Description

As a Catholic, I was led to believe that Catholicism was the
only true religion and that Judaism was only a preparation for
Christianity. Hence, the other religions were all false. In fact, I
only heard about Islam for the first time in 1978. I had learned
that Muslims believed in the divine origin of Christianity and
Judaism. The Qur’an indicates that Allah (the proper name for
God in the Arabic language)1 had sent prophets to every land in
order to guide people to the path of truth and righteousness.
In order to carve the Christian message into the depths of
my subconscious, the Catholic Church designed a program
which, when applied from childhood, had a very high probability
of retention. This program affected people's beliefs and their
behavior for the rest of their lives. In this scheme the central
figure is Jesus, and the rites are mostly related to events
surrounding his birth, supposed death and resurrection; from his
birth, assumed to be in December, to his alleged crucifixion on
Easter. These religious rites were introduced by human beings
many centuries after Jesus' departure rather than by divine
revelation.
According to tradition in Venezuela, at midnight on
December 24th I used to wait for the arrival of Jesus to bring the
gifts that I had requested in my yearly wish list. Being from a
poor family and having several brothers and sisters, I
understood that it was very difficult for the "Child Jesus" to
bring me what I had asked for. But I was often confused and
puzzled because if Jesus had performed so many miracles, as I
had learned from nuns and priests, why was he not able to bring
me a tricycle? Wasn't that request easier for Him than bringing
dead people back to life? Thus, for several years the concept of
the "Child Jesus" left me disappointed.
As Easter was approaching, I used to watch televised
stories of how Jesus was abused until he was hung on a cross to
be crucified. I really wanted to climb inside the TV set and help
him somehow. I asked God to help him, and asked Him not to
let His "son" be crucified. In the end I would hide and cry
because I was taught that "men do not cry." I could not
understand why such brutality was inflicted on such a good
man. As a child, this incident cultivated in me an intense love
for this great prophet of God. As for other children, perhaps the
toys they received on Christmas – as an answer to their wishes –
was the cause of their affection towards Jesus.
If the objective of the Church was to somehow infuse a
feeling of reverence for Jesus, in my case they were successful.
I learned to love Jesus more than my own parents. However,
while still a child, I started to question the power of God. The
concept that I had about God was that He could do whatever He
wanted. He had created the universe, the earth, the sun, the
moon, the stars, and human beings. I wondered why He could
not save Jesus from being crucified on the cross. In order to
resolve this dilemma, on one occasion I climbed a small wall in
the backyard of my house and challenged God, saying: "If You
are really so powerful and can do whatever You like, then make
me fly when I jump from this wall. Otherwise, I will not
believe that You are so powerful because You could not save
Jesus from the cross either." Fortunately, the wall was not so
high and I fell to the ground. With every attempt to fly I
became more and more convinced that God was not so powerful
after all. A childish analysis indeed!
Later on in life when I started high school, my parents
allowed me to work with an old man who was a photographer,
and I accompanied him to many places. It turned out that he
was also a very famous fortuneteller. Wherever we went, many
of his female clients would ask him about events that would
happen in their future. For this task he used to smoke brown
tobacco, and as it was being consumed and the ashes fell, he
would "reveal" information to his clients. I also learned that he used to hypnotize people in order to learn hidde