Again, let me thank everyone for their welcoming comments. You guys are really smart too...I just hope this forum isn't going to be a life sentence of addiction for me!
Welcome from another fellow ex-Shia! Your mentioning shiachat.com brought back cringeworthy memories of arguing in support of Wilayat al-Faqih.
You might've argued me then haha I used to be critical of Wilayat al-Faqih when I was Shia. I felt at the time that the true spirit of Shiasm was in Najaf and that Khomeini distorted it. Of course it doesn't matter now, especially when the Najafi Ayatollahs like Al-Sistani spend most of their time answering questions about whether you can shake a woman's hand rather than addressing the catastrophic situation in Iraq!
I immigrated to the UK less than 2 years ago and now live in the North East. Last time I was in Iraq was late '06.
I'm also a medical student. I studied at Baghdad medical school for 3 years but I was forced to cut short my studies and flee the country. I have now been accepted to medical school here but I have to start from year 1 (I'm 23
)
There's someone in my year exactly in your situation, but you can't be him because he's Chaldean haha Mature students are an asset to the University! There are so many people that don't grow up while being at uni and need someone to model on themselves on for the future - and you're probably that guy
Brummie, also what I dont understand is why Popperian logic would have lead to you discounting Islam within 5 minutes.
Surely you would have understood the scientific method before med school, why did you suddenly get a Eureka moment then when you had no doubts before?
Proof is one of the arguments you will have successfully mentally defended against before, and religion has successfully managed to build several mental barricades as to why its above such scrutiny. So why do you think it happened then? I am only surprised because I dont think anyone I have ever come across has managed to discount childhood indoctrinated beliefs within 5 minutes!
I think for this, Hassan fulfilled the role of being my lawyer brilliantly. He put it better than I could
I would also add to it this: looking back now on the version of Islam I followed, I find that I actually added so much to it from non-Islamic sources like a faulty program that needs constant updating and patches to be downloaded. This happened to the extent that I was probably commiting bid'ah (innovation=HARAM
). When I realised that what I was doing was bid'ah, I guess I let my guard down for 5 minutes whilst I was reading about the Popperian logic and realised that actually the scientific method is the ONLY way to achieve any degree of truth. Cogito ergo I left Islam.
I love how this Shia-Sunni beef lives on even after apostasy!
I think the proposed theories make sense. I think the minority status associated with being Shia gave me more scope for freedom. As a Shia I had to think for myself as I felt like the majority (Sunnis) was wrong.
RIBS also mentioned how there seems to be a lot of Iraqis on here. If history has one thing to say about the Iraqis, is that they cannot be ruled for very long. We just rebel against everything, including each other!
Topic: A big HELLO from an ex-Shia