Hello everyone,I'm Yemeni from, well, Yemen, and of Yemeni parents. I was born and raised there my whole life (over quarter a century now). I (involuntarily) fall into the 99.98% Muslim majority in Yemen.
I spent most of my life believing in Islam; praying all prayers and doing Islamic math by the end of each day (counting Sayeaat and Hasanat).. I even used to have a Sajda in my forehead at my late teenage.
Now I'm enjoying agnosticism.
What turned on the switch? This area is dedicated to answering that by portraying some of my experiences while transitioning from a devout Muslim to a devout agnostic. Care to follow? Stay tuned
24/7 EDIT: To make this article easy to follow, I'll post each story both here and as a new reply.
June 24
th, 2011
Chapter 1
Allah is the Lord of the RingsWhen I was a child, and like most of Yemeni young children back in time, me and my friends were used to go to the mosque in the evenings to attend Islamic lessons. We made small groups of around 5 - 15 persons each, where each groups is lead by an older guy who we called "teacher" and who delivers the lessons. Each group is formed like a ring, thus we called these study groups "Halaqaat (Rings)." Even in rural areas, where young children might not get a chance to go to school, they never missed the chance to attend one of these Rings.
As children, we were easy to manipulate. As time had passed by, we accumulated keen knowledge about Halaal and Haraam from these Rings, besides the essential knowledge poured by the Muslim society. Different from what we study in schools, this knowledge was applied. We were used to live the details of our lives and judge people based on it.
Being a young Muslim, I believed that Allah existed (period). Many cassettes, small booklets and leaflets that originated from Saudi Arabia titled "Atheism Debunks" that allege to be the "Sharp Drawn Sword that Shuts up Atheists Reasoning" were handed out to us through the Rings. I haven't really wasted my time reading/listening to these, because I thought "Since Allah exists, why even bothering trying to prove it?" Nevertheless, those Wahhani mind-shapers do have popularity among a lot of people.
Children grow up, and
one decided to become mutinous and leave Islam. But he keeps it to himself, because he concluded that Allah is a public opinion that squashes all other opinions;
his opinions. Allah is no more than an applied, collective and distributed ideology that resides in Muslims minds. Allah starts as a mind-seed implanted by the parents, and those aforementioned Rings, alongside other false intellectual supplements, grow him up.
つづく...
Topic: The Switch of Transition