Why I left Islâm

[zenzero]

Friend Kodanshi,

It sure is a sign that you are human and that you are evolving.
Life is a flow and one cannot be attached to anything including religion.
Best Wishes.
Love & rgds

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I have read too much, seen too much the manmade origins of each religion, inconsistencies and errors in Islâm, ridiculous notions that could only come from a desert people in the 7th century ...

... as well as the wonderful notions that characterized the Islamic Golden Age. I applaud your courage and integrity. Just make sure that perspective does not succumb as collateral damage.

 

[*Paul*]

I can understand why a person would reject the faith they were born into as they open their eyes to the big wide world but your rejection of Divinity I can never understand as I have never been close to doing that.

 

[Kodanshi]

How has your family reacted to your loss of faith?
Do you have any support at home?

My sisters know, but I have put my parents through too much heartache in my life already, and they have advanced in age quite a bit, that I don’t consider it wise telling them. They wouldn’t handle it at all.

Point Taken. I doubt many Muslims would accept me, yet I feel accepted when I read the Quran. It's message is a message of belief in God. Since I believe in God, I feel rather at home with much of Islam. I feel that it was founded on truth, yet the walls were not so sturdily built. The blueprint is good, but the roof leaks.

It does more than preach a belief in god. It preaches a worship and utter submission to a particular deity, with all the attendant rituals, and some very bizarre trains of thought. You have to accept the existence of angels, for example, and of jinn, and see Muhammad as a great rôle model for mankind, despite some of his very despicable acts (such as sanctioning assassinations of poets who had satirically criticised him, having sex with a 9–year–old girl, slaughtering literally hundreds and hundreds of captive Jews, etc).

Your words make it seem as though the Qur’ân and nothing else matters in Islâm. In fact, I have lived it. Lived amongst a community, prayed both at home and in a mosque, felt the utter worthlessness of each person in front of allah. I have so many notes I wrote following my apostasy, but I never put them on my blog. But I have a whole notebook filled with thoughts and musings.

Only a malevolent god would give free will yet demand enslavement. This is just the start really. Also, for a religion that supposedly opposes idolatry, many Muslims sure seem to make a sort of demigod out of Muhammed.

Yes yes, absolutely. This forms one of my main concerns with all Abrahamic religions, wherein you have free will (how does that work with an omniscient deity?) but can’t utilise it or you’ll go to hell literally for all eternity for a finite ‘crime’.

You mentioned the fact that you had 'read too much'...I also noticed from another post, in another thread, that you understand logical fallacies such as 'tu quoque'....what kinds of things did you read, which expanded your knowledge and caused you to question?

I don’t know, I honestly don’t know what triggered it first of all. As a young child I used to read voraciously. I couldn’t sit still and eat without reading. At breakfast time I’d even read the backs of cereal boxes if I had nothing else to hand. As I started growing up I grew extremely interested in Greek, Roman and Norse mythology. I started reading Fantasy and Science Fiction almost exclusively. Thankfully a wonderful English teacher of mine broke me out of that habit, and I read more contemporary novels and ‘classic’ fiction and poetry (Dante, TS Eliot, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Evelyn Waugh, etc.).

Even while a muslim figures like Jesus fascinated me and I loved the rational nature of a lot of modern Jews I’d encountered. I read avidly books on biblical criticism, the entire Bible itself (it took quite a while, I didn’t manage it at one sitting!), and works on scholarly study, archaeology about the Middle East, and books about Palestine and Israel, including plenty of political works.

Eventually I came to see through various sources exactly how the Jews had built up their religion and overlaid it with new innovations. How their god, despite their professed monotheism, had in fact remained a single god in a pantheon of many. Many of the early battles seemed like El/Yahweh trying to assert its superiority over other deities.

Christianity’s legendary nature also broke down into elements of truths and obviously made–up works. Reading about paganism too I could see how Christianity spread so fast because it subsumed other cultures and pagan religions, changing itself from within in order to gather converts. For example, a lot of saints started as pagan gods, and you can see it with pagan festivals such as Easter (Eostre) and Christmas (Yule and Saturnalia).

One day, after a lot of resistance, I developed the courage to apply these same criticisms to my own religion, and found it wanting. Badly. When I finally realised I didn’t even believe in the concept of a supernatural deity with all the qualities we usually ascribe it, I knew I had gone beyond the pale of Islâm, and had to turn away.

