found solace and guidance and the unfaithful/ evil-doers have found justification for their cause and to act sinfully. The book has also been used by many to deal with social ills and to heal a wide range of physical and mental disorders and demonic possessions.

Comparative Religion: Religious people tend to view their faith as the best and the most correct version of the truth. I find this mentality of ‘us-vs-them’ exists across all faiths via what we officially call religious sects. When someone doesn’t like or agree with your interpretation or version of anything (ideas, events, practices) they then provide an alternate ideology and band together with similar minded individual. They gain traction and become an established sect and get more followers and become even more influential. I started this blog to investigate the origin of some of the Islamic sects. I don’t see why the good work has to stop just because I’m changing the overall direction of the blog.

Rationality: Does rationality exist in the Islamic faith? Yes? No? Is rationality useful or not really?

Psychology: This should be a topic of interest for many and not just a branch of study for the experts. Unfortunately we don’t spend enough time studying other human who are just like us. Religion sometimes creates artificial barriers that keep us even more insular and divided: You go to different places of worships, dresses differently, mingle only with people of your own race/religion and avoid others simply because they worship a different god which happens to be the same god as yours via different practices which don’t seem to be any less useful than yours.

Science-vs-creationism: I hardly ever post on this. I’ve sat down and tried writing something but this is not an easy task. I can see why religion takes a very simplified approach to explain mystery of the creation or natural occurrence and makes everything easy for us; Adam was created from clay, Eve burst out from Adam’s rib, they ate something and got thrown out from the heaven, there’s demon that’s attached to your soul whose only mission in life is to misguide your soul, the angels control the air, wind and rain, natural disasters could be seen as a punishment, the world is not supposed to be that old if we came from Adam and Eve. Nowadays, we know more about the creation of the human and the universe than our ancestors. We now know that we are not the only race of human to ever live on earth. We also know that the creation of everything is not a simple as we are lead to believe and that the weather pattern is a little more complicated and that every living being is self-sustaining without ever needing interference from angels or higher power.
The next question would be on how to integrate our new found knowledge with our faith. Is that even possible?

These are all the topic of interests I have as of now. I’m going to think about them, sleep on it and start working when I’m ready ...after I figure out how to work the template.