From converts to religious zealots

Sukudhew Singh

You decided to convert to another religion. Only you know the true geography of your heart and the motivations for your choice. If those motivations were sincere, your path would be one of quietude; a humble attempt to learn the nuances of your new faith, to be guided by its ethics, and to live a life of service to your fellow man.

But what if the spirit is not what moved you? What if your conversion was not a surrender to the divine, but a calculated pivot toward earthly gain?

Having crossed the threshold into a new faith, you quickly realize the weight of your own “otherness.” Among those born into the tradition, you are a perpetual guest. You look different, you speak with the wrong cadence, and you lack the cultural shorthand that comes with a lifetime of practice. You feel like a second-class citizen in the house you just moved into.

For the honest soul, this is a time for patience and learning. But for the opportunist, this insecurity is intolerable. You need a shortcut to authority. You need to “burnish your credentials” and prove you are more loyal than the loyalists.

Someone with goodness in their heart builds bridges; they seek to understand their new religion so they can better serve the community. But those with a mercenary soul realize that peace is a poor product for social media algorithms. Peace doesn’t buy influence.

Instead, you weaponize your new identity. You turn the fury of your hate against the very people you once stood among. You transform yourself into a “fighter for the faith” in a war that doesn’t exist. You voice extreme views, not because you believe them, but because they serve as a garish signal to your new brothers that you are willing to go further than they ever would.

You are a “defender” of a religion you do not understand, fighting against the other religions which you also do not understand. So what are you, really?

To the gullible, your antics are entrancing. They see your belligerence as “strength” and your vitriol as “passion.” But to the discerning, you are nothing more than a dangerous clown. Only fools will think that you are a credit to your new religion.

Your understanding of your new faith is a mile wide and an inch deep. You trade in caricatures and soundbites. Your sole purpose is to manufacture fury, stoking the fires of sectarianism so that your own star can shine a little brighter in the smoke.

There is a profound duplicity in your path. You claim to have found “The Truth,” yet your daily life is an exercise in performance and deception. You claim to love your new community, yet you poison the social well they have to drink from.

In the end, you cannot escape the reality of what you have become: You are not a person of faith; you are a parasite.