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Theme Changer

 Topic: Hi again, it's only me.

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  • Hi again, it's only me.
     OP - July 15, 2015, 07:29 PM
    I'm not sure if opening a new thread on a renewed/renewable topic constitutes a major heresy but it's just my way of saying Hi and a little bit more in order to justify my sly way of enjoying your hospitality all over again. Some stories need to be retold and from different angles to realise no unified totality of meaning but to explore at a leisurely pace all the details that were it not for the timing of my desertion and too much confusion would have dared to matter.

    I have been an ex-Muslim for five years now. When I first joined this blessed if godless forum, it was with the all too familiar fervency of the convert that I arrived. I felt free, unburdened and was finally able to just be. I became very active here, effusively welcoming newcomers to the party of Shytan and replying to any topic which spoke, among other things, my truth and reflected my experience (and there had been many of those even though I was - still am! - very solipsistic when it comes to consciousness and experience).

    Because Islam had been carefully interwoven into every aspect of my life, it was not a massive surprise in retrospect that once I left it -- once I stopped practising it owing to ideologically irreconcilable differences -- I was left with a very very big 'gap' to fill. I had never eaten bacon or non-Halal food before; I had never listened to music (I was brought up in Saudi Arabia and groomed by my father to become an imam, I studied under Ibn Uthaymeen, I led the Taraweeh prayers in Ramadan in Riyadh and still know almost all the koran off by heart) ; never learnt how to socialise with anyone who was not muslim because for me they were a Hasanat spinning dawa project or someone on whom I honed my orational skills and to whom I gave the occasional, completely unforeseen theological slap (one of the things I learnt after I'd left the Deen was that I was a fat-nosed bearded bully).

    Even when I sought political asylum in the UK and left Dar al Islam, I still brought my past with me. Or rather, I always found it before me, waiting for me to lower my conscious guard to creep up on me. The past, just like the poor, is always with us.

    I cocooned into a comfy and carefully constructed mental ghetto within which only Islam preponderated, Muslims were my only brothers and friends. It was a self-imposed totalising approach that said more about what it wasn't than what it really was, with effect of me having fewer genuine people and things in my new life so that a general diminution in worth and potential took root; I left Islam, came out to all my Muslim 'friends', and they unceremoniously told me to sling my hook in unison. A stranger again, on my own again in a friendless freedom whose dizzying array of choices was soon to plunge me into catatonic depression.

    Freedom was too much for me and I needed time to process and ponder the consequences of such a big and cognitive decision. I needed time to internalise disbelief, and in doing so my hope was to turn what was a propositional entity into experiential 'reality'. But how? How does one become an Ex Muslim? Has nobody in this highly psychologised day & age written a self-help book on DIY Kufer? I didn't know. I still don't know. But I knew I needed to 'do' this -- to find an immediate and sustaining raison d'etre -- on my own and in my own time.

    To this end, my presence on this forum was brief; I became hooked to it trying to fill the gap everything else left in me but I still had my doubts about founding friendships and forming new relations where the kinship is even remotely ideological (I had not-so-long-ago tried this and fallen flat on my face. Once bitten etc). Also, the excessive verbal liberality and easy reference to explicit sex and porn on the forum had the effect of me thinking that some of those who left Islam left it because of fleshly desires. I know I know. This was wrong of me but my former indoctrinated in Islam self thought less of such 'base' reasons and shameful inability to delay gratification; I had placed primacy on intellectual deserters (those who examined Islam and honestly and truly found it for what it is, a captivating if debunked expansionist misery) because Islam taught me anyone who left it for other than that it was due to personal weakness. So, in my book, you could not say something is not true because you hate it or true because you desire it; any profound supposedly universal truth must be independent from our emotions and will. I now know better than viewing the matter of other people's apostasy in binary terms.     

    Leaving Islam did equal harm to my now deflated ego, because up to that point in time I had thought my Muslim self special, chosen out of billions of people by Allah, mattered in the observable universe and beyond. And when I died (possibly taking the Shahada), I would be reunited with my grandma, my best friend whom I lost in a car accident, and get handsomely rewarded for my religious adolescence, poring over the Koran childhood and be made up to by Allah for all I loved (thus suffered).

    If freedom, liberty and hedonistic irreligiosity were supposed to fill this psychological gap mentioned above, then they so far have failed for me. Leave Islam and you feel free, I was told. Yes, I have left it and am free. But that says next to nothing about the vicissitudes of the punishing process (of which I will say more later). Leave Islam and you'd feel less miserable. Yes I have but disbelief did not substitute or displace my comforting certainties wherein grew many beautiful things. Islam isn't for me anymore. Let's be clear about this. But it was not all bad as I and few others made it to be here.

    So, next time you welcome someone into disbelief or try to disabuse them of Islam, keep in mind the fact that what you are about to do does not necessarily make them less miserable, or that freedom of conscience makes everyone 'happier'. Some people are blissfully ignorant and I think I was one of them.

    Damn you all.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #1 - July 15, 2015, 07:59 PM
    Wow, you are an articulate writer! Welcome aboard again! Can you explain further about the "gap" you still feel after leaving Islam?
    "I moreover believe that any religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."
    -Thomas Paine
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #2 - July 15, 2015, 08:06 PM
    Welcome back, whabbist. I’ve seen some of your older posts, though I’m not sure we’ve ever had the chance to interact. Welcome back.

    I recognize and relate to a lot of what you mention above. Thanks for sharing. In my opinion, nothing will ever do for you what Islam did. True or not, it simply did too much. It gave you not only a personal reason for being, but a reason for the existence of everything. Nothing can top that. It was universal purpose in a box.

