My introduction is overdue...
OP - November 17, 2015, 04:10 AM
Hello everyone!
I've been a forum member for several months, mainly to help getting work done on the "My Ordeal with the Quran" project. I got busy and disappeared for a while. However, I never actually bothered to write an introduction about myself, and now, it's overdue.
I'm 24 now, I study and work at the same time, in the same fields, software engineering. Most of my life was spent dealing and playing with computers, and electronics in general. I really enjoy dealing with the technical aspects of things, and complexity allures me instead of deterring me. Science, especially physics, speaks to me quite a lot, and I find it quite fascinating.
My alter-ego is the philosophical side, the mystical and the metaphysical. I was religious since childhood, but stayed quite moderate until my late teenage years. I did the basics, prayed, read some Qur'an, fasted and avoided the major sins and never really thought about it too much. I loved material by Harun Yahya and Zakir Naik as it really strengthened my faith. The series about the Qur'an and Science mixed both my interests: science and religion.
Later on, I started to take a more serious approach to religion. I started watching more lectures, and eventually Zakir Naik seemed like a weak scholar-wannabe. I was especially captivated by Abu Mussab Wajdi Akkari: a strict Salafi Muslim. Soon, I stopped listening to music, grew my beard and talked religion to everyone I knew, much to their annoyance. I even avoided taking pictures of living beings and drawing them.
However, the religiousness made me harder, meaner and less approachable. My parents both conservative, but moderate Muslims, didn't like my approach. Eventually, I gave in, and started to read and watch a wider variety of scholars. I was listening to music again, but still praying.
At the same time, I started hallucinating, having mood swings, suicidal thoughts and so on. I was taken to a 'spiritual healer' and tried to follow his advice. He claimed that he would cure me within 21 days, and I really believed him. I followed everything, reading Qur'an and Ruqyah every night, taking showers with Ruqyah water, and eating certains foods, and avoid certain things. I did plenty of dua really believing that I would be cured of my condition, but the next day would be worse. Eventually, I gave up on the prophetic medicine.
One day, I missed a few prayers, I told myself I would make them up tomorrow. The next day, the same thing happened. Eventually, it was months since I prayed, breaking my habit that started when I was 13. I was losing interest in Islam. I barely practiced anything anymore, and I didn't really care much or even think about it.
Later on, I was finally sent to psychiatrist. I was initially misdiagnosed, and given the wrong drugs, but they still had an effect. I wondered why the drugs did something, and the prayers didn't. What was going on?
Eventually, I had a major depressive episode, and I felt like I was far away from Islam, far enough that I could search material myself with a critical mind. I wasn't scared to face my doubts anymore. I read the Qur'an, I read the Hadith for myself, and I was appalled. Material on anti-Islamic websites actually made sense to me. The Hadith they mentioned weren't fabricated after all, they were actually in Bukhari and Muslim.
On top of that, I learned that most of the scientific miracles in the Qur'an were not really impressive. For example the statements about embryology were also known by ancient Greek scientists. The numerology arguments turned out to be fabrications, I checked myself on websites like corpus.quran.com and doing the word counts myself.
The arguments made by the like of Hamza Tzortis weren't actually philosophically sound. I realized that they made sense in vague intuitive kind of way, but they could be easily refused via deductive logical reasoning. The design argument, the cosmological arguments, the theodicies were discredited and refuted by dozens of philosophers. Philosophers like Hume, Spinoza and even Epicurus brought a very different prescriptive for me, one that I didn't even know existed.
Science wasn't helping either, with the advances in physics and biology, there is no way that all the evidence is made up. The theories we're amazing, predicting results with stunning accuracy. Flying aircraft, efficient car engines, curing diseases and explaining our distant past showed how amazing science was. I was always annoyed by how sound evolution was, but that Islam contradicted it. I would try so hard not believe it as Muslim, and tell myself that somehow, there's a conspiracy. But eventually, I gave up and admitted that evolution was probably true. That really put a lot weight on it for me.
The world was no longer small, and black and white anymore. All the material I read showed how colourful the world was. The was so much different ways to look at life: existentialism, absurdism, nihilism, Hinduism, etc. Islam taught that the world was made of Muslim, Christian and Jew, and some 'crazy stupid blind atheists'. The real world was massive, beautiful and varied. It was liberating.
What really broke it was the morals. Islam made me believe in things I did not want to believe. I don't want the homosexual to be killed. I don't want men to have concubines. I don't think a woman's testimony is worth half of man. I don't think the woman deserves half the inheritance of a man. I don't want fornicators to be punished for simply following an innocent teenager instinct. I don't think masturbation is wrong. I don't want apostates to be killed or jailed. I don't want court evidence to only rely on testimony. I don't want a theocracy. I want to have doubts about everything and not feel guilty about it.
I decided to read another document of morals, the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was so sublime, it was more beautiful than the Qu'ran. I cried when I read it for the first time. Honestly, in terms of justice and equality, the Qur'an could not even approach it by an iota. Not only that, I realized that all the humanity in me already existed, even without Islam.
I realized eventually that Islam was just a product of it's time, a human construct. I no longer believed in Islam, I didn't want to be associated with it. I kept it secret for a while, but then one day, I put a letter on my parent's kitchen table, and left to work.
They lost it, we spent months in confrontation. I had to move out to get my distance. After months of hard work, and so much talking, things are finally getting a little better. We still fight sometimes, but not as much. I hope eventually things stabilize. The uncertainty bothers me so much, but I try to keep hope in sight.
Right now, I'm still working and studying. My studies are almost done, but they go slowly due to my full-time work and side projects. I was eventually diagnosed with bipolar schizoaffective disorder, and taking a 'cocktail' of drugs, but my symptoms are actually subsiding.
In terms of religion, I have none. I follow secular principles, very slightly to the left. I call myself an agnostic in terms of what I know, and a naturalistic pantheist in what I believe. To me, the sum of the Universe is God, an impersonal God. A God that wants nothing of anything, a God that is actually itself. The will of God is the determinism of the Universe. Like Spinoza teaches, the only way to understand God, is to study the Universe and how it operates. God reveals himself in the inner workings of the Universe. Our prayers are our hopes and dreams, and nothing more. The mystical is to explain what we don't understand yet from the laws of nature. Our spirituality is just how we experience the Universe, God.
Topic: My introduction is overdue...