Hi everyone, I'm a new member:)
Hi maldabba,
Good to have another Saudi on the forum
It is beneficial to the discourse to be able to refer to that you actually know reasonable, secular and humanist Saudis when countering blanket anti-Saudis and anti-Muslim bigotry.
Welcome parrot for you
I'm a male Saudi living in the US. I am an atheist and a secular humanist. I have been an activist and i ran a philosophy club in Saudi Arabia. My mission is a secular humanist ME. I really don't think that i was ever a believer however, living a conservative small town in Saudi Arabia lead me to conform although i was always been resistant to it.
Awesome
Are you still running something, such as a Facebook community or a blog?
If you feel safe about telling, what part of Saudi Arabia are you from?
Do your family know you are not a believer? How is their attitude regarding Islam?
1: I think the God of Abraham is ugly ugly character
I grew up atheist in a cultural Christian society, learning the stories of the bible as intriguing fairy tales by looking in an old picture bible my maternal grand parents had and was never exposed to literalist believers until I met "faithful" propagandising Muslims here in Denmark. Then I started noticing that we also have Christian and Jewish literalists here. Freaked me out. I had lived under a rock. Or rather I just didn't encounter it in my personal life so for me it wasn't a problem.
As I went to a private doesn't-care-about-religion-at-all school I didn't get the state-ordained dose of Christendom. I visited a friend when I was 11 or 12 in another part of the country and went with her to school for a week and met it there. It was very, very, very foreign to me.
ISIS is a terrible movement with a terrible agenda, i think it comes with a positive this, which is, the projection of the Quran into a state and society. I have many Muslim friends who actually left islam after discussing with them the consistency and commitment of ISIS to the scriptures.
But... But... But... ISIL has nothing to do with Islam!!! It is The Religion of Peace!!! Read the Qur'an!
I hate to say this because of the carnage but perhaps ISIL in the long run will be beneficial for the "liberation" of Musilms world-wide. Their actions and deeds really put the sanctuary of the scriptures to the test.
On a logical point I don't get that some people are afraid of ISIL invading Europe or the US. Those countries have shown what they ultimately are capable off in WW1 and WW2. Infiltration and eventual concerted bombing campaigns can of course make it very nasty, but we haven't seen anything like that yet and our Muslim communities in general are wary of people getting radicalised. Except for organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir, of course. Those guys are scary and influence both society and local Muslims with their Caliphate-and-Sharia-will-fix-this-world's-real-and-perceived-evils and their "social work", particularly in Europe - and also in "moderate" Muslim majority countries like Malaysia and Indonesia
2:Islam, like all the Abrahamic religions, operates with apocalyptic fantasies in mind. This is an extremely scary thought for me.
Pakistan. Nukes. And the US. And Israel. Possibly eventually Iran. Bad combos. Very bad combos.
It is also a catalyst for the occasional localised carnage around the world. And consumes the free spirit of believers, enslaving them to be abused by dogmatics.
The difference that makes Islam unique is the fact that there is consensus on those fantasies. Furthermore, it is a reality amongst a population that is growing more than another nations in the world. can you imagine a world with a majority of muslims who are extremely uneducated and sharing those apocalyptic fantasies? This is a scary thought.
All the shit that happened in 1979 (Iran, Masjid al-Haram, Afghanistan) really got the extremists going with the radicalisation of Islamic communities. However I think we would have happened there anyway. It was already underway.
Looking forward to interesting discussions and insights from all of you . Sorry for the long introduction:)
Same
Welcome again.
Topic: Saudi secular humanist living in the USA