    When that purpose is (rightfully) snatched away, I think it is natural to look for a replacement. But the fact of the matter is that the lie we were told was just so fanciful, so outrageous, that nothing in reality can replace it.

    We were like kids pretending in a room. The table became a great pirate ship. The cardboard paper towel rolls became magical swords. The carpet became a raging sea. In the closet in the corner there lurked monsters and dragons. We were heroes.

    Then you grow up and tables, paper tower rolls and closets just never have the same enchantment. You are left dealing with what is really there, which - in comparison - is not much. It’s a tough realization to have to go through as an adult.

    I don’t have much in the way of advice. I can only relate to what you said. Perhaps a belief in some sort of greater wonder is still warranted, but not in the way that Islam frames it. We live and we die and we don’t know much beyond that. I reckon it’s all about trying to make the best of it in between, for us and for everyone else.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #3 - July 16, 2015, 12:32 AM
    Quote from: justperusing on July 15, 2015, 07:59 PM
    Wow, you are an articulate writer! Welcome aboard again! Can you explain further about the "gap" you still feel after leaving Islam?

     Thanks. The word articulate reminded me, oddly enough as the English say without sufficient oddity, of a deliciously delicious book called The Articulate Mammal.

    Suppose you had a sportive father who one day took you to one side and told you with all the seriousness, all the tonal sobriety and measured cadence capable of expressing the gravity of the situation that you were in fact adopted, and he had kept hush-hush all these years the fact of you coming to being as a result of acute sexual madness in which a ham-fisted man bedded a teenage girl (who shortly after giving birth to you passed away) against her will.

    Quite apart from the cruelty of this April Fool exercise, you'd do a double take. And again. And again. And would go on doing it for sometime because your portion of reality has been thrown out of focus. Everything - I mean everything - and everybody you thought you knew and related to suddenly fell prey to dubiety, to unshakable doubt. All the familial ties, the affective inner things from whose meaningful minutiae you have individuated, all the communalities and recollective shared memories you have over the years had and taken proprietorial interest in were - whilst things were out of focus for you for a few moments - floating in air.

    This is what happened to me, not for a few moments but for five years and is going to continue happening to me for the rest of my life. Simply nothing to anchor me, no magnetic north to my affective earth.

    I appreciate I might not be, as it were, the only pebble on this beach but I think I had lost and still have a lot to lose; I have an 11 year-old son from an islamic marriage who thinks me with faith and tells me about all the surats that he's learning and has an all consuming interest in becoming, like his father he said, a reciter of the Koran and knowledge seeker. If I come out to my family I'd lose my islamic marriage and my biological son for good. So I'm doing with him what my father did with or to me (albeit unwittingly for him) ie lie to him. And since Islam effectively goes into everything, I'm lying to him about everything.

    I hear the hours are really long in Europe, he says. Did I find it difficult to fast? I must be leading the prayers where I am -- would I care to send him a picture of my local mosque and maybe a selfie too with my undoubtedly bright new Koranic students? What happened to my beard, it looked shorter in the last picture though? Oh for medical reasons! Well well, when I, your son, get old enough to grew some, I'd not even trim it -- incidentally, would we be doing Umra together this time, and it's true isn't it, that I haven't brought them to the UK because I am fearful for their spiritual well-being etc etc etc.

    To protect him from my truth, the negative taunting and the predictably banal reaction of those around him, I have been pretending to be somebody I'm completely not to this little boy who is absolutely everything to me and whom I'm trying to shield from the distressing social reality of my disbelief (disbelief is the single undisputed worst thing in the world for my people). Of late, the more I try to divert the course of our Skype chats away from Islam it somehow finds its way back to us like a homing pigeon.

    As for the hapless wife, my meagre income won't allow me to bring a wife and child to the UK in the foreseeable future. Only a week before Ramadan I met some relatives of this wife in Hounslow who shoved me forward asking me to lead the prayer and I duly did because I had no excuse not to. Now, for how long would I be keeping up the act?? But then I know full well she in all probability would divorce me if she had been in the know. Sleeping dogs etc. I came out to the muslim friends as a daft experiment of containable results and the consequences were very very nasty ( I got a death threat from a bearded buffoon whom I had taught the Koran and was very disappointed in me - I reported him to the police before moving home alright) so I won't repeat it on or with my kido, his mummy and the blissful clan. Thus I'm rent and torn asunder between all this because I had the temerity to want to be genuine.

    I'm not asking for advice by sharing all this. Just dumping some light on the emotionally costly price some disbelievers would pay if they wanted to just be and live according to what they (dis)believe; and, just questioning whether it is at all advisable for anyone to come out if losing hearth and home were at stake.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #4 - July 16, 2015, 01:04 AM
    Quote from: happymurtad on July 15, 2015, 08:06 PM
    Welcome back, whabbist. I’ve seen some of your older posts, though I’m not sure we’ve ever had the chance to interact. Welcome back.

    I recognize and relate to a lot of what you mention above. Thanks for sharing. In my opinion, nothing will ever do for you what Islam did. True or not, it simply did too much. It gave you not only a personal reason for being, but a reason for the existence of everything. Nothing can top that. It was universal purpose in a box.

    When that purpose is (rightfully) snatched away, I think it is natural to look for a replacement. But the fact of the matter is that the lie we were told was just so fanciful, so outrageous, that nothing in reality can replace it.

    We were like kids pretending in a room. The table became a great pirate ship. The cardboard paper towel rolls became magical swords. The carpet became a raging sea. In the closet in the corner there lurked monsters and dragons. We were heroes.

