₦airaland Forum

GC: As you moved further and further out of your religious faith, you clearly were undergoing an emotional crisis, but at the same time, you write about the increasing sense of delight and even awe at the natural world. And your increasing acceptance of the natural world was obviously bringing you a great sense of peace. That’s a common experience for a lot of atheists. Can you tell me more about that?


JD: The religious framework I hail from envisioned a natural world at war with its human residents due to demonic influence and control, all allowed of course by Adam’s sin. This placed a filter over my ability to perceive reality as anything but sad, diseased, destructive and in need of redemption. This obviously create a disconnect between me and my surrounding environment.
Once that filter was removed, I found in nature and reality the “glory” I had been hungering for all along.


GC: You talk in the book about how becoming an atheist meant realizing that it wasn’t God or Jesus who had gotten you through so many difficult times, it was yourself. People often say that religion gives people strength in hard times; do you think it can also undercut their strength, or make them feel more helpless and weak than they really are?

JD: It does cause people to greatly undervalue there own abilities and self-worth.
A few weeks ago I overheard a relative of mine saying she couldn’t have made it through a difficult situation without “the Lord.” Uncharacteristically, I interjected that she was a very strong person and had endured her hardship with her own strength and determination. She was embarrassed by the thought of it and insisted that I was wrong.

GC: Even very early in the process of questioning your faith, when you still identified strongly as a Christian, but no longer saw yourself as a Pentecostal, you still kept up the facade of Pentecostalism, because you didn’t want to upset your friends and family and destroy the image they had of you. With your experiences in the atheist community in general and the Clergy Project in particular, how common do you think that experience is?

JD: Based on the relationships I’ve made over the past two years, it must be very common. And of course, I can wholeheartedly understand the reasons that people continue to maintain an identity they no longer relate to.


GC: And when your atheism became public, your community turned against you, in some cases made threats against you, demanded that your boss fire you. Why do you think that was? With all the religious divisions and sects and schisms they’d dealt with, why did they have to ostracize and economically ruin the atheist?

JD: First, I’m not sure that they have dealt with that much religious diversity. Yes, there are several different religions represented in our small town, but the majority of our residents are either Pentecostal or Baptist. Both of which think that the other is going to Hell… but have been forced to work together for the last century.

I’m not in trouble for thinking differently, I’m in trouble with this “not in my backyard” town for talking differently.

GC: I’ve seen you speak at atheist events, and you have a passion, and a powerful and distinctive speaking style, that clearly comes from your years of experience as a Pentecostal preacher. Do you feel any differently when you’re preaching about atheism and humanism than you did when you were a preacher?
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JD: As with most things, yes and no. I still feel the nerve-racking anticipation of being in front of a group and the excitement that comes from the audience. I even feel what I once thought was the presence of God, the Holy Ghost, as we would have call it.
What does feel very different is my personal congruency with the message I’m delivering. It has been some time since I felt completely at one with the concepts that I’m presenting and standing for.
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GC: Reading your book, one of the things that really jumped out at me was all the competing churches and congregations and sects that were around, all with such different and mutually hostile views of God and what you had to do to be saved — down to minute details like whether you shaved or cut your hair. How did you see all that at the time? How do you see it now?
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JD: Earlier on I saw those differences as possible missing-links back to an original (thus more effective) form of Christianity. Later, after years of bible study and personal experiences with believers of all types, I slowly came to see them as sincere misunderstandings of scripture.
Now they seem to be more like tribal customs or subcultural expectations, originally instituted with the hope of drawing closer to God but now, more or less, followed to stay close to the religious group.

Greta Christina: Can you briefly sum up what got you started questioning your faith? What were some of the thoughts and experiences that moved you forward out of religion and into atheism? And what was the final straw?

Jerry DeWitt: The catalyst was an investigation into the idea of Hell and Eternal Punishment. I grew up with an awareness of the Hell concept and even prayed for forgiveness before falling asleep most nights of my childhood, but it wasn’t until it became my responsibility to teach this doctrine that I began to be troubled by it. Is it justifiable for a person to be painfully punished
eternally for 70 years of sinful behavior? Something wasn’t adding up.
After more than 25 years of ministry and misery, I found that I had completely dismantled the theological house that I had been dwelling in. Although there were countless timbers of religious thoughts that one by one were tearfully discarded, I have condensed my transition into
five stages :
1. God LOVES everyone
2. God SAVES everyone
3. God is IN everyone
4. God is everyone’s INTERNAL dialog
5. God is a DELUSION

GC: It’s often said that people need religion in hard times, and that that’s especially true of people whose lives are particularly hard. Reading your book, I do get a sense of the comfort people get from their religion, but at the same time, I get a strong sense of guilt.
You talk about that a lot in the book: the feeling you had that if your faith were stronger, your life wouldn’t be so hard, or that if you could just find a missing piece of the puzzle of doctrine, your doubts about your faith would clear up and you could be a better leader.Can you talk about that? How did the comfort and the guilt religion provides play out for you, and for the people around you?

