Hello, everyone!
You can call me Lounes. Matoub Lounes was an Algerian singer who was killed by the Islamists in the nineties for his rebellious, fiercely secularist songs. Alternatively, you can call me Yekker or Boualem, Boualem Yekker being the protagonist in Tahar Djaout's (another secularist Algerian writer; another man killed for his beliefs) 1984-esque novel,
Le dernier été de la raison (The Last Summer of Reason). Or you can just call me harakaat, a nice word I'm very fond of that has come to mean "shenanigans" in spoken Arabic. Actually, you can call me anything you want. I'm big on the whole choice/flexibility thing.
So yes, I'm 16, I used to be a Muslim (at times even glorifying terrorism), before I grew out of it. First came support for Israel and fascination with the Jewish culture, then my increasing political liberalism (watching Queer as Folk helped and made me quite a staunch and open gay rights advocate at school. Not to mention that I'm bi (though I prefer "queer") myself). And then I understood evolution and lost my belief in the literal inerrancy of the Quran. And *then* I took IGCSE Sociology and that just destroyed what little faith I had left. Understanding feminist and Marxist theories (though I wouldn't consider myself a Marxist) goes a long way in crushing orthodox, patriarchal, heteronormative societal views.
At that point, I was still stuck with the whole "But... but... how can there be *no* God?!" thing. First, I started considering myself a liberal Muslim. Then a deist. Then one day, I was thinking in my bed and realized that asking what happened "before" the Big Bang was meaningless -- there *was* no "before". Then, reading about quantum physics and the Big Bang theory in more depth led me to atheism.
Now I identify as an atheistic (agnostic atheistic, obviously) secular humanist. I'm open about this to practically everyone (and my bisexuality as well). Not *everyone*, but most people. My parents probably know, I think. I think they think it's just a "phase".
Anyway, this forum is great! It's so amazing to see how much you have in common with other ex-Muslims (the "You know you're an ex-Muslim when..." thread was epic!). Do you guys ever physically meet up, or do you consider that too risky?
Anyway, in a year or so I will hopefully go to university in the US, and indulge my wanton hedonism to the max then!
By the way, what do the parrots symbolize?
Topic: Atheist from Algeria