 

[Gharib]

dont worry esalam we have all been waiting for you

well the reason for this thread is because of me and well kondashi, but i wanted to ask questions.

 

[Gharib]

No you fool, it's the Aliens that are making him think that. You don't need faith, you need an aluminum hat to ward off their mind rays.

well your proof of the aliens is not much better than mine about the devil, but at lest they are mentioned in a religious scripture. in which scripture are aliens mentioned?

 

[YmirGF]

One day, after a lot of resistance, I developed the courage to apply these same criticisms to my own religion, and found it wanting. Badly. When I finally realised I didn’t even believe in the concept of a supernatural deity with all the qualities we usually ascribe it, I knew I had gone beyond the pale of Islâm, and had to turn away.

It is fascinating how your insatiable curiosity ran into logic and made you look at Islam honestly. I, for one, would love to peek inside that notebook of musings. Like Mr. Spinkles, I have so many questions, but we will leave those alone for now. I do understand the reasons for not telling your parents. It is tragic to have to pretend around them, but when people can't handle the truth what else is there left to do?

 

[Gharib]

first question; would you mind telling me what nationality you are. i my self am albanian.

I simply don’t believe. Not only in Islam as a divinely–sanctioned religion, but in divinity altogether. I have read too much, seen too much the manmade origins of each religion, inconsistencies and errors in Islâm,

can you show some of those errors that you found in islam. are they proven wrong by something else, or they are errors simply because you say so?

ridiculous notions that could only come from a desert people in the 7th century and not an almighty omnipotent deity,

well you see, the quran isn't written from the dessert people, if so, then how would some sheppard, who spent all his time in the sun and in the dessert come to know, how a child is formed in the woumb of it's mother, come to know what the structure of the mountains is and explain it in very detail, and knew the shape of clouds when they rained

I have felt no divine presence throughout my life, seen the way nature doesn’t need a conscious guiding hand…

ok let me ask you something; how does rain come about?
in chemistry it is said that the sun heats the oceans, water turns to vapour, which then turns to clouds and at the top of the mountain it rains.

is this what you also beleive? you must believe in this because acording to you Allah (swt) does not make vegetation come to life from rain, and that rain just comes down by it's own will. i wonder how rain knows it is time to rain?

Some of the members there expressed sadness and shock, others incandescent rage and sneering hostility — and most of the latter came when I pointed out that the founder of Islam, Muhammad, sanctioned the death of apostates from Islâm.

well look they are not Allah, so they can only speak and say words, but Allah is the best of judges, and inshallah he forgives you and guides you, but it is up to him, i can be kind or an idiot, but i cannot change you.

At that point people acted as though I’d ‘done a Rushdie’ and one of the moderators closed my thread quicksmart. It interests me that the ultimate act of betrayal and evil (I had announced I do not believe in allah) met with some shocked reactions, but only when I mentioned Muhammad did the moderator close my thread. Odd, that, don’t you think?

well no, he left your first post, because a non muslim too can sign up there and say i do not believe in Allah, but insulting either Allah or the prophet gives you no right to do so, this is that thing about killing apostates, see you started going against islam instead of just keeping to your way.

I don’t regret leaving Islâm. It has, however, left me with some flaws and old habits, though I consciously try to change them. A chap on another forum tasked me with a list of actions I should complete in order to continue moving on in my life, eg. making a pot of chili and eating it, watching the sun rise, and suchlike. None of it far removed from the way I’ve lived my life normally — but I suppose working through the list would provide me with something specific to look forward to and even push me out of my comfort zone.

you can also start eating with your left, clean your self in the toilet with the right, shake hands with the left, say god curse you to people instead of god bless, and make your every second word a swear, instead of saying the shahada.

It feels a bit more like… maturity.

maturity? why because you get to behave like an animal with no rules to abide too. or because you have not surrendered your will to Allah, and are free to do what you think is right?

Putting away the childish thoughts of god making everything ok and stepping up to take responsibility for my own actions. Scary, but necessary for true growth.

actually, didn't you know, chance created us, something even more childish that an animal will not accept, you are a descendant from a group of monkeys who fed on worms and fleas, have any of these instincs come yet, i mean do you have the feeling that you need to scratch some dog in search for flees?

i'd like to know this, since Allah didn't create us then we ame to being from monkeys, so any symptoms?

