Ex-convert

1« Previous thread | Next thread »
- *stardust*
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Ex-convert
OP - January 01, 2014, 04:12 PM

Hi everyone and Happy New Year!

So I’ve been thinking about joining this site for a while and have finally got up the courage. I find talking about why I converted to Islam an awkward subject but here goes.

I stumbled across Islam inadvertently as a teenager and was taken back to find it taught belief in all the prophets including Jesus and professed an unaltered text which could be traced back to the Prophet himself, a religion born in the clear light of history (or so I thought). As a self-doubting Christian I was taken in and converted whilst I was still at school.

At university I came into contact with an active Islamic society and met plenty of hardline (salafi) sisters. I devoted myself to the religion and despite protests from my (poor) family I adorned the full Islamic garb. I had a few years of blind, arrogant faith where I had an answer for every question and no doubt that this was Gods religion.

However, the more I learned the more uncomfortable I felt. I tried immersing myself in Islamic apologist material but this only led the cracks to spread further. I started to see the weakness to Islam’s arguments regarding faith and morality and this was only compounded by frank ridiculousness of Islam’s ‘scientific’ claims. I didn’t voice my doubts to anyone although they manifest outwardly in my taking off some of my ‘modest’ attire. The day I finally took off the hijab prompted an intervention from the ‘sisters’. I didn’t quite realise what they were doing at the time and I suppose, to my shame, a part of me still wanted to believe as the thought I had taken complete leave of my for the past few years was just too much to bare.

Somehow I slipped back into wearing the headscarf and spent the next few years as a sort of cultural Muslim whilst racked with self-doubt and confusion about life/god/religion. It has taken a long time to finally admit to myself what deep down I’ve known for some time- I don’t believe.

Looking back I cannot believe I wasted some of the best years of my life on a religion I now think is not only is untrue but immoral. I know I will always be racked with shame and regret at my catastrophic stupidity but what’s done is done and as we welcome the New Year I look forward to a fresh start.

This is the first time I have admitted I do not believe to anyone other than myself and it feels great!
- BerberElla
- Class A'sexual
- Creator Goddess
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #1 - January 01, 2014, 04:17 PM

Hey stardust (that's going to be confusing as we already have a stardust online lol), welcome to the forum.

Glad you finally saw the light, but seriously, don't waste time feeling guilty or ashamed. We do what we do as part of our life learning curve. If you hadn't adopted Islam, would you be the person you have become now? someone who is more aware of the lie of religion? more capable of scrutiny and unwilling to blindly accept anymore?

Maybe, but maybe not. Who you have become, that depends upon who you have been. No need for shame. No one here needs to feel ashamed.

Instead take this new year as a chance to feel pride over where you have reached, and where you will go on to aim.

You will slowly begin to see yourself this way anyway, now that you have joined the forum.

Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
- UberSlave
- Member
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #2 - January 01, 2014, 04:37 PM

Yeah, what she said. ^
Welcome to the forum *stardust*

Quote from: *stardust* on January 01, 2014, 04:12 PM
Looking back I cannot believe I wasted some of the best years of my life ...

Be grateful you were only trapped for a few years. Some of us were born into it and have spent decades in this 'mind killer' religion. You pretty much have your whole life to live and catch up on the things you missed. I think at best I have a couple of decades left and I still can't shake the 'mind kill' effect.
- Jedi
- Director of Shariah Police
- Ex-Muslim
- Observe HAYYA at all times
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #3 - January 01, 2014, 05:04 PM

Hello Stardust. We've been expecting you here for a long time.

Welcome home.

No free mixing of the sexes is permitted on these forums or via PM or the various chat groups that are operating.

Women must write modestly and all men must lower their case.

http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?425649-Have-some-Hayaa-%28modesty-shame%29-people!
- Cornflower
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #4 - January 01, 2014, 05:44 PM

What Berbs said. I was a Muslim for almost 9 years and wasted my late teens and early 20s as a devout salafi turned Muslim feminist turned murtad. But I don't feel ashamed for anything except that I put my family through trouble because of a lie. I have the rest of my life to make up for thar mistake. As fir the wasted years, perhaps they did me god. I dob't know what I would have been like. I do know that I have grown as a person, matured and found deeper insight to life. I'm glad. I will never take life for granted again, or deem it purposeless.

