Blogger Indonesia of the Week (83): Rima Fauzi

World is beautiful, every normal and spirited being thinks so. The most salient feature of its beauty lies in the heterogeneity of its populace called human. The differences of our physical appearance,colors of our skin, our eyes and hairs. And on top of it all: the differences of our mindset, preference, leaning and way of thinking we attach to or led or want others to believe. Thus emerges various religions brought about by many prophets, school of thoughts introduced by many great philosophers. It’s natural therefore if every single religion and philosophical thoughts for or against any religion have their own followers. It also means that we have choices to choose to lead our life. Afterall, life is about choice and world gives us freedom to choose. Whatever you wanna be, just be it.

For example, Rima Fauzi, an Indonesian blogger who’s been enjoying life in Brussels, Belgium; a “used to be” religious,  has her own reason when she made up her mind to be an agnostic and feel comfortable with it. In one of her interesting post he wrote:

I was once upon a time a religious person. I am now a spiritual-romantic-intellectual agnostic.

I am the daughter of a fanatic intellect who taught me to be critical. Because of the way my father raised me, I grew up into a critical young woman, one who eventually broke his heart. He paid a dear price for letting me be my own person and become extremely critical (compared to other people from my country and generation).

When I was 25, I was at a turning point in my life where I could no longer believe in the religion I was born into and decided to convert to another religion that was closer to the values I believe in. When my father found out, he disowned me. This was 7 years ago and I am still an outcast in my own family.

My first religion was a very strict one that rendered me a fanatic. When I converted to my second (and somewhat present) religion, I could not shake off the need to be a fanatic. I was still the same fundamentalist, just with a different outfit and set of beliefs.

In the past 4 years, I have experienced so many new and interesting things that have turned me into an even more critical person than I ever was. However, critical as I maybe, these turns of events have also made me much less religious and fanatical. I have found that being a spiritual agnostic agrees with me much more than whatever it is I was once before ever did. I was finally happy and doing good things in life.

Of course I still believe in God/Higher Power/Deity but I have relinquished all organized religions because I personally think that they just cause complete chaos, segregation, hatred towards other groups, suspicious mindset and limit my thinking ability and willingness (not to mention how both my religions used to force me into believing certain things without the possibility or permission to break the mold, and to think and ask questions out of the box).

Even though I know that my kind are most likely condemned by most people from my own country (daddy included), I now choose to live life with love (to the best of my ability) and I try to be as kind possible to anyone without the guidelines of a specific religion. I strongly believe that as humans, we were all born with a moral compass, we are all familiar with the primordial morality – do not do to others what you don’t want done upon you.

Yes, I am a spiritual-romantic-intellectual agnostic. Does this make me a child of a lesser God? Does this make me a bad person? I dont think so. But one thing I know for sure, I am no longer scared of the abstract, of death and of the unexplained. Instead I am now blessed with the ability to feel God’s love for me. Two words to describe it: absolutely awesome!

Interesting to note that turns of event have made her heart and mindset upside down. On why people tend to be agnostic or religious I wrote similar topic somewhere that

The more independent a person, the less dependent one becomes towards God and religion …
The basic character of human is that they will make priorities based on their immediate needs. People in the West (Western Europe particularly) who are relatively more independent than that in the East, financially as well as emotionally, find religion as a non-immediate priorities. And hence atheism or agnosticism finds a fertile breed out there…

There are moments, however, where money and anything it can buy, cannot resolve problems. And there are times when logic reaches its limit. Here human will need something else. Something beyond human capability to do and to think. It’s at this point of time when you have only two choices: turn to religion, or spiritualism…

Life is packed with turns of events, including the turns of hearts. So far as seeking for solace goes, those who are agnostic today could be religious tomorrow and vice versa, a religious person now could be an agnostic or even an atheist later. That’s another beauty of human life: everychanging, ever-evolving, ever growing, for the better or the worse.

As far as Rima Fauzi’s blog is concerned, however, one thing is clear: she always makes her points crystal clear even when the points she makes very unpopular like the post I quoted above. I commend her gut to speak out. Not many Indonesian, especially the ladies, are able to do so. And for that alone she deserves our honest appreciation. Her willingness to show her identity–not being anonymous blogger–deserves her even more appreciation from all of us.