    Then you grow up and tables, paper tower rolls and closets just never have the same enchantment. You are left dealing with what is really there, which - in comparison - is not much. It’s a tough realization to have to go through as an adult.

    I don’t have much in the way of advice. I can only relate to what you said. Perhaps a belief in some sort of greater wonder is still warranted, but not in the way that Islam frames it. We live and we die and we don’t know much beyond that. I reckon it’s all about trying to make the best of it in between, for us and for everyone else.


     Beautifully expressed.

    Some sort of 'greater wonder' would to my mind be what Ernest Becker ended up eluding to in his timelessly wondrous book The Denial of Death. Any life enhancing delusion really. Incidentally, the writers of the American constitution have very aptly used the word "pursuit" when talking about happiness as if they knew there was more to chasing it, spending time and effort thinking about it than actually living it.

    We are the lucky ones, said the very quotable Richard Dawkins, because we had the chance to briefly exist**. Unqualified existence but lucky all the same.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ** “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?" Unweaving the Rainbow.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #5 - July 16, 2015, 01:06 AM
    .......................
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #6 - July 16, 2015, 01:39 AM
    Quote from: happymurtad on July 15, 2015, 08:06 PM
    Welcome back, whabbist. I’ve seen some of your older posts, though I’m not sure we’ve ever had the chance to interact. Welcome back.

    I recognize and relate to a lot of what you mention above. Thanks for sharing. In my opinion, nothing will ever do for you what Islam did. True or not, it simply did too much. It gave you not only a personal reason for being, but a reason for the existence of everything. Nothing can top that. It was universal purpose in a box.

    When that purpose is (rightfully) snatched away, I think it is natural to look for a replacement. But the fact of the matter is that the lie we were told was just so fanciful, so outrageous, that nothing in reality can replace it.

    We were like kids pretending in a room. The table became a great pirate ship. The cardboard paper towel rolls became magical swords. The carpet became a raging sea. In the closet in the corner there lurked monsters and dragons. We were heroes.

    Then you grow up and tables, paper tower rolls and closets just never have the same enchantment. You are left dealing with what is really there, which - in comparison - is not much. It’s a tough realization to have to go through as an adult.

    I don’t have much in the way of advice. I can only relate to what you said. Perhaps a belief in some sort of greater wonder is still warranted, but not in the way that Islam frames it. We live and we die and we don’t know much beyond that. I reckon it’s all about trying to make the best of it in between, for us and for everyone else.



    I'm going to go ahead and disagree with saying that what's left after you leave Islam is "not much". It's reality, and it's not as crazy in some ways, but more crazy and wondrous in others. I feel its rather weird to say that because our lives were shaped by Islam and it's harder for us get as much meaning and purpose behind an alternative, that that means that Islam is hard to top or what have you. It just means that it shaped us as individuals, nothing more.
    Quote from: yeezevee on February 11, 2016, 02:05 PM
    how fuck works without shit??


    Let's Play Chess!

    harakaat, friend, RIP
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #7 - July 16, 2015, 02:04 AM
    Wow I really feel for you man. As I've never had as the religious say, "true" faith, I may be of limited help. I was always a little skeptical of the Christian faith I grew up in, and losing faith was less walls crashing down around me, but rather sloughing off a load of cognitive dissonance that had burdened and puzzled me for a lifetime. The comforts of religion were always minimal for me.

    Having done my share of living a double life while trying to fit in with my religious family and not trying to rock the boat I can empathize somewhat with you. However, the situation with your son sounds heart wrenching and I hope you can one day be honest with him early enough so he's not cast into a haze of doubt and uncertainty as you were. At least if he is, you can be there to help guide him through.

    Interesting you mentioned the Denial of Death. I was thinking about checking that out at the library the other day. Making sense of death and being at peace with it is definitely a challenge without the comforts of religion. I've enjoyed listening to lectures on the topic by Alan Watts, a 20th century philosopher who taught a lot of concepts from Zen Buddhism. He has some poetic and comforting thoughts on the subject that require no unfounded metaphysical baggage or "life enhancing delusion" as you put it.

    "I moreover believe that any religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."
    -Thomas Paine
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #8 - July 16, 2015, 03:54 AM
    Quote from: asbie on July 16, 2015, 01:39 AM
    I'm going to go ahead and disagree with saying that what's left after you leave Islam is "not much". It's reality, and it's not as crazy in some ways, but more crazy and wondrous in others. I feel its rather weird to say that because our lives were shaped by Islam and it's harder for us get as much meaning and purpose behind an alternative, that that means that Islam is hard to top or what have you. It just means that it shaped us as individuals, nothing more.

