Artemis-Rose (former Muslim)
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Testimony of Leaving Islam
I don't really know what to write so I'm going to just let my mind run free.
I'll start off with saying; ever since I was about 8 years old I've doubted the existence of God. Now being a young child who attended the mosque every day, I feared my doubt and was afraid I would go to Hell, so I tried to concentrate as much as I could on my Islamic Studies but as I got older I found it increasingly difficult to do so.
But still I continued to repeatedly throw myself into being more religious, and trying to make myself believe in Islam. After failing to do this, I gave in and I suppose I completely abandoned Islam when I was about 13/14. Even though I abandoned Islam I still wasn't ready to abandon the comfort of religion, so I became increasingly interested in Paganism, then Christianity and then back to Paganism again. After a about a year of my fluctuating beliefs, I realized I just didn't believe in God and that's when I sort of began to establish what I believed. (After paying close attention to one of the philosophies of Descartes).
After I broke away from religion, I felt free, well for a while anyway. And then I started to feel more oppressed because I realized the trouble I had ahead of me, trouble I'm dealing with still. Now I'm fortunate compared to many people on this site and in the world. I was born into a fairly nonreligious family, however it happened to be a Pakistani family, which means they are proud and like to keep up appearances and your parents tell your aunts and uncles everything. All of my aunts and uncles are more religious, and just as proud. Announcing I've abandoned Islam, well it wouldn't go down well, I would be disowned most likely, my mother would be blamed, and my sister would lose the small amount of freedom she has.
I don't know whether it's Islam or if it's the Pakistani culture but I hate the fact that telling my parents I'm not Muslim would cause so much bother. I have friends who have denounced their religion to their parents, and apart from a bit of disappointment everything has been fine.
I'm sick of lying to my parents about who I am, not being able to tell them I'm going to see my boyfriend or that I drink and have sex and do everything else unholy. I hate being looked at as a bad person because I don't have a religion, I lead a good life, I don't intentionally hurt people, I volunteer to help people out and I give charity. So I don't see why I should be looked down upon, because of bloody religion.
After reading this site, I have learned a lot of things they avoid telling you in the mosques, and it horrified me. I'm glad I didn't continually try to convince myself to believe in Islam, because it isn't as "pure" as Muslims themselves are lead to believe. Thank you for shedding a new and honest light on Islam.
Now this goes out to people who are offended by people leaving Islam, EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion and to live their own life however they see fit. Parents should not force their own beliefs upon their children, children should be free to make their own decision and to pave their own paths. People should not have to live in fear because of what they believe, they should not have to sneak around and be underhanded all because a group of people believes everyone should share their beliefs. Life should not be made difficult because of some people's superiority complexes. So everyone out there, don't be afraid to be who you really are...well unless you have the urge to be a serial killer or hurt people in that case the urges should be suppressed because everyone deserves to live.
I'm just going to tag something on to the end of this, because I hate lying to my parents, and I want to be fully free to live my life without regrets, me and my boyfriend are getting our own place in the next year or so ( we were best friends, and have been together for two and a half years through many ups and downs so I don't see it as a mistake) , now I need advice on how to tell my parents this and make it out so that they can't blame my mother or punish my sister because of my decision. Staying with this family has extremely bad effects on me, mentally and in turn physically. I would happily stay, so that my parents can be happy and my sister can be happy, but I would like to live my life and make my difference in the world. So any advice would be much appreciated.
PS: sorry if this was just a big ramble, but I wanted to get it off my chest.
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