"The healthiest people I know are those who are the first to label themselves fucked up." - three
- three
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #5 - January 01, 2014, 06:35 PM

Welcome, and congratulations on your escape!

Don't let Hitler have the street.
- Ex-Salafy
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #6 - January 01, 2014, 08:07 PM

Quote from: *stardust* on January 01, 2014, 04:12 PM
Looking back I cannot believe I wasted some of the best years of my life on a religion I now think is not only is untrue but immoral. I know I will always be racked with shame and regret at my catastrophic stupidity but what’s done is done and as we welcome the New Year I look forward to a fresh start.

You and me both. I wasted 15 years of my youth (my entire 20s and half my 30s). I have gotten over it for the most part, but it still bothers me from time to time.

I was also a staunch salafi (some of my writings are still floating around).

On the embarrassment, it really hit me when I was going through some family photos and saw that I had missed weddings, births, birthdays, vacations, and holidays. I was in none of the pictures because I wasn't at any of those events. Life had gone on without me. What hurt even more was that I had lost family members that meant a lot to me, but I was spending so much time "spreading the dawah" that I was hardly with them. It is a pain that will never go away for me.

But as BerberElla said, I have actually grown from my misadventures in Islam and I am far less susceptible to be taken in by fairy tales and superstition.

Anyway, welcome aboard, and KNOW that you are far from alone. I know MANY converts personally that left Islam (it is mostly a revolving door where converts are concerned). I would estimate that I gave over 200 shahadahs in my time as a Muslim, but probably only around 10 or so are still Muslim today (and the jury is still out on them)

While most of them have gone on with their lives I have decided to use my knowledge and spare time to help people who may be on the fence on either leaving or embracing Islam by operating a blog (listed below) that exposes a lot of the silly beliefs and practices (things I did not know when I became Muslim)

http://irrationalislam.wordpress.com/
- Gandalf
- Ex-Muslim
- Shine
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #7 - January 01, 2014, 10:00 PM

Welcome, *Stardust*

I know exactly how you feel. Take time to heal and you will get your smile back sooner than you think.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
- Asiya
- Member
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #8 - January 01, 2014, 10:28 PM

Welcome Stardust
- Quod Sum Eris
- King of the
- Pub Regular
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #9 - January 02, 2014, 04:12 AM

Welcome. Have a parrot.

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
- Lynna
- Pub Regular
- Seek peace. Endure. Find joy.
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #10 - January 02, 2014, 04:08 PM

Hi *Stardust*
I'm sure you'll enjoy it here. It's a nice forum, good people. They'll be very supportive of your choice.
You'll have many other best years of your life. It sounds as if you're still rather young. Time will pass and you may come to realize that even things you have considered wrong decisions have taught you things you really needed to know. When you feel sad or angry at yourself for something you did in past (and can't change now) remind yourself you made the very best choice you knew how to make at the time. It serves no useful purpose to beat yourself up.
I see you've all ready received a couple very nice parrot. They will come in handy for celebrating International Pirates Day which is a nonreligious, nonpolitical holiday for everyone except Pastapharians who use is as their primary religious event. Since you already have a nice parrot I'll give you a pair of . I always give a pair of bunnies so they won't be lonely when you go to work and you'll never have a shortage of bunnies to give out as presents.
Welcome *Stardust*
Got to remember you're the Stardust with **. The other Stardust is a college student also or maybe is finished by now. Time gets away. Well maybe your finished as you said "a few years".

If at first you succeed...try something harder.

Failing isn't falling down. Failing is not getting back up again.
- Nikolaj
- Pub Regular
- Yes, I have a duck fetish!
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #11 - January 02, 2014, 04:21 PM

Hi there *stardust*

Welcome to COEM. Not an ex-muzzie myself - just a supporter.

As I'm from Denmark I offer your this piece of our major export:

Danish Never-Moose adopted by the kind people on the CEMB-forum
Ex-Muslim chat (Unaffliated with CEMB). Safari users: Use "#ex-muslims" as the channel name. CEMB chat thread.
- billy
- Pub Regular
- Tripitaka ~ Closet Juice
- offline
Ex-convert
Reply #12 - January 02, 2014, 05:39 PM

Hi there, our second stardust

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
God is Love.
Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.
1« Previous thread | Next thread »