Giant Rabbit

Good afternoon to you all. It’s my first post over here and I’ve been lurking at work on this site and others over the past few weeks. My reasons for becoming a member of this site is not only intellectual but also very emotional; I hope you do not look down on this fact but understand that when one is bought up extremely religiously, if the person sees flaws in religion after a long time, these flaws can cause emotional problems arising from lack of certainty and social castigation.

I was bought up in the United Kingdom in a strict Muslim family. I did quite well at school and got into a school which was not in my home town but in a major city, a little over one hours journey away. I went to school by bus and train daily and at this school I had few Muslim friends; almost all my friends were non-Muslims many of whom I consider to be good friends now. With them I discovered Music and Cinema; two things which my religion forbade. I started living two lives. My life in my home-town consisted of me being quite religious – I was always top of the glass in my daily mosque-school (madrassah) which I attended for two hours a day until I was 15.

I joined the Tablighi movement when I was 15. These people preach to other Muslims by staying in many different Mosques and then visiting the houses of Muslims and inviting them to the mosque to pray. It is very spiritual and completely non-political. Your faith It raised my level of faith immensely and I was then very strong in doing my 5 daily prayers in the mosque, even at four in the morning when necessary.

However this double-life with extreme religiousness at home and liberal and culturally-rich life at school/University with non-Muslim friends took its toll and I became very depressed, the root of which I did not know. At first I thought it was an identity crisis but then realised that religious fear was the main reason. I was worried because my liberal beliefs were in contrast to the religious ones I ‘should’ have had and my hobbies were considered Satanic (both film and music). I realised I could not get married as my parents would like, to a Muslim woman who are usually not educated to a high level or those who shun the news, and any culture like books, film, art, photography and music.

I then started to question things I wouldn’t have dreamed of questioning in the past. I could not accept that all non-Muslims would go to hell and not even the very modernist view that all non-abrahamic-religious people would go to hell; I thought it was cruel of God but was scared that I felt this way and scared that both my friends and myself would have to share this fate.

Right now I am unsure of religion. The Quran seems incredible for a book from it’s time in terms of how complex it is but it’s violent and misogynist behaviour worries and frightens me. I don’t agree with things like Slavery in my religion and find attempted justifications by Muslim scholars laughable (the same can be said for the Banu Quraiza massacre). However, the Quran still seems hard to disprove and people like the apostate Ali Sina seem so consumed with hate that it clouds their writings (his response to an apostate who then reverted to Islam once more was quite nasty and the vitriol in *some* of his arguments makes me doubt his motives). It seems that some atheists can be just bigoted as religious people in rabidly trying to attract ‘converts’. Please don’t take this personally but it’s the impression I get from various websites.

Anyway, I do have an open mind despite the huge social pressure on me ( I live with parents who are appalled at me simply not going to mosque often – they don’t know about the extent of my religious worries). I cant be too revealing about my identity as I’m sure you know that the penalty for apostasy in an Islamic state is death. And although I live in the UK, there are any fanatical and militant people around even here.

Anyway, nice to meet you and I hope we can have some good and interesting discussions in the future.

Hedshaker

Hello Giant Rabbit and welcome to II :thumbs:

If you have reservations about your religion, or any religion for that matter, you have come to a good place. There are some very knowledgable people here who will be glad to help you. You might, at some point, enjoy chatting with one of our pleasently spoken posters, Mugal (don't know if I've spelled that right) who is himself an ex muslim and is very vocal about his vews on Islam.

There is life after religion.

Good luck :thumbs:

Orbit

Rhaedas

Welcome, Giant Rabbit!

Having been brought up in a very light religious atmosphere (almost non-existant) I never really had to deal with the throwing off of any beliefs...I never believed, I just went to church when my mom took us, and that phase of hers only lasted a year or so. I have always admired those who grew up indoctrinated with belief and yet found the power inside to begin the long road of questioning their faith. I had it easy, now that I look back.

In your situation, it seems even more troubling. Not only are you struggling within, but there's the danger of showing that struggle to others. I wish you the best of luck, and by all means share those struggles with us. Maybe we can help you, and I'm sure you'll teach us something as well.

Plognark

Welcome, and best of luck to you, it sounds like you situation is very difficult and potentially dangerous.

This sentence jumped out at me:
Consider this: The burden of proof lies with the person making the positive claim. Instead of thinking how to disprove the Quran, think instead on whether anyone you know has even met the basic requirement to prove any of it correct and/or truthful.

This is true, although often it seems that some religious minded people don't understand where the anger and bitterness from some atheists stems from.

When a huge portion of the world tells you you're going to hell and that you are a criminal for not believing the way they do it can lead to a high degree of cynicism and hostility.

Giant Rabbit

Thanks for your responses Thanks Orbit - I have read some articles by Mugal on various websites and they are interresting. I havent completely given up on religion just yet but am cynical. I do however believe in a God which may not go down well here.

