
i made my channel private for a while.. just a few days.. they were the best few days i've had in a long time .. i've thought about closing everything down.. being an exmuslim doesn' t mean very much , does it.. it hasn't made me more or less then what i used to be, and i defintely will not allow it to make me into someone i don't want to be,(them vs. us) ... i still see my mom all the time, i can't keep looking into her eyes and not think of what i'm doing on youtube, i try my best to keep to only the ideology and not the people, but no matter how much i try, there is always someone out there looking at it from a hateful and bigotted way...
I think Hassan will be back, he just needs a break from the intensity of discussion and rumination.
Nessrriin, I understand where you're coming from. This is the most important issue. If nobody creates a space for dissent from Islam, rejection of Islam, and rational scrutiny of Islam, two streams will keep developing:
(1) Many people who were born and raised as Muslim and dissent from Islam will stay stuck in a cage, in a dungeon, with their tongues cut out, because even though they wish to articulate rejection, will be numbed from doing so because of the pressures and inhibitions caused by the fear of offence in general, and the upset that rejecting and articulating against Islam causes to those they love who maintain their faith. This is a miserable prospect.
(2) Criticism of Islam will come from different angles, many of which are not rational or specific, but are generalised and innacurate and some of it hostile to the extent of not differentiating between the ideology and theology and the individuals who practise in small ways or great.
Either way, Islam continues to stamp on the face of dissenters and those who exercise free conscience, and it is allowed to continue without its ethics, beliefs, and ideology, especially the ideology that exercises powers over individuals and collectives, being examined and questioned. And that is disastrous.
Someone has to find and maintain that space, even if it is just a self-policing corner of the internet in which the issues get discussed.