Good for you
Just remember that your right to believe is my right not to believe in your god

January 24, 2006
iranian.com

In response to Alireza ["Where are our good girls?"] and Sarah ["Good is not good enough"] on religious morals:

Please people open a history book... it is full of crimes against humanity... All done in the name of one god or another. Don’t even open a history book that might be to farfetched. Buy a newspaper, it is cheaper too, it is still happening today. If religion and morality are directly linked the way Alireza argues it, all religious societies should be a mirror of heaven. Iran shouldn’t have political prisoners, no woman should be ever harassed on the streets in Tehran. Because they have taken religion one step further and made it into law. This is simply not true and it is shortsighted to make this claim.

You have found religion? Good for you!!! I for one congratulate you.

Just remember that your right to believe is my right not to believe in your god. You want morals? read the universal declaration of Human rights. Start your morals there. Your religion does not give you the right to judge other people as immoral, and furthermore society shouldn’t give you that right and I don’t give you that right. As a human being, a woman an Iranian... In that order I don’t give you that right.  Yes a human first not better or worse than any one else.

I have met men who don’t believe in god or religion, get up and work hard everyday to give their families a decent living. And I have seen many so called “devout” Muslims eat eftari and join a gambling table, drinking vodka till morning,  losing their rent and their kids school books, and get up to rinse their mouth and pray and start their Ramadan fast at daybreak. Where is the morality in that?

Religion has nothing to do with it, I my self haven’t believed in god for a day in my life. I have adopted one rule out of Christianity and I believe that should be the rule for all humanity, loosely translated it is “don’t do to others, what you don’t want done to you”. I didn’t need a bible to figure that one out, I didn’t even know it was a part of Christianity as a child. It was my human nature that dictated this to me, and my mother who brought me up with good values.

I don’t want to be stolen from, so I don’t steal. I don’t want to be cheated on so I don’t cheat. I want people  to be honest with me so I am honest, I want people to respect me so I respect them.  

I my self love Iranian men, I believe our culture, religion excluded, has given Iranian men the best ingredients to make the best gentlemen if they so choose.

I don’t think your problem is that there are no good girls around. Your problem is that you have too many do’s and don’ts, Too many prejudices. Your religious beliefs are blocking your view to humanity.

I am now in a love with an Iranian man who believes in his god and religion, while I never have. What keeps us together and faithful to each other is not religious morals but respect. Mutual respect for the others believes. We have reached a point in our relationship that we can look each other in the eyes and say “I love you, no ifs or buts”. In other words I respect and accept you just the way you are.

The reason Iranian women outside of Iran don’t want to date Iranian men is not because of their loss of morals. We have fought for our existence, we have educated ourselves, we have gotten our selves top jobs and are overall respected in the communities we live. We have fought and gained our stripes and know our self worth. Now imagine a man any man walking in to this picture and telling me that because I am a woman I should obey him … ?, some prick of the streets who doesn’t know his left hand from his right wants to tell me how to run my life?.... I for one am not waiting for a man who thinks my rights are his to give or to take away.

The problem is not that Iranian women have become immoral but that Iranian men have not yet decided to join us in the 21st century.

Please people get of your moral high horses and take an honest look at the world, having found religion makes you no better or no worse than the rest of us. If it makes it any easier my religion is human virtue, with out a heaven or a hell at the end.