    Asibe, I hope I'm not intruding on a tete-a-tete here, but if Islam shaped us as individuals is it ever possible to completely escape its shadowy presence and, well, tenacious influence? The experiential slate is not wiped clean merely because I had intellectually crossed swords with Islam. Eid, for example, is now coming apace, so is my festive past in it. Associative foolery no doubt but the falsity of everything islamic had endured long enough that even now, very now that I am many things except Muslim I feel this new me has been a drug induced hallucination or a kafkaesque nightmare from which I'd soon be shaken into wholesome consciousness. I mean, me? an Ex Muslim? Why don't I feel it thus? What does it actually feel like to be an Ex muslim? Why was I never depressed or rather, was able to cope better with life whilst a Muslim? Why this glum don't-get-involved attitude when I had always been a public spirited chap when there existed life after death for me? Why do I still eat with my right hand, say alhamdulillah when I sneeze occasionally if under my breath? Why every now and again I keep to the lavatorial habit of washing with water? Refrain from gossiping on something I'm unwilling to characterise as a religious reason? I cannot unknow what I experientially know to have been (sour-)sweet for years just because I now am at liberty to construct my own meaning with limited conscious interference from it. Even this process of having a worked-out opinion on everything Islam didn't permit fullest analysis of, by having the final say on it, is practically very tiresome and frankly exacting. I mean, good luck trying to consciously reinvent the world around you, the big massive world inside you, shunning passed on wisdom and handed down conventions of all sorts unless absolutely necessary. I understand the usually uncomfortable feeling one gets when others start to heap positivity on Islam but I equally understand the propensity of Ex muslims to readily limit or dismiss Islam's influence on anyone (for whom it was very deeply the absolute truth) as merely the shaper that was and no more. Humility alone poses the question, can we really escape nurture and primary socialisation in any meaningful way?  

    I personally cannot quantify what Islam has been so as to be able to say with confidence this much was good and this much was bad and that's that of the whole concluded thing. This is because I am inescapably biased and for another fact related to the nature of things past -- the very act of remembering events and states of mind for me is necessarily reconstructive and cannot be reducible to mechanical retrieval akin to that found in computing. Memory is an unreliable witness and in portraiture, is not above the vagaries of mood swings and topographical happenstance.

    So, what was it for me? Well, folks, it was in a transient way where the most basic (thus meaningful) lines met and still on some levels meet.

    I'm referring to His Nabs in The Gift as he went about trying to describe something not very dissimilar in its ephemerality "... as he looked back at her and caught her long familiar, golden, fugitive outline that promptly vanished forever, he felt for a moment the impact of a hopeless desire, whose whole charm and richness was in its unquenchability. Oh trite demon of cheap thrills, do not tempt me with the catchword "my type." Not that, not that, but something beyond that. Definition is always finite, but I keep straining for the faraway; I search beyond the barricades (of words, of senses, of the world) for infinity, where all, all the lines meet".  
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #9 - July 16, 2015, 09:07 AM
    Good to see you again Wahabist.

    Wow so many awesome wise words on this thread.

  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #10 - July 16, 2015, 09:14 AM
    As someone who spent almost half a century with Islam being my whole life I can attest to how deeply it goes into your whole persona and psychology. You breath, eat and sleep Islam. When it is taken away you have to learn to live life all over again.

    For an old person that is unbelievably difficult even without all the family, social and cultural reasons that you have inevitably built you life around.

  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #11 - July 16, 2015, 11:29 AM
    I wasn't even born a muslim but spent my late teens, entire 20's and most of my 30's as a muslim and yet I am struggling to fit into my western identity again..  I spend time with my new non muslim friends and my non muslim family and I feel like I am different..  It's annoying.

    Enjoying your thoughtful posts Whabbist.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #12 - July 16, 2015, 01:08 PM
    Quote from: Whabbist
    Why every now and again I keep to the lavatorial habit of washing with water?


    Because it is a really, really good idea.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #13 - July 16, 2015, 01:17 PM
    ^  An idea that comes to many who do not believe in God.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #14 - July 16, 2015, 07:11 PM
    Quote from: happymurtad on July 16, 2015, 01:08 PM
    Because it is a really, really good idea.


    +1
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #15 - July 16, 2015, 07:11 PM
    Quote from: David on July 16, 2015, 01:17 PM
    ^  An idea that comes to many who do not believe in God.


    But God thought of it first.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #16 - July 16, 2015, 07:19 PM
    {“A forum that was set up upon freedom of conscience from the first day has more right that you should post therein. Therein are men and women who love to purify themselves, and the SWT loves those who purify.”} 83:26 yes
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #17 - July 16, 2015, 08:56 PM
    Quote from: justperusing on July 16, 2015, 02:04 AM
    Wow I really feel for you man. As I've never had as the religious say, "true" faith, I may be of limited help. I was always a little skeptical of the Christian faith I grew up in, and losing faith was less walls crashing down around me, but rather sloughing off a load of cognitive dissonance that had burdened and puzzled me for a lifetime. The comforts of religion were always minimal for me.

    Having done my share of living a double life while trying to fit in with my religious family and not trying to rock the boat I can empathize somewhat with you. However, the situation with your son sounds heart wrenching and I hope you can one day be honest with him early enough so he's not cast into a haze of doubt and uncertainty as you were. At least if he is, you can be there to help guide him through.

    Interesting you mentioned the Denial of Death. I was thinking about checking that out at the library the other day. Making sense of death and being at peace with it is definitely a challenge without the comforts of religion. I've enjoyed listening to lectures on the topic by Alan Watts, a 20th century philosopher who taught a lot of concepts from Zen Buddhism. He has some poetic and comforting thoughts on the subject that require no unfounded metaphysical baggage or "life enhancing delusion" as you put it.


    justperusing, thank you very much. On a side issue, I really don't want to say what I'm about to say because it isn't very nice and because it probably more relevant to other people in my life than you. I'm sorry I have tell you I'm not asking for practical help or advice by sharing my experience here.

