Gonna put this here rather than let it go to waste elsewhere:
What made you leave Islam?
Ultimately, I was faced with a choice of being a good person or being a good Muslim. A human being cannot be both in my eyes. These two things are at opposite ends of the scale for me. To be an obedient, observant Muslim, you must sacrifice your humanity. You must surrender to a divine will, swear honest fealty to it, without doubt, without questioning. To be a good person you must not only renounce many of the central tenets of Islam, but you must also openly oppose them, wherever they manifest in the world. Then, and only then, can you claim to be a human with me. Or, you can compromise - live some kind of half-life, a contradictory creature, torn between faith and your own conscience, drifting this way and that amid your own confused and unbalanced inner equilibrium - fooling yourself that you are free, and valued, and precious to non-existent higher power. You can pretend that you love an unlovable god, pretend that such a hateful god could ever love you, try to salvage some validation and purpose, some salvation from a book that gives you a little and then takes a lot more, and all the time harbouring a self-loathing, a deep rooted knowledge that you are a slave to that same higher power, with your mind shackled and your heart held back from true human interaction, under his ever-present gaze and scrutiny. That’s no life for me. That isn’t living.
I reject Islam wholeheartedly. I made my choice. I chose to try and be a good person instead of trying to be a good Muslim. The main symptom of doing so was feeling the weight lift off as each and every facet of Islam fell away from me. I have learned I no longer have to surrender my body, mind and soul to the god of the Prophet’s desires, dreams and delusions, and I have realised that I wont be punished for imaginary crimes in an imaginary afterlife if I choose not to surrender. The more I learned about the Prophet, the more I found him repulsive, even for a man of his time. The more I pulled away from that hideous Abrahamic concept of a supreme ‘one-god’, the more alive and vital I was in this gorgeous universe. I was free to be me, the person inside, perfect with all my flaws, comfortable in my own skin, no longer a mind-slave to the dark age ideologies imagined up by sadistic and insane monsters of history, no longer led along by the nose like cattle, no longer living according to the dogma spelled out by long-dead fools whose ideas belong in the graveyard of failed human endeavours, throwbacks to the infancy of our species. The umbilical cord that holds back the ascendancy and mastery of our own spirits and minds must be cut. We’ve crawled along on our belly for too long under religion. We should be walking on our own by now, running by now. We could even be flying by now.
There are better role models in this beautiful world than the so-called Prophet. There are better contributions to the world than the cancerous, poisoned chalice known as the Quran. There are better wisdoms out there to find, to add to your own spiritual alchemy, better philosophies, better revelations, better discoveries, better poetic and artistic expression, better hopes and dreams to be had, better love and passions, a much richer, fuller existence - all eclipsed while you are under the black cloud of Islam. I almost hate Islam for the life it denied me for so long, never knowing my potential as a member of the human race. I know that potential now. I can taste it, feel it, appreciate it like never before. I penetrated that black cloud like the chick breaking out of the egg. It was like opening my eyes for the first time to a whole new alphabet of feeling and emotion. Like seeing in colour after a lifetime of black and white.
I’ll never go back. Never. I would be a fool to. I’ve shed my skin already. My journey has only just begun, my journey of life, with new blood running through me, new verve, new growth, new days, and new hope for the first time - true, tangible hope and possibilities. And with Islam in my rear-view mirror, I have no regrets. This journey of life I am forever grateful for, and I can’t begin to describe how excited I am. I can only show those close to me, making the journey with me. And to those who accept me for who I am, and what I am, I will share myself, naked, unashamed, with arms wide open.
Very well said! You have a way with words, and this post deserves a bump! You should write a book.
Topic: Faith No More