Hi, I'm relatively new here and everyone seems to be introducing themselves and I haven't properly done that yet even though I have posted a couple of times.
I'm 20 years old girl and I was born and brought up in England but my parents are from Bangladesh. I was born a Muslim and I did actually believe in Islam for a long time. Even though I didn't really like reading namaz I did pray to god by just sort of talking. For example, if I wanted to go to my aunt's house I would pray "please let my mom say yes" and usually it would go my way. There's also another saying along the lines of remember god and he will remember you and I did used to "remember" him quite a lot.
I even went to a private Islamic school when I was 11 and it was the the stupidest school ever. I didn't have doubts about my religion then but I did question "How do we know Islam is real?" and I never used to get an acceptable response. I left that school when I was 14 and went to a state school which was bad academically but it introduced me to people from so many different backgrounds and I'm thankful for that.
When I was 17 and in college (not university for those from the UK) my parents started to pressurize me about marriage and it was really difficult and my mom used to say "It's in Islam, you need to get married.. it's my duty as a parent to get you married as soon as you're old enough" and that's when the doubts started pouring in. I looked up marriage and Islam on the internet and they led me on to several other sites. Even dinosaurs came up. I believe in and I'm interested in dinosaurs but I'm pretty sure the Quran doesn't say anything about them (correct me if I'm wrong). After about a couple of months I was convinced I don't believe anymore. I'm not afraid of hell because if God exists it's his fault for making it so hard. I ran away from home and I came back after the first night
and sometimes I regret coming back but I know I was too young to make in on my own without any money. They've put off the marriage issue until I graduate in about a year.
So I'm a closet atheist because I can't "come out" to my friends and family. They will never understand. A lot of my friends are quite religious and when they found out about an ex-muslim on our course some of them said things like "I'm so angry, I wanna kill him" and I completely disagree with their views. Why can't they just leave him to believe what he wants. They always invite me to Islamic talks but I never go and just say I'm busy and I've never prayed once at university even though there are facilities.
Once I graduate I want to move to the USA. I need money for that but I'm not the best money saver. To be honest I'm the opposite, I'm a complete shopaholic. So I play the lottery twice a week, because you never know, I might win and find a way to escape and finally be free.
for reading
Topic: Introduction - sa397