    People tell me, to my irritation, they are 'sorry' for not being able to help me when I hadn't ask for it, thus, they've not failed in any way shape or form and there is no reason for them to repine. If it at all necessary, I think to myself, then let it be "I would've loved to have been able to help" whose good-natured politeness is hard to miss. Indeed, I discern in this habitual 'sorry' a sort of a psychological crash-helmet or an emotional insurance that'd supposedly make up for whatever shortfall and or transgression that might occur in what they say next (this is especially true of the British "sowy", profusely offered at the slightest contact or provocation; you bump into someone on the tube and they beat you to apologising). For me, once somebody intended and offered what they could or even would, that's enough to making up for anything. Yet, verbally anticipating one's mistakes before they are actually made is an indicative of either some unease with owning up to them retrospectively or, worst still, cynically using the preface ""I'm not sure if this is going to help but..."" as a rough and ready all encompassing defence against expressed and implicit recrimination (i.e. replying to any possible "you did not help" or even when realising one wasn't much of help in any situation with "well, I said I wasn't sure from the beginning YOU UNGRATEFUL BRAT!"). Defensiveness amongst fellow travellers is surely unwarranted -- such verbal habits tend to speak of the shallowness of my relationship with any interlocutor and I certainly find it more irritating coming from kindred spirits like yourselves.

    Recently, an Arab emailing pal of mine finished writing her book and asked my opinion on it, but not before telling and reminding me repeatedly that this was her first ever attempt at publishing and how it was not really really finished; that was only a draft still under revision (even though I'd asked her to complete it first before asking me to read it) ; and that she already received a lot of feedback, some of which wasn't very kind blah blah blah. In doing all this, she perplexed me to the point where I felt pressurised to praise more and to be sparing when it comes to her shortfalls. So, I dropped her an email asking her to stop conditioning me as a reader if she wanted anything like honest feedback from me; the book must be self contained during the act of reading it; no need for a running commentary; she was like a director who wouldn't let people watch their movie without him or her explaining things. I was not, I told her, about to embark on a hagiographic exercise that massaged her ego at the expense of my respect for her and more importantly, our friendship. She wrote back apologising for this and that her lack of self confidence was the culprit etc. The upshot of it all was that some unspoken awkwardness still remained for me -- I now felt that since I made her apologise for a procedural matter, I should show some generosity in the substantive side of the issue i.e. proceed reviewing with extra lenience. Thus, I comically found myself back right were I set off.

    Another friend of mine, whose positivity is best described as diagnosable, would not let me finish saying anything 'bad' happened to me before saying something platitudinous to cheer me up, when all along I was just sharing and telling her what's up with me -- not asking for anything. "The course I was planning to do this summer has been cancelled due to insufficient entrants" is all I said en passant for her to launch into "but look at the bright side" and "at least you don't have to do the difficult part of it now" and "you saved its admission money" . I felt a bit annoyed with all this relativising psycho-babble and her trying to mother me; I've always regarded infantising adults with suspicion. So, I decided I should from that day on keep anything unfortunate/unpleasant/bad etc to myself and not share it with this bad listener.

    Now I feel a bit awkward because I'm not exactly sure if all this was of particular interest to you. So, let me get back to you again.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #18 - July 16, 2015, 09:48 PM
    Quote from: David on July 16, 2015, 01:17 PM
    ^  An idea that comes to many who do not believe in God.


    Merciful heaven, what blasphemy!!!
    Quote from: yeezevee on February 11, 2016, 02:05 PM
    how fuck works without shit??


    Let's Play Chess!

    harakaat, friend, RIP
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #19 - July 16, 2015, 09:53 PM
    Quote from: justperusing on July 16, 2015, 02:04 AM
    Wow I really feel for you man. As I've never had as the religious say, "true" faith, I may be of limited help. I was always a little skeptical of the Christian faith I grew up in, and losing faith was less walls crashing down around me, but rather sloughing off a load of cognitive dissonance that had burdened and puzzled me for a lifetime. The comforts of religion were always minimal for me.

    Having done my share of living a double life while trying to fit in with my religious family and not trying to rock the boat I can empathize somewhat with you. However, the situation with your son sounds heart wrenching and I hope you can one day be honest with him early enough so he's not cast into a haze of doubt and uncertainty as you were. At least if he is, you can be there to help guide him through.

    Interesting you mentioned the Denial of Death. I was thinking about checking that out at the library the other day. Making sense of death and being at peace with it is definitely a challenge without the comforts of religion. I've enjoyed listening to lectures on the topic by Alan Watts, a 20th century philosopher who taught a lot of concepts from Zen Buddhism. He has some poetic and comforting thoughts on the subject that require no unfounded metaphysical baggage or "life enhancing delusion" as you put it.

     Thanks again. I, on the other hand, have swallowed faith whole and the comfort that came my way from religion understandably is what I've been missing, notwithstanding the attendant discomfort. In articulating this, I think I might be wallowing in self pity, self disgust and a little bit of intellectual self-flagellation. I had been an earnest fool for opening myself completely up to the whole faith experience but then I did exactly that with love and the result is my first love practically excluded all other possibilities of tenderness -- I got seduced many times, let go of myself under the influence with a few shapely ones but never have I ever again been enchanted after her.

    Thanks, I will check Allan Watts out. What I meant by a life enhancing delusion is anything that commands your interest and keeps you excited for the longest possible time before moving on to another. Some people find it in charity work, because it makes them feel good about themselves whilst they more often than not profess wanting largely to help others. Others invest moral worth in raising a family and being a parent i.e. wanting to be wanted, creating a problem in order to spend years and years fixing it thereby feeling positive in one's achievement and about oneself while dragging someone else into existence. Others again, become teachers for the fulfilment of feeling useful in themselves as much if not more than helping others get on with learning. And let's address the elephant in the room, David Cameron and other politicians engage (with unerring regularity) with profound kidology and self-deception when they say they are there merely to help the country, no, not for self-actualising or anything self-interested like that. It is delusion because we believe and if challenged would staunchly defend the nobility and the righteousness of at least some of our bullshit.

