Hi everyone,
I just recently found this forum and your stories and thoughts made me curious. There are some things about religion I wanna talk about, but especially when it comes to Islam it's very difficult. There is no freedom of speech. And I don't now anyone I could talk to about these things.
To myself:
I born in Germany (so excuse my English
) with Turkish parents. My family is religious, but expect from my mother no one does really practice or is interested in religion a lot. My father doesn't go to mosques. So I raised very liberal, and didn't care so much about religion.
This changed when I started with the university. I found new Turkish friends and I saw how serious they took their religion. They went to pray every Friday and I joined them. But soon I realized that I didn't feel comfortable about those things said during the prayers. The basic idea of it was "this life doesn't matter, important is the after life".
My friends tried to convert me more and more by talking about Islam now and then. The more I learned about it, the more anxious I got. I had the feeling that I have to change myself radically to escape hell.
But I simply couldn't. I didn't want to change myself. I had so many questions (most of them have already been written in this forum): What sense does it make to force people to pray? Why should anyone go to hell although he/she is a wonderful person? Is there any evidence at all, that all this is true?
However, when I finished my Bachelor studies I went to another city to continue with my Master studies. But after leaving my parental home, I struggled even more, because I couldn't decide if I should get orthodox, or if I should stay liberal. I read some books from liberal Muslims such as Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid and Mouhanad Khorchide who wrote that Islam is mercifulness. But somehow it didn't help. I couldn't overlook all the problems with Islam. I was still frightened of Islam. Every time someone talked about it I felt anxious.
So I finally decided to finish all this and just accept that this isn't real. Now I can live in freedom! The only reason why most of us are or were Muslims is because we were born in a Muslim family. If we were born in Japan our religion would be different.
But this isn't easy. Although my parents are quite open mined they don't want me to lose my religion. And also I didn't tell any of my friends about it. I fear that their reaction will not be nice.
How about you guys? Do your friends and family now that you're an Ex-Muslim?
Topic: Hi! This is my story