 

[Father Heathen]

well your proof of the aliens is not much better than mine about the devil, but at lest they are mentioned in a religious scripture. in which scripture are aliens mentioned?

They've been mentioned in supermarket tabloids, which share the same amount of credibility as religious scripture.

 

[Gharib]

They've been mentioned in supermarket tabloids, which share the same amount of credibility as religious scripture.

and how many people have joined this "supermarket tabloid" and live life by it? i'd say none, so it does not have the same credibility.

 

[Kodanshi]

first question; would you mind telling me what nationality you are. i my self am albanian.

Indo–Pakistani, but born in Great Britain.

can you show some of those errors that you found in islam.

I could, I suppose, but I’ve debated this time and again with people from both muslim and non–Islâmic backgrounds. Believers will see what they want to see.

well you see, the quran isn't written from the dessert people, if so, then how would some sheppard, who spent all his time in the sun and in the dessert come to know, how a child is formed in the woumb of it's mother, come to know what the structure of the mountains is and explain it in very detail, and knew the shape of clouds when they rained

Oh please, the Qur’ân describes mountains as anchoring the earth, fixing it so it won’t shake. Except mountains themselves prove in the inherent instability of the crust of the planet we live on! The Qur’ân’s embryonic ‘knowledge’ falls woefully short of fact, and some of it comes copied from incorrect notions taught by Greek medicine.

ok let me ask you something; how does rain come about?
in chemistry it is said that the sun heats the oceans, water turns to vapour, which then turns to clouds and at the top of the mountain it rains.

is this what you also beleive? you must believe in this because acording to you Allah (swt) does not make vegetation come to life from rain, and that rain just comes down by it's own will. i wonder how rain knows it is time to rain?

Something like your first paragraph. However, though I studied Geography at A–Level I did it because I could not settle on a choice of which final subject to pick. I don’t know the intricately detailed ins and outs of our planet’s weather system, but I know enough to say that some mysterious supernatural entity doesn’t cause it.

but Allah is the best of judges, and inshallah he forgives you and guides you, but it is up to him, i can be kind or an idiot, but i cannot change you.

Exactly. The Qur’ân repeatedly states that allah itself seals people’s hearts and actively leads them astray from the correct path. Accordingly, it cannot hold me responsible for my beliefs that stem from its own meddling actions.

well no, he left your first post, because a non muslim too can sign up there and say i do not believe in Allah, but insulting either Allah or the prophet gives you no right to do so, this is that thing about killing apostates, see you started going against islam instead of just keeping to your way.

So I can’t say what I feel has gone wrong with the religion in which I used to believe? I posted on that forum for many years as a muslim, I hadn’t just joined up to announce my apostasy, you know!

you can also start eating with your left, clean your self in the toilet with the right, shake hands with the left, say god curse you to people instead of god bless, and make your every second word a swear, instead of saying the shahada.

This sort of attitude also seems to typify muslim responses to apostasy. They seem to fall under the delusion that people turn away from religion so that they can indulge in sin, or some other such ridiculous notion. Yes, I can do all that, but I could do all that when I followed Islâm too. The only reason I don’t do stupid stuff like that comes from the fact that I don’t act like that. Why would I swear instead of talking? I do recite some of the shahadah, by the way, as you can see from my signature!

maturity? why because you get to behave like an animal with no rules to abide too. or because you have not surrendered your will to Allah, and are free to do what you think is right?

See? You’ve just proved my point. You think I can now cavort around shagging everything that moves, eating pig and drinking booze while murdering people and going to strip clubs. Stupid…

actually, didn't you know, chance created us, something even more childish that an animal will not accept, you are a descendant from a group of monkeys who fed on worms and fleas, have any of these instincs come yet, i mean do you have the feeling that you need to scratch some dog in search for flees?

What the hell does all this even mean?!

It is fascinating how your insatiable curiosity ran into logic and made you look at Islam honestly. I, for one, would love to peek inside that notebook of musings. Like Mr. Spinkles, I have so many questions, but we will leave those alone for now. I do understand the reasons for not telling your parents. It is tragic to have to pretend around them, but when people can't handle the truth what else is there left to do?