    Yes, I too plan on coming out to my son slowly and with utmost care. Right now, I think the problem is logistical i.e. once I'm able to have him brought to the West from Saudi Arabia, I don't really give two hoots about what others think of me. I can sense that my marriage is going to finish in about 6 or 7 months' time -- my wife who is my first love is opposed to leaving Saudi even though she gets treated like an object under the notorious Kafala system. I'm sympathetic to her sentimental attachment to a place which treats her like dirt because I was like that but I was being a realist when I refused to return to her there and work in that tax free if illiberal country. So the smart self-preserving move for me now, I think, is to focus on the kid and how I could get custody when I'm ready to have him here in the UK. Once that's done, I will proceed, of course with care, to shave my beard and be open with him. Others no doubt would find out if they cross paths with me, which I intend to do everything to preclude its occurrence. All that I bewail here to you and others in a hypertrophied way is enduring the process, the embuggerance of all and having to practically trick a woman I love because I'm afraid of not of her truthful heart but rather of her religious, half-hearted mind.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #20 - July 16, 2015, 10:58 PM
    Quote from: Hassan on July 16, 2015, 09:07 AM
    Good to see you again Wahabist.
    Wow so many awesome wise words on this thread.

     Hassan, so good you are still around. That's not what I meant. I mean so nice to see your good old self after all these years. Thanks for your kind words.

    Quote from: Hassan on July 16, 2015, 09:14 AM
    As someone who spent almost half a century with Islam being my whole life I can attest to how deeply it goes into your whole persona and psychology. You breath, eat and sleep Islam. When it is taken away you have to learn to live life all over again.

    For an old person that is unbelievably difficult even without all the family, social and cultural reasons that you have inevitably built you life around.

    Absolutely spot on as usual.

    I liken our shared yet different experience of disbelief to having a major stroke, depriving one from what one previously took for granted functionally - such as speech, walking etc. The rehabilitative process is slow which makes it more painful; the right air stream mechanism (pulmonic, glottalic, velaric), training one's brain to regain control of the larynx (aka vocal folds) for the purpose of appropriate phonation (e.g. lenis, fortis etc) and voice qualities (creaky, breathy, whisper etc) the status of the velum (raised or lowered), the shape of one's oral cavity that's conducive to the intended auditory resonances, oral air passage (lateral, central), vowel qualities (height, backness and roundedness) and quantities (simple, glide, triphthong) ; or mentally training one's tongue for example to effortlessly get into contact with passive articulators in order to produce such complex consonants as affricates. One's speech impediment after a major stroke tends to reduce him or her effectively to the state of infancy, learning to speak, walk and function all over again.

    Now, is full recovery possible for our kind of stroke?
    You tell me.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #21 - July 16, 2015, 11:43 PM
    Quote from: Whabbist on July 16, 2015, 03:54 AM
    Asibe, I hope I'm not intruding on a tete-a-tete here, but if Islam shaped us as individuals is it ever possible to completely escape its shadowy presence and, well, tenacious influence? The experiential slate is not wiped clean merely because I had intellectually crossed swords with Islam. Eid, for example, is now coming apace, so is my festive past in it. Associative foolery no doubt but the falsity of everything islamic had endured long enough that even now, very now that I am many things except Muslim I feel this new me has been a drug induced hallucination or a kafkaesque nightmare from which I'd soon be shaken into wholesome consciousness. I mean, me? an Ex Muslim? Why don't I feel it thus? What does it actually feel like to be an Ex muslim? Why was I never depressed or rather, was able to cope better with life whilst a Muslim? Why this glum don't-get-involved attitude when I had always been a public spirited chap when there existed life after death for me? Why do I still eat with my right hand, say alhamdulillah when I sneeze occasionally if under my breath? Why every now and again I keep to the lavatorial habit of washing with water? Refrain from gossiping on something I'm unwilling to characterise as a religious reason? I cannot unknow what I experientially know to have been (sour-)sweet for years just because I now am at liberty to construct my own meaning with limited conscious interference from it. Even this process of having a worked-out opinion on everything Islam didn't permit fullest analysis of, by having the final say on it, is practically very tiresome and frankly exacting. I mean, good luck trying to consciously reinvent the world around you, the big massive world inside you, shunning passed on wisdom and handed down conventions of all sorts unless absolutely necessary. I understand the usually uncomfortable feeling one gets when others start to heap positivity on Islam but I equally understand the propensity of Ex muslims to readily limit or dismiss Islam's influence on anyone (for whom it was very deeply the absolute truth) as merely the shaper that was and no more. Humility alone poses the question, can we really escape nurture and primary socialisation in any meaningful way?  


    You can do all of that without calling any of it Islam. I'm not really sure we're you were trying to go with that...

    And to your last question, yes. It's a slow, arduous process but still no less rewarding for it.

    Quote
    I personally cannot quantify what Islam has been so as to be able to say with confidence this much was good and this much was bad and that's that of the whole concluded thing. This is because I am inescapably biased and for another fact related to the nature of things past -- the very act of remembering events and states of mind for me is necessarily reconstructive and cannot be reducible to mechanical retrieval akin to that found in computing. Memory is an unreliable witness and in portraiture, is not above the vagaries of mood swings and topographical happenstance.

    So, what was it for me? Well, folks, it was in a transient way where the most basic (thus meaningful) lines met and still on some levels meet.

