The Holiday Season

It's the holiday season. Christmas, Hannukkah and Eid-ul-Adha all miraculously falling in the same week, only a day or two apart from each other, is nothing short of aggrandizing gesture of Godly unison.

But consider this scenario: A 5 year-old boy living in Liyari, Karachi listens with a child's curiosity to his mother who tells him the story of Eid-ul-Adha and Prophet Ibrahim's great sacrifice. Mother tells him that Eid-ul-Adha is a time for Muslims to learn the value of self-denial by making a sacrifice of something living to God. It is a day to commemorate Ibrahim's sacrifice of his son. As the story goes, God appeared in a dream to Ibrahim and told him to sacrifice his son Isma'il. Ibrahim and Isma'il set off to Mina for the sacrifice. Mother tells the boy that as the Prophet went with his only child, the devil attempted to persuade Ibrahim to disobey God and not to sacrifice his beloved son. But Ibrahim stayed true to God, and drove the devil away. As Ibrahim prepared to kill his son God stopped him and gave him a sheep to sacrifice instead.

So every year on the 10th of Hajj, the last month of the Islamic calendar, Eid-ul-Adha is celebrated by sacrificing camels, cattle, sheep or goats. The mother tells him that an animal with tail and "teats" and horn and teeth are a fair game. However, if it was born without these things in that case also there is nothing wrong with sacrificing it.

The 5 year-old boy listens to the story and grows increasingly anxious as the day nears. His parents still haven't bought the sacrificial animal. The child's anxiety peaks as the night before Eid-ul-Adha his mother comes to him and asks him to show her his teeth. The child asks his mother to repeat the story of how God sent a sheep when Ibrahim was about to slaughter Isma'il. He asks his mother for reassurance that a sheep was indeed sent that glorious day.

Imagine the night that the boy had worrying about the what-ifs.

Now imagine this scenario. Just around the corner from the 5-year old boy in Clymer, NY lives an 18 year old virgin Mary. Mary wakes up on the morning of December 25 and feels something is amiss. The hangover and her aching and cold naked body tell her that it is her virginity that's missing this fine holy morning. Mary has no recollection of the past night. Born in an orthodox Christian family, belief in her virginity and the impeccable timing of the incident Mary quickly convinces herself that it is indeed God who came down and had sex with her and she is now bearing the baby Jesus.

Imagine this third scenario: A secular Jewish guy living in Toronto feels obligated to celebrate and assert his Jewishness by celebrating Hanukkah. He often questions if the nature of his lighting candles would be any different if the society stopped placing so much emphasis on Christmas. Lo and behold! Here comes the atheist friend telling him how Hanukkah is a threat to the earth rather than a gift to it as it causes global warming. However this same atheist friend calls himself a cultural Christian who does not mind singing Christmas carols. Imagine the dilemma of this Jewish man!

The three holidays concurring in one week is absolutely symbolic of the delusion that is shared by the three monotheistic religions. Despite the different prophets and God, the message in all monotheistic religion remains the same - believe, submit, follow and sacrifice. All three religions prey on people's vulnerability and desire for acceptance. Even if one is to believe that these prophets did indeed exist at some point in history of this universe, trying to bring ourselves to celebrate the day when a possibly schizophrenic man set out to kill his son, or a day when virgin Mary gave birth to God's illegitimate child, or the miracle of Judaism where a dab of oil burned for eight days seems like a major accomplishment by religion.