Thanks for your kind words! And… Feel free to ask away. I started this thread for that reason, or else I would simply have shared private messages with eselam if I didn’t want anyone else’s input!

 

[YmirGF]

Thanks for your kind words! And… Feel free to ask away. I started this thread for that reason, or else I would simply have shared private messages with eselam if I didn’t want anyone else’s input!

I am curious, you mention the Prophet, Muhammed earlier as why your post was deleted. What I am wondering is how a devout Muslim who treats Muhammad as a demi-god could possibly begin to question such deeply ingrained thinking. What was it that first began to shatter the pristine image of the founder of Islam?

 

[Kodanshi]

I don’t know. I’d read bad stuff about him before, but because I tainted my rational brain with all the attached emotional baggage I either came up with bizarre rationalisations to satisfy myself, or else ignored the problem completely and tried to put it out of my mind.

At some stage I realised I had the courage to look at events in his life more critically. I suppose the one thing that made it easier for me: all the good and bad about his life I gleaned purely from Islâmic sources, not anti–Islâmic ones.

 

[DavyCrocket2003]

friend, the satan is amking you think that, just try a bit harder and you'll see, your 'iman' or belief is weak, if you really would like to understand it better just have some faith.

can i ask does this come to mind whe you read the quran or afterwoods? hope you don't mind.

Let me put it this way. I know that God exists. I believe that any good Muslim is worshipping God. I feel that the underlying essence of Islam is right, like the Quran. However, it seems to me that mankind has taken the purity of the message of Islam and corrupted it. It seems like there are so many man-made beliefs mixed in that it is hard sometimes to actually find Allah, through the mist of superstitions. I tell you that I believe in Allah. He is the one true God that sent Jesus to reclaim the Jewish nation. But he is so real! So alive! I just don't think Islam really captures his full glory.

 

[DavyCrocket2003]

no you can't, a hypocrite would do so, to derrail less educated people from islam, but for them hell awaits.

I try to be in total submission. That is why I am not a normal Muslim. In attempting to follow the will of Allah/God, I find it leads somewhere beyond just Islam. I think Islam is true, underneath somewhere. But when you really become aware of God and his love, it will lead you beyond just Islam as it is practiced today. God is much more than that.

 

[DavyCrocket2003]

and how many people have joined this "supermarket tabloid" and live life by it? i'd say none, so it does not have the same credibility.

You'd be surprised. Their ranks grow daily.

 

[DavyCrocket2003]

It does more than preach a belief in god. It preaches a worship and utter submission to a particular deity, with all the attendant rituals, and some very bizarre trains of thought. You have to accept the existence of angels, for example, and of jinn, and see Muhammad as a great rôle model for mankind, despite some of his very despicable acts (such as sanctioning assassinations of poets who had satirically criticised him, having sex with a 9–year–old girl, slaughtering literally hundreds and hundreds of captive Jews, etc).

Your words make it seem as though the Qur’ân and nothing else matters in Islâm. In fact, I have lived it. Lived amongst a community, prayed both at home and in a mosque, felt the utter worthlessness of each person in front of allah. I have so many notes I wrote following my apostasy, but I never put them on my blog. But I have a whole notebook filled with thoughts and musings.

I see. It seems to me that Islam has lost the touch with the one being that it teaches is so important. It has become lifeless and ritualistic, a tool shaped and changed by those who use it to their ends. Very sad indeed.

Yes yes, absolutely. This forms one of my main concerns with all Abrahamic religions, wherein you have free will (how does that work with an omniscient deity?) but can’t utilise it or you’ll go to hell literally for all eternity for a finite ‘crime’.

You seem very wise. You actually think reasonably about religion and God. Certainly such a person as yourself will find the truth eventually. Perhaps you have been too hasty in your dismissal of God?

I don’t know, I honestly don’t know what triggered it first of all. As a young child I used to read voraciously. I couldn’t sit still and eat without reading. At breakfast time I’d even read the backs of cereal boxes if I had nothing else to hand. As I started growing up I grew extremely interested in Greek, Roman and Norse mythology. I started reading Fantasy and Science Fiction almost exclusively. Thankfully a wonderful English teacher of mine broke me out of that habit, and I read more contemporary novels and ‘classic’ fiction and poetry (Dante, TS Eliot, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Evelyn Waugh, etc.).