    I'm referring to His Nabs in The Gift as he went about trying to describe something not very dissimilar in its ephemerality "... as he looked back at her and caught her long familiar, golden, fugitive outline that promptly vanished forever, he felt for a moment the impact of a hopeless desire, whose whole charm and richness was in its unquenchability. Oh trite demon of cheap thrills, do not tempt me with the catchword "my type." Not that, not that, but something beyond that. Definition is always finite, but I keep straining for the faraway; I search beyond the barricades (of words, of senses, of the world) for infinity, where all, all the lines meet".  


    I am am even less sure about my understanding of the aforementioned, but goddamn it I tried!
    Quote from: yeezevee on February 11, 2016, 02:05 PM
    how fuck works without shit??


    Let's Play Chess!

    harakaat, friend, RIP
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #22 - July 17, 2015, 12:24 AM
    Quote from: suki on July 16, 2015, 11:29 AM
    I wasn't even born a muslim but spent my late teens, entire 20's and most of my 30's as a muslim and yet I am struggling to fit into my western identity again..  I spend time with my new non muslim friends and my non muslim family and I feel like I am different..  It's annoying.

    Enjoying your thoughtful posts Whabbist.

     I can relate to that too; I was Muslim and now Ex Muslim. All I want and am struggling to attain is having nothing to do with Islam, even adjectivally. I think this is going to sound crass (= this is me being anticipatory) but in some ways I identify our experiences with people who endured the dehumanising cruelty of rape when they effect to practise selective amnesia so as to not be defined by it or hear others whispering around them "she's the one that got raped" and "oh yeah, isn't he the poor chap who got raped in a Soho bar?" etc. Ex Muslim sounds like a conflagration survivor or a POW. This was one of the few reasons for me going away from this forum, I wanted to forget, to go away trying to achieve if not self worth then deeper self knowledge; because Islam saturated everything from birth, one does not really know who they really are without it. I wanted to go to the mountain or something. I wanted to make up my mind with regard to economic issues or any political weltanschauung because I was now free to have an opinion on secular man made stuff; I naturally gravitated towards leftism but reading Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty and other books has grounded me in issue-by-issue liberalism, away from structural Marxist inanity, vegetarian holier-than-thou and crackpot ecofascism. I was, in short, what the spiritualist would term a 'sensitive subject' for my born-again receptive willingness, and the biggest danger I thought to myself, rightly or wrongly, was I would sign up to and break bread with anyone or organisation without any due diligence if the shared end was anti-Islamic.

    Gland you find them thoughtful.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #23 - July 17, 2015, 12:26 AM
    Welcome back. A very long and thoughtful thread. parrot
    `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
     `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad.  You're mad.'
     `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
     `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #24 - July 17, 2015, 02:35 AM
    Hi Whabbist,
    I like your turn of phrase, I should quote you, but this is my first post here, and I'm not sure how to do that yet.
     You're a really funny writer, you had me in stitches Cheesy
    Anyway, some of the things you wrote really struck me: you hadn't listened to music before you left Islam - seriously?!  I cannot imagine that! What was your experience of listening to music like? What music do you favour? (Assuming you're not one of that small percentage of people who suffer from amusia!) And most importantly, I'm assuming that you won't have lost your ability to dance... dance

    And re the whole having to reinvent yourself thing: I guess coming from Saudi the culture shock must be so much greater. I mean, I think that muslims growing up in the west, even if they've been devout before they leave Islam, must still get to experience a secular society, and have some sort of a separate identity, where they interact with non-muslims, and form their opinions on all sorts of secular matters, albeit through a muslim lens.

    Anyhow, I sympathise. Even though I left Islam a looong time ago, I still believed in some sort of a God, to whom I used to pray.
    All my Gods are fallen, now, I do not believe in prayer anymore, or that there is a beneficent Being out there who listens to you. I was extremely invested in spiritual endeavours, and for it all to amount to nought is bitter. What a fricking waste of time and effort.
    It's very hard to realise you're alone out there.  Cry

    Just have to turn around and march up the mountain alone.

    BTW, to CEMB, I know as a newbie I'm supposed to post an intro  -  in a while, crocodile.  Wink


  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #25 - July 17, 2015, 02:37 AM
    I am glad you dropped back in, Whabbist.

    I feel now, that while I was blissfully devout (high on Dhikr, Ramadhan and Fajr), that I was actually experiencing a delusion of grandeur. With a superiority complex, masquerading as dawah and charitable deeds. I was perfectly happy, and nothing much mattered to me but the next prayer. If it was long away, I had beads.
    Every messy bit of living was wrapped up neatly in Islam, every answer accessible through Fiqh, Quran, Hadith. It was so clean, so tidy. No critical thought.
    My purpose was clear. My reward was clear. My fate was certain, as long as I jumped through each hoop.
    If I faltered in my convictions, I could brainwash myself, easily, and get back on track before I missed a prayer. There were the aforementioned sources, and my beloved Ummah, the history of which (I was sure) reached back through eons to a definitive Divine source. Everyone encouraged the practice of it, no one ever tells you to take a break from salaat, to leave off the dhikr. How could they? But I did not think of that, then.
    The Sahaba were always in my mind, so real, I felt I knew them, as if they were media personalities. What Would the Ansar Do? It seems crazy to me now, but everyone I knew would tell Sahaba stories, too. How canny, to hand us a shared history, with heroes to emulate.
    Disbelief crept up slowly on me, despite my reluctance, due to circumstances of life beyond my control. I had no choice but to see clearly that Islam left me without any recourse.
    When I said I did not believe, I was not free. I was not free until I finally realized I did not have to practice anymore, it was part of me, like a second skin, holding me in. I shed it slowly, so slowly I did not realize I was looking up, standing straight, or walking noisily until I thought back to last year, six months ago, and recalled the changes. As it falls from me, I become myself, now.
    I still do not know who that will be, only that it will be more me. More me now and less me then.
    Life is harder without it. I have to do it all by myself. I haven't got any excuses for myself or any religion to blame. If I deny myself something, I cannot say "Sorry, I am Muslim, and my religion does not permit me to..." I have to admit it is me, robbing my own self of an experience, not for fear of Allah, or my husband, or my Wali. It is embarrassing, to wake up from the long sleep that came over me just before Shahada and find myself become an ardent feminist who is incapable of wearing short skirts. I was put off first by the freedom on the forum, too. I still steer clear of much of it. For residual reasons, I am sure, other than habit.  

