Hello friends ,I am a 20 years old atheist from Morocco i was watching today an amazing video on Youtube called
science saved my soul and found a link on the uploader's channel that led me here .
I have been a member of some forums for years now but i never posted in one of them once , knowing that a lot of u guys reading out there have been through a lot of hard times like the ones i endured myself i feel like letting a bit out today and looking at it like sort of as a therapeutic session ( since i am telling somethings for the first time in my life ) .
I apologize if the thread goes too long. if u are i interested and i haven't bored you out yet the story goes like this
I had normal childhood in your averagely religious family in the capital Rabat , like a lots of parents here in the Muslim world do my parents sent me at the age of 4 to the local mosque and although i had the misfortune of being forced to memorize a lot of Qur'an, the upside was far greater,i learned how to read and write even before i started school and that helped me in developing a life long addiction on books and especially documentaries at a young age. so the next 10 years i excelled in school ,sports, memorized 25 hizbs of Qur'an , read tons of books and learned some new languages along the way .
And then came puberty and high school !!! I am very very very lucky to get through that period alive ,
i lived a double life, a popular top of the class student at school with parents who were extremely proud . But boy !! the moment i closed my room i cried everyday wondering whats wrong with me and why i was born different ... ( u probably don't have to guess very hard how different) and suicide was at the back of my mind all the time.
i used to stare at the stars at night for hours everyday thinking about god , the future and unlike a lot of kids what i knew even at a young age will be big problem i am going to face. and the only reasonable solution at the time seemed to be to suicide and spare myself and my family shame and suffering for a long time.
After 3 years of high school and deep depression that no one knew of i managed to get my baccalaureate with great scores while continuing to pray 5 times a day and block out every doubt about god i had. i got in medicine-school that i chose against my desire to be a biologist or a naturalist just because it was expected of me be a doctor like my older brother and sister are .
And just as the burden was getting too heavy luckily science stepped up and saved my life because a couple months after that i made the best decision of my life i dropped out of the university and got back to what i love most seeking knowledge through books and documentaries . for two years i rarely left the house, i cut every tie i had with the outside world, i read thousands of pages and watched hundreds of documentaries.
it was like a revolution in my mind learning about things i was taught to dismiss like evolution and the big bang and really starting to scrutinize Islam and Mohamed and learning about different people and cultures all with a simple click of the mouse and most importantly learning to accept myself for what i am and not what everyone else want me to be.
I wish i was as good with words as the guy that made that youtube video about how science saved his soul from religion and even though i cant find the words to use to express what an unbelievably fulfilling experience the last couple of years been all i can tell you is science never fail to bring you a " MIND-GASM" at every corner . if only people can stop the hate and judging and use some Reason and Rationale, i wish we were all to free our mind from these hate advertising and controls seeking religions and religious figures .
can i name some people that helped save my life ?
Carl Sagan , Richard Dawkins , Neil DeGrasse Tyson , sir david attenborough , Alan Watts , george carlin , bill hicks and the folks at el7ad.com and MVGroup i wish there wes a way i can thank everyone of you personally.
man !! i love science
Peace my friends .
Topic: My life story