"You Left Islam Because Of Culture, Not Islam"
OP - November 28, 2015, 06:39 PM
Many Muslims seem to repeat this argument, so I'm sharing what I wrote to a Muslim. It may be very well deficient, but I'm looking for advice on how to improve my argument when a Muslim says this.
I think I can safely say that the stereotype that many Muslims have on Ex-Muslims is that they left Islam because of their culture without any critical study on Islam.
Here was my reply to him when he insisted I left due to culture and not Islam. I made the argument that Islam and Culture were meant to be one as mandated by Muhammad:
"You seem to misunderstand the point. Indian/Pakistani culture has their own version of Islam (Sufism) Vs. the Arab (Wahabi) version of Islam. Muslims come with the pathetic hope of uniting "ONE UMMAH" and "ONE RELIGION" but it will never happen. And the reason is because religion and culture are together and never will be separated. Is this the fault of the Muslims? No. the fairy tale "Allah" is at fault. The moment Muhammad started telling people on how to eat, how to dress, how to keep their beards, how women dressed, etc. he failed. He wanted islam and culture to be one.. Even making apostasy laws counts as something cultural. Not revelation. Many muslims accept it, and there are some muslims who don't. Many Muslims dismiss this and counts this as "Siyassa (politics)" of the religion.. And it is impossible for everyone to be united on such petty values. The point is that all muslims have this idea that "culture" and "islam" is separate, so they make excuses on why people like me leave islam. They say for example, "well he left because he enjoyed the company of the kafirs too much." So you see, I said that culture and islam are one, because many muslims don't realize their own idiocy that Muhammad meant for islam and culture to be one."
"If you don't like your religion's fundamentalists, then maybe there's something wrong with your religion's fundamentals."
"Demanding blind respect but not offering any respect in reciprocation is laughable."
"Let all the people in all the worlds be in peace."