Even while a muslim figures like Jesus fascinated me and I loved the rational nature of a lot of modern Jews I’d encountered. I read avidly books on biblical criticism, the entire Bible itself (it took quite a while, I didn’t manage it at one sitting!), and works on scholarly study, archaeology about the Middle East, and books about Palestine and Israel, including plenty of political works.

Eventually I came to see through various sources exactly how the Jews had built up their religion and overlaid it with new innovations. How their god, despite their professed monotheism, had in fact remained a single god in a pantheon of many. Many of the early battles seemed like El/Yahweh trying to assert its superiority over other deities.

Christianity’s legendary nature also broke down into elements of truths and obviously made–up works. Reading about paganism too I could see how Christianity spread so fast because it subsumed other cultures and pagan religions, changing itself from within in order to gather converts. For example, a lot of saints started as pagan gods, and you can see it with pagan festivals such as Easter (Eostre) and Christmas (Yule and Saturnalia).

So you see it. Religion is always changing and being muddied by men. They mix philosophies and add their own. You end up with a melting pot of ideas that are a mixture of original truth and truth that has been changed and added to. This seems to be the pattern throughout history. But with great effort, the truth can be gleaned from the many religions of the world. Truth is still truth. And I find a striking amount of it finds its way into the heart of it's true seekers, regardless of what race, religion, or ethnicity. After all, God is no respector of persons.

One day, after a lot of resistance, I developed the courage to apply these same criticisms to my own religion, and found it wanting. Badly. When I finally realised I didn’t even believe in the concept of a supernatural deity with all the qualities we usually ascribe it, I knew I had gone beyond the pale of Islâm, and had to turn away.

May I ask which qualities these are that you reject in a deity?

 

[Kodanshi]

The Islâmic dogma consists of this: that the Qur’ân contains the unadulterated words of allah itself. In that way it differs utterly from the Bible, hence why muslims take more offence at desecration of a Qur’ân than that of a Bible (large portions of which even Jews admit represent words inspired by prophets of god). I mentioned elsewhere it still works out as 3rd– or 4th–generational hearsay, but muslims deem it the ACTUAL words of allah. So you can’t throw any of it out, though people have tried, which gave birth to the rapidly–developed ‘science’ of Abrogation.

Any of you real Americans here should know all about abrogation since your Constitution incorporates it via those Amendments — but we can expect that from a work made by humans. It seems to me rather odd why such a thing should apply to a divinely mandated religion. I can, however, still recall the arguments I used to give in response to that when I used to follow Islâm.

If a god exists I don’t believe it exists in any way presented by any of the religions of this world, which take human concepts and ideas and ascribe them to divinity. I couldn’t even call it complex or sentient, or even aware it may have created all of existence. Perhaps we worship that which caused the universe to happen in its current form in the same way that ancient Egyptians who settled by the Nile worshipped the fertile sections of the Nile river as a pot–bellied god.

You seem very wise. You actually think reasonably about religion and God. Certainly such a person as yourself will find the truth eventually. Perhaps you have been too hasty in your dismissal of God?

Thank you! Very kind of you to say so. I don’t think we need absolute 100% certainty about anything to know enough to dismiss something, especially when people have not unequivocally proved the existence of god and we’ve had… what? 5000 years to do so? I don’t consider myself hasty in my dismissal of god, I simply can’t accept that viewpoint now. However, I do not follow such a view with religious fervour. If someone can categorically prove god’s existence to me then of course I would have to accept that.

Which also brings to mind the question: so what? If we accept religions as human constructs in the worship of god, and god exists, how does that change my life? I can simply intellectually acknowledge its existence, and then go on living my life the way I have done, trying to live a morally sound and worthwhile life. What about god demands that we worship it? Or does god have a divine–sized ego that needs boosting?

 

[linwood]

well your proof of the aliens is not much better than mine about the devil, but at lest they are mentioned in a religious scripture. in which scripture are aliens mentioned?

All of them.

All Earth religions are a giant extraterrestrial conspiracy.
They made it up.

Just kidding.

Maybe....

 

[linwood]

My sisters know, but I have put my parents through too much heartache in my life already, and they have advanced in age quite a bit, that I don’t consider it wise telling them. They wouldn’t handle it at all.

I would recommend that you never tell them.

They don`t need to know.


It`s nice to meet you Kodanshi.