It's from Horatio Hufnagel, a fictional character in a fictional television show in The Simpsons...I liked the name (I don't know why, I guess I'm easily amused) so now I use it for things! But the name wouldn't fit in the registration form so here is H. X. Hufnagel! (H. Hufnagel didn't look as good)
Well, there's the exciting part of my journey. Here's the boring bits:
Brought up in a quite-conservative Muslim family in Australia. I was always into philosophy and science and all that jazz and so the supposed sciency stuff in the Quran got me all hot and bothered. I liked to debate about God in certain net forums when I was around 14 and I gained a lot of knowledge and logic through that, but always sided with Islam. After a while all this stuff people had been saying to me about how illogical God is began to settle in, and as I kept playing Devil's advocate with Christians and Muslims, questioning their beliefs, I began to realise that there was no reason to believe in God other than the fact that I feared death.
Also, I became more and more cynical as I grew up. The things that probably made me rethink my faith the most was Hell and Satan (those two words are so badass together). The fact that God could send people to Hell for eternity just made me sick, and the fact that he created Satan just so he could impose evil on the world and then would send Satan to Hell for that didn't seem just in any sense of the word. I began to question the fairness of this to my parents and so on and they kind of agreed that it was unfair but what could they do. My philosophy of morality also evolved and I realised that just because God says something, doesn't mean its good.
So I was an anti-theist long before I was an atheist
I went to Hajj when I was around 15. I didn't hate Islam yet, but I did find the Quran quite arousing at points, especially when it talked about virgins in Heaven. I was also reading this book called No Logo before Friday Prayers. When I reflected back on this after Hajj, the fact that this supposedly life changing spiritual journey didn't affect me in the SLIGHTEST just came to show that something is wrong here.
I'm sure there's so much more to tell, maybe I'll remember later
Topic: Hey everyone!