metricdragon
New Member
It's been 2 weeks since I've joined this board and somehow on joining, I don't know how, but I knew that there was a possibility that I'd renounce my theism and I did... today.
Some of you might think that the word "accept" sounds too religious, but I'll explain what I mean.
It's actually been a journey of around 10 years for me. I have a mental condition wherein which I can't stop thinking about everything and anything and so for years I haven't been able to stop thinking about how religion could make sense. It started when someone asked my father "How do we know that Islam is the right way?". I initially thought that everyone knew that Islam was the right way, but they decided to lead other lives because they were greedy/self-serving etc, but hearing that person say this at the time showed me that people genuinely did not-believe and that Islam was not self-evident to all human beings. Something as simple as that led to my initial doubts, but were later drowned out by anecdotes of supernatural occurrences along with personal experiences which I misunderstood.
I was always confused while growing up when people would speak of feelings that they felt about the Qur'an or about people that they "knew" were good and could feel it. People often claimed to sense the presence of angels or they could "see" light in someone's face. I always agreed, but I never understood what it was that they were really seeing. As I grew older, I noticed that even after seeing "light" or feeling the presence of angels from a person, that person could still be bad. Why was that? I originally assumed that there was something spiritually wrong with me, why couldn't I feel and "see" these things? but now I was realising that most of these claims and anecdotes were delusional.
Eventually I saw that religion, to most people, was just a means to suit emotions and justify their own importance, but I was more concerned with what was true so I began coalescing different parts of my religion in order make a whole new idea of how everything worked. I created a whole new sect of my religion that I was sure was the one true right way. I did this not by re-interpreting texts, but my actually reading the holy books and seeing that things I was taught about Islam as false. In doing so I was finally able to come to terms as to why people thought extremism was a part of Islam when it wasn't. They weren't following any book, they were simply justifying their own emotions just like everyone else was in less violent ways.
I came to the conclusion that traditions (Hadith) was too flimsy of an idea to be accepted. They were recorded 200 years after Muhammed reportedly died. The accuracy was impossible to determine, even by extremely honest attempts. Furthermore, the hadith contradicted the Quran on occasion and gave bad interpretation to the Qur'an where current scientifically miraculous interpretation was much better.
Here's an excerpt from Bukahri, which is Islam's most authoritative and authentic book on tradition.
However current apologists explain this verse a little differently
So who was right? Muhammed or the Quran Apologists who obviously alter translations a little to produces a more acceptable although still biased result.
I had two options upon realising this, either accept that Muhammed was wrong or that Hadith was inaccurate.
At the time I assumed it was allegorical, because the hadith says that the sun "prostrates" itself, which was clearly allegorical right? However, this would make the verse allegorical and the Quran apologists would still be wrong, because then everything could be allegorical/metaphoric etc.
So I later discarded Hadith. It was not reliable, unbeknown to me however, this was my first step towards atheism.
During this time, I was already having problems with the authenticity of the Quran and I frequented atheist forums trying to prove it, not to them, but to myself. I annoyed atheists for years, thinking that I was winning debates on subjects that I just didn't have enough understanding of to refute. From a young age I realised that I was good at winning debates even if I was wrong. You see I'd do this simply by saying something that wasn't inflammatory, but still annoying and by getting you annoyed or angry I make it easier to pick at your arguments (I hear that your IQ actually lowers during anger, but that's another debate), but if you stayed calm then you'd be putting me on your level. I think Dawkins understood this recently.
Either way you couldn't win with me, but trying that method here... somehow didn't work. Nevertheless, even after "winning" debates, I slowly began reading more and accepting evolution and other ideas little by little untill I didn't have much left to defend my beliefs. Before I came here, I sat down and began typing an essay on what I had left, I impressed a few friends (that I already knew would agree before I showed it to them), but I didn't impress myself, so I presented it here and a bunch of the members here ate it up along with several unfinished babies...
At that moment I wasn't really distraught, I said that I considered that I'd be atheist eventually only so I'd seem open minded, but... in typing it, I deleted it and then typed it again and deleted it again and typed it again. In doing so I realised it was true, I could become atheist, but I still didn't believe it completely so I left it in my post and continued. Thereafter Baranduin, Commander Eagle, Prolescum and a bunch of others proceeded to rip apart all my points before me and I accepted their evidences. Accepting them was meaningless to me, what they said made sense, but in the middle of that I read AndromadasWake's post on why he was an atheist and it was simply that there was no reason not to be atheist and I agreed.
I had already accepted all the reproof of my reasons for theism, I was left with nothing, I begged god, Allah, give me a reason, give me something and even today I spend my time asking him for forgiveness and guidance but feeling nothing but emptiness and betrayal. Today I stopped doing my regular 5 daily prayers, he didn't help me find him, he didn't help me continue, which means that either he wants me to go this way and I can't interfere with his will or that he simply doesn't exist. Due to the innumerable amount of assumptions involved in the former argument my mind is naturally inclined to believe the latter and today I accepted that I am an atheist.
I'm still going through a bit of fear and doubt, but my path is clear to me. I have accepted no other explanation for our existence, I accept that I am atheist.
I'm an atheist, the exact type of person I found to be rude, ridiculous and disrespectful just 2 weeks ago. I am that and that I am.