    I think you spent enough time in introspection to understand exactly what I mean about the process. I am forever who I was and I will never be her again. But I feel kin with both those who remain where I was and with those who moved on from there. It is always nice to see someone else describe the internal process in detail. I had thought I was becoming insane, when I first went spinning, unmoored, into the unknown after having known it all.

    The members of this forum helped me to right myself, by sharing their experiences as you have.

    Don't let Hitler have the street.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #26 - July 17, 2015, 05:04 AM
    I understand that you weren't looking for help or advice. It was solidarity I was attempting to offer, as that is one of the reasons I come to forums like this. And that was quite the tangent, albeit an amusing one that was well worth my while. I see you're someone who shys away from ingenuity and far from being offended, I appreciate the candid response.

    And God it is annoying iwhen people must try to put a positive spin on everything. There's a reason why when we are in the throes of sadness or misery we do not reach for upbeat music to turn our mood around but instead appreciate the brooding melancholy of a song conveying deep loss and regret. It's just friends feel obliged to fix anything they can if they find you with anything less than a cheerful disposition.

    Anyway, I can see your idealism shining through in the way you view people who are considered paragons of virtue or lesser mortals who are still regarded as people of upstanding moral character. Yes, it is true that ultimately everyone is self-interested. Pure altruism is a myth. The drive simply would not be there otherwise. The truth is that there is negligible difference between someone who is considered someone who is considered someone of great character and virtue and someone who is very wisely selfish. Our own happiness is intrinsically tied up with the well being of our fellow humans, how they perceive us, and how we perceive ourselves. I guess in the end to reap the most rewards from being a "selfless" public servant or outstanding parent you have to delude yourself that it is not about you at all. But I go on mission trips knowing full well that one of the main reasons I go there is that helping other people makes me feel good about myself, yet that doesn't take away from the fulfillment I get from it. If I did it without it making me any happier or satisfied with myself, it would probably just end up breeding contempt as most one sided relationships tend to.

    I hope you stick around as you have some very interesting insights. As you are not looking for help or advice, I would bet you're using writing about your situation as more therapeutic than anything. But whether you want it or not I do feel for you man as a result of similar, yet milder, circumstances.

    "I moreover believe that any religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."
    -Thomas Paine
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #27 - July 17, 2015, 08:36 AM
    Quote from: Whabbist on July 16, 2015, 10:58 PM
    Now, is full recovery possible for our kind of stroke?
    You tell me.


    Speaking for myself, I'm doubtful. I've been through a very rough time these past few years since losing my faith. I've tried walking away and tried to build another me but it has only led to depression, complete loss of direction, meaning and a shitload of heartbreaking problems and confusions with my children, family etc...

    I use the label Agnostic Muslim these days to help ease both this inner and outward turmoil. It seems to be working plus ironically it allows me to express my views with fellow Muslims without them immediately dropping the shutters.

    But I'm an unusual case. So on a more posirive note I'm hopeful the younger generation will have more success In coping with this process.
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #28 - July 17, 2015, 08:40 AM
    Really great to see you back habibi.

    Btw we've finished the my ordeal book and I just need to go through it.

    I'd love you to take a look and offer suggestions if you don't mind?

    Lua please could you send Wahabist a copy?
  • Hi again, it's only me.
     Reply #29 - July 17, 2015, 10:07 AM
    Quote from: Whabbist on July 17, 2015, 12:24 AM
    I can relate to that too; I was Muslim and now Ex Muslim. All I want and am struggling to attain is having nothing to do with Islam, even adjectivally. I think this is going to sound crass (= this is me being anticipatory) but in some ways I identify our experiences with people who endured the dehumanising cruelty of rape when they effect to practise selective amnesia so as to not be defined by it or hear others whispering around them "she's the one that got raped" and "oh yeah, isn't he the poor chap who got raped in a Soho bar?" etc. Ex Muslim sounds like a conflagration survivor or a POW. This was one of the few reasons for me going away from this forum, I wanted to forget, to go away trying to achieve if not self worth then deeper self knowledge; because Islam saturated everything from birth, one does not really know who they really are without it. I wanted to go to the mountain or something. I wanted to make up my mind with regard to economic issues or any political weltanschauung because I was now free to have an opinion on secular man made stuff; I naturally gravitated towards leftism but reading Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty and other books has grounded me in issue-by-issue liberalism, away from structural Marxist inanity, vegetarian holier-than-thou and crackpot ecofascism. I was, in short, what the spiritualist would term a 'sensitive subject' for my born-again receptive willingness, and the biggest danger I thought to myself, rightly or wrongly, was I would sign up to and break bread with anyone or organisation without any due diligence if the shared end was anti-Islamic.

    Gland you find them thoughtful.


    I had a nosey peek at your profile lol, surprised to hear that you are only 24 years old, you have wisdom beyond your years  : )

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