One question that I want to ask is that do you choose a set of beliefs with heart or mind? I suppose many on here would say the latter but strangely enough it is my heart rather than my mind that is driving me away from Islam; I cant accept it's rules as they disagree with my 'morals'.

Rahaedas, I hope we can all learn from each other :thumbs: I want to avoid some of the nastiness that I see in some religious forums and think we can learn uch from each other.

Plognark, you wrote the following:
I understand that that is hard to take as it is hard for me to swallow when I am told my friends will go to hell :huh: However I think that the majority say such things because their faith pushes them into a corner rather than they feelign that that would be fair. I have read Islamic clerics writing apologetically that slavery is fine because Islam said so yet their tone seems to suggest they cannot say otherwise because they are compromised by faith and eventually resort to the last argument: "God said so in the Quran so we cant say otherwise".. It can also be condescending when religious people say things like "we can only pray for the non-believers". Yet there isnt a hatred there from most people though admittedly there are some whose arrogance leads to hate and I have met and know many of them too.

The Quran promoters claim that it has many scientific miracles (the Harun Yahya site is a good reference). Personally I also find it amazing that ti is by an illiterate or a generally illiteate society when it has so many ideas, albeit some objectionable ones. Islam seems so complete as a way of life - it tells you have how to do everything - I dont know if it can be false. They are inital thoughts but they may change.

Anyway, nice to meet you all

Plognark

Interesting question...I suppose for myself I don't make much of a distinction between heart and mind. What I would call my "heart" I suppose I could call the sense of fairness, the sense of empathy, that I was born with and developed as I grew up. It's one of the bigger reasons why I find myself unable to accept many religions. IMHO, it sounds like your own sense of empathy and fairness is conflicting with the religion you've been taught for probably all of your life.

Very understandable. Reconciling a person's sense of right and wrong with what their religion tells them is right or wrong seems to me to be difficult. I suppose it's no wonder that there are so many different factions in any religion.

For what it's worth, the society that spawned Islam wasn't really illiterate or uneducated. For a number of centuries they made the dark-age europeans look like backwards cave men.

Interesting...how do you manage the conflict between your sense of morality and your disatisfaction with some of Islam's teachings? Why would the apparent "completeness" of a way of life make you believe it to be true? Does it have room for growth and development?

Giant Rabbit

Firstly, my very problem lies in my not being able to reconcile my religion with my dissatisfaction with some of its teachings. Islam has a very tiny modernist minority and unfortunately they dont seem to have much scriptural weight behind them. The literalists are the overwhelming majority.

The question about completeness - It's hard to explain but Islam does seem very compeltely wthout leaving one uncertain what to do at any time. It tells you everything from your rights, responsibilties to the exact way to eat, sleep, go to the toilet, handle your business; there are rules for everything. There are tens of thousands of hadeeth (sayings of the prophet) as well as the Quran. So you think it would have taken a mammoth effort on someone's part to make it all up. That's my feeling at present.

Room for growth and development? A very controvercial question. The modernists say there is room for 'ijtihaad' which means reason in religion bur the conservatives vehemently disagree and say that they are trying to reject the original teachigns because they dont suit the westerna secular lifestyle. The conservatives argue that when Muhammed on his last sermon said that the message is complete and for all people, that it cannot be changed in any way.

Jedi Mind Trick

Hi Giant Rabbit,
I don’t like this teaching either but from a christian's perspective. Its a horrible doctrine and is against reason. I would not want unending hell on my worst enemy and I think that any person with an ounce of heart wouldn't either. It's sad that there can be found among some christian writers an expectant glee for this to happen to the "unbeliever."

It's good to know that the dislike of this teaching is almost as universal as is its propagation.

Thanks for your post.

Plognark

Are you starting to think of yourself as more of a modernist?

Well, perhaps it wasn't a single person making it up? It's my understanding that there has been some issues within Islam of identifying real and fake hadeeth, although I admit my knowledge of the issues is sketchy at best.

Interesting. I guess, for myself, I can't understand a static, unchanging system of living and of beliefs, when the world around us changes so much with every year that goes by. I find myself skeptical of the idea that a group of people could have had even a rough hint at the modern issues faced by us today, well over a thousand years ago.

Spookie Here

Giant Rabbit:
Welcome, Giant Rabbit.
I understand your situation. I was raised in an extremely fundamentalist neighborhood in the Midwest in a farming community where mostly everyone attended the Methodist church, and while there was an atmosphere of concern for one another, some left the nest to find other religions and lifestyles. In San Francisco where I live, there is just about every religion and lifestyle, and I found one that is compatible with my belief system. I do not know a lot about the Muslim religion, since the Muslim temples here do not seem to like outsiders to attend their services. I am told the temple leaders try to indoctrinate those who attend to their philosophy.