I'm sorry if anyone finds this sappy and un-useful, I just feel it monumental to declare an epoch for this moment in my life.
Some of you might think that the word "accept" sounds too religious, but I'll explain what I mean.
It's actually been a journey of around 10 years for me. I have a mental condition wherein which I can't stop thinking about everything and anything and so for years I haven't been able to stop thinking about how religion could make sense. It started when someone asked my father "How do we know that Islam is the right way?". I initially thought that everyone knew that Islam was the right way, but they decided to lead other lives because they were greedy/self-serving etc, but hearing that person say this at the time showed me that people genuinely did not-believe and that Islam was not self-evident to all human beings. Something as simple as that led to my initial doubts, but were later drowned out by anecdotes of supernatural occurrences along with personal experiences which I misunderstood.
I was always confused while growing up when people would speak of feelings that they felt about the Qur'an or about people that they "knew" were good and could feel it. People often claimed to sense the presence of angels or they could "see" light in someone's face. I always agreed, but I never understood what it was that they were really seeing. As I grew older, I noticed that even after seeing "light" or feeling the presence of angels from a person, that person could still be bad. Why was that? I originally assumed that there was something spiritually wrong with me, why couldn't I feel and "see" these things? but now I was realising that most of these claims and anecdotes were delusional.
Eventually I saw that religion, to most people, was just a means to suit emotions and justify their own importance, but I was more concerned with what was true so I began coalescing different parts of my religion in order make a whole new idea of how everything worked. I created a whole new sect of my religion that I was sure was the one true right way. I did this not by re-interpreting texts, but my actually reading the holy books and seeing that things I was taught about Islam as false. In doing so I was finally able to come to terms as to why people thought extremism was a part of Islam when it wasn't. They weren't following any book, they were simply justifying their own emotions just like everyone else was in less violent ways.
I came to the conclusion that traditions (Hadith) was too flimsy of an idea to be accepted. They were recorded 200 years after Muhammed reportedly died. The accuracy was impossible to determine, even by extremely honest attempts. Furthermore, the hadith contradicted the Quran on occasion and gave bad interpretation to the Qur'an where current scientifically miraculous interpretation was much better.
Here's an excerpt from Bukahri, which is Islam's most authoritative and authentic book on tradition.
Bukhari said:
However current apologists explain this verse a little differently
Qur'an Apologists said:
So who was right? Muhammed or the Quran Apologists who obviously alter translations a little to produces a more acceptable although still biased result.
I had two options upon realising this, either accept that Muhammed was wrong or that Hadith was inaccurate.
At the time I assumed it was allegorical, because the hadith says that the sun "prostrates" itself, which was clearly allegorical right? However, this would make the verse allegorical and the Quran apologists would still be wrong, because then everything could be allegorical/metaphoric etc.
So I later discarded Hadith. It was not reliable, unbeknown to me however, this was my first step towards atheism.
During this time, I was already having problems with the authenticity of the Quran and I frequented atheist forums trying to prove it, not to them, but to myself. I annoyed atheists for years, thinking that I was winning debates on subjects that I just didn't have enough understanding of to refute. From a young age I realised that I was good at winning debates even if I was wrong. You see I'd do this simply by saying something that wasn't inflammatory, but still annoying and by getting you annoyed or angry I make it easier to pick at your arguments (I hear that your IQ actually lowers during anger, but that's another debate), but if you stayed calm then you'd be putting me on your level. I think Dawkins understood this recently.
Either way you couldn't win with me, but trying that method here... somehow didn't work. Nevertheless, even after "winning" debates, I slowly began reading more and accepting evolution and other ideas little by little untill I didn't have much left to defend my beliefs. Before I came here, I sat down and began typing an essay on what I had left, I impressed a few friends (that I already knew would agree before I showed it to them), but I didn't impress myself, so I presented it here and a bunch of the members here ate it up along with several unfinished babies...
At that moment I wasn't really distraught, I said that I considered that I'd be atheist eventually only so I'd seem open minded, but... in typing it, I deleted it and then typed it again and deleted it again and typed it again. In doing so I realised it was true, I could become atheist, but I still didn't believe it completely so I left it in my post and continued. Thereafter Baranduin, Commander Eagle, Prolescum and a bunch of others proceeded to rip apart all my points before me and I accepted their evidences. Accepting them was meaningless to me, what they said made sense, but in the middle of that I read AndromadasWake's post on why he was an atheist and it was simply that there was no reason not to be atheist and I agreed.
I had already accepted all the reproof of my reasons for theism, I was left with nothing, I begged god, Allah, give me a reason, give me something and even today I spend my time asking him for forgiveness and guidance but feeling nothing but emptiness and betrayal. Today I stopped doing my regular 5 daily prayers, he didn't help me find him, he didn't help me continue, which means that either he wants me to go this way and I can't interfere with his will or that he simply doesn't exist. Due to the innumerable amount of assumptions involved in the former argument my mind is naturally inclined to believe the latter and today I accepted that I am an atheist.
I'm still going through a bit of fear and doubt, but my path is clear to me. I have accepted no other explanation for our existence, I accept that I am atheist.
I'm an atheist, the exact type of person I found to be rude, ridiculous and disrespectful just 2 weeks ago. I am that and that I am.
I'm sorry if anyone finds this sappy and un-useful, I just feel it monumental to declare an epoch for this moment in my life.