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JD: Many times the comfort religion offers comes at a very high price. This form of comfort is at the same time both temporally present and linked to an uncertain moment in the future. I’ll use the doctrine of Healing as an example. If you are ill, you may be comforted by the idea that God can heal you and may very well do so…one of these days. For some, this is more comforting then “knowing” you don’t know what the future truly holds.
The exorbitant price that is paid at the very same time that a measure of comfort is received is the emotional abuse one silently suffers while trying to receive/earn the promised Healing. Knowing that God could heal you immediately, but doesn’t, naturally causes the believer to ask, “Why not?” “What do I need to do to better please God?” “Is it God’s will for me to suffer?” “What’s God’s purpose in allowing this illness in my life?” The list goes on and on.

Try to imagine: You’re a Pentecostal preacher in small-town Louisiana. Your public reputation, your connection with the people you love, indeed your own sense of self-worth, not to mention your livelihood, are hugely dependent on your passionate faith in Christ.
You’ve struggled to make a reputation for yourself as a man of God, a conduit of the Holy Spirit, who can bring spiritual hope and healing to the people around you. You’ve struggled to balance the rigorous demands of your religious calling with the pressing practical needs of your family.

You’ve struggled to make sense of the contradictory teachings of the Bible; of the widely divergent and often contentious sects competing for your loyalty; of the deep conflicts between your deeply held Christian doctrine and what you know, as an ethical human being, to be right.
And you’re realizing that you don’t believe in God. At all. Not just in Pentecostalism; not just in Christianity. You have come to realize that religion of any kind simply doesn’t add up.
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What do you do?

That’s the story of Jerry DeWitt. It’s a story you may have heard bits and pieces of: if you read his
profile in the New York Times, or if you’ve heard about the Clergy Project , the support network for non-believing clergy members, which DeWitt has been intensely involved with since its earliest days. It’s a story that paints a very different picture from the one many people have of atheists: set in the blue-collar and working-poor small-town Bible Belt, it’s a story of a life driven by emotional devotion to service as much as an intellectual devotion to learning. It’s a story of a deep desire to understand and serve God… battling with a deeper desire to understand and accept the truth.


It’s the story told in DeWitt’s new book: Hope after Faith: An Ex-Pastor’s Journey from Belief to Atheism (available in print and Kindle editions). Fascinating, suspenseful, compellingly written, often heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, and always hopeful even at its darkest, the book had my head spinning. DeWitt kindly took the time to discuss the book with me, and to talk about some of its more absorbing questions and ideas.

4everGod:
Sorry but unlike you, to me there are much bigger and more important things to be engrossed in then football results. Since you seem to love it so well and probably are historicaly grounded in it and on each team why not try and take a shot at it by making a prediction.

kindly tell us week 5 EPL results while you're at it
thanks in advance

4everGod:
Yeah a wide and wrong path! She will return eventually wait and see.

kindly tell us week 5 EPL results while you're at it

thanks in advance

rosalieene:
[/s][/b] Accord some respect to God

what respect does Yahweh deserve?

After she came out as an atheist, she says that while "an enormous number of Christians have threatened to physical harm to me. Many others have been kind in their response." MacBain reported that she was also ostracized by friends and extended family, but that her husband and children were supportive.

American Atheists named her "Atheist of the Year" in 2012. However, she still lost her job and said that other "job interviews were cancelled" in her hometown of Tallahassee.

The Humanists of Florida Association helped by offering to pay her salary for a year.

hopefulLandlord:
Nice Thread!

Thanks bro

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thorpido:
How confused can you get?
Well the scripture must be fulfilled................there must be a falling way first(2 Thess 2:3).
Many will turn back.

sure professor

how about the below

2 Timothy 3 King James Version (KJV)
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

you have to like the that verse saying a lot of things without saying anything

those things were already happening even before the days of Jesus Christ

tintingz:
And can you quote where God condemned his servants being polygamist in the bible?

David had many wives, eight were named.

And why did God overlooked it?

Don't forget Solomon was the wisest man in bible given to him by God.

So what should we call that?


You should be the one to get your facts right .

you resurrected him and killed him again

raphieMontella:
in other words...yahweh approves of incest..since he didnt create two men and two women..

you killed him

Teresa MacBain has a secret, one she's terrified to reveal.

“Here I am. A pastor and an Atheist. This has to be the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. I look forward to the day when I can hop in my car and leave god in the rearview mirror. I have a plan. I’m working hard to get out. But for now I must remain in hiding. My time will come and then I can be real for a change!”
Teresa MacBain writing as “Lynn,” February 12, 2012


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"I'm currently an active pastor and I'm also an atheist," she says. "I live a double life. I feel pretty good on Monday, but by Thursday — when Sunday's right around the corner — I start having stomachaches, headaches, just knowing that I got to stand up and say things that I no longer believe in and portray myself in a way that's totally false."
MacBain glances nervously around the room. It's a Sunday, and normally she would be preaching at her church in Tallahassee, Fla. But here she is, sneaking away to the American Atheists ' convention in Bethesda, Md.
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Her secret is taking a toll, eating at her conscience as she goes about her pastoral duties week after week — two sermons every Sunday, singing hymns, praying for the sick when she doesn't believe in the God she's praying to. She has had no one to talk to, at least not in her Christian community, so her iPhone has become her confessor, where she records her private fears and frustrations.
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"On my way to church again. Another Sunday. Man, this is getting worse," she tells her phone in one recording. "How did I get myself in this mess? Sometimes, I think to myself, if I could just go back a few years and not ask the questions and just be one of those sheep and blindly follow and not know the truth, it would be so much easier. I'd just keep my job. But I can't do that. I know it's a lie. I know it's false."
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MacBain made that recording in her car on the way to Lake Jackson United Methodist Church several weeks before the American Atheists' conference.
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FINDING ATHEISM

MacBain, 44, was raised a conservative Southern Baptist. Her dad was a pastor and she felt the call of God when she was 6. She had questions, of course, about conflicts in the Bible, for example, or the role of women. She says she sometimes felt she was serving a taskmaster of a God, whose standards she never quite met.

For years, MacBain set her concerns aside. But when she became a United Methodist pastor nine years ago, she started asking sharper questions. She thought they'd make her faith stronger.
"In reality," she says, "as I worked through them, I found that religion had so many holes in it, that I just progressed through stages where I couldn't believe it."

The questions haunted her: Is Jesus the only way to God? Would a loving God torment people for eternity? Is there any evidence of God at all? And one day, she crossed a line.

"I just kind of realized — I mean just a eureka moment, not an epiphany, a eureka moment — I'm an atheist," she says. "I don't believe. And in the moment that I uttered that word, I stumbled and choked on that word — atheist ."
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She described her deconversion to American Atheist Magazine : “I didn’t want to lose my faith. I didn’t want to change or stop believing, but I wanted truth more!”
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NB: Teresa MacBain's husband, Ray MacBain, says he still believes in God but defends his wife's right not to.

below is a picture of her and her husband

hahn:
Moral of the story: Poo is good for bread making. Say no to flour!

haha
I'm dead

ValentineMary:
Very hilarious the Judeo-christian God is a joke and should be treated as such.

lol

source https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/call-me-bald-again-i-double-dare-you
http://listverse.com/2008/01/31/top-10-bizarre-biblical-tales/

God gets beaten up by a guy with a dislocated hip.


Jacob is moving house. His wife and 11 sons have gone ahead of him. Suddenly, without any explanation, he’s wrestling with a man. The fight goes on all night. The man knows he’s losing, so he somehow magically wrenches Jacob’s hip out of place. Jacob says he won’t let go until the man blesses him, so the man does that, and then admits that, in fact, he’s God. “Therefore to this day,” says the Bible, “the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.”

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From Genesis 32:22-31 .

Yahweh is very proud of his backside

Found in: Exodus 33:23
It’s a big day for Moses. He’s finally going to meet God face to face and is giddy with anticipation. Soon the time comes and Moses positions himself on a rock ready to see the divine creator himself. But God backs out at the last minute claiming that no man can see his face and live. However, he has a solution. He will let Moses have a peek at his backside, “And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.” Moses must be heartbroken. He was hoping to see God’s face not his bottom! Imagine explaining that to the wife: “Oh honey, did you see God’s face?” “Umm not quite…I got a great look at his ass though!” Moses most likely slept alone that night.
The moral of this story? God works in mysterious (and slightly gay) ways.

Balaam and his talking donkey

Found in: Numbers 22:28-30
Balaam is just minding his own business, spanking his ass (donkey) when suddenly he hears a voice. It’s his donkey who is asking him why he is spanking him. Balaam doesn’t seem the least bit miffed that his donkey has starting talking in the same language as him and says, “Because thou hast mocked me.” The donkey then gets philosophical and explains the nature of their relationship and how his feelings have been hurt. Eventually they make peace. Oh yeah did I mention it was TALKING DONKEY?
The moral of this story? Don’t beat animals. If they could talk then they would probably tell you how upset they were.

Jesus and the Fig Tree


So, Jesus is walking from Bethany and he’s feeling a bit peckish. He encounters a fig tree, but unfortunately it is barren as it’s the off season for figs. Annoyed, Jesus demands the fig tree bear him fruit, however the fig tree doesn’t respond (it’s a tree), so Jesus, in an act of uncharacteristic rashness, curses the fig tree to death. This story is bizarre for many reasons, but mainly for how little it means to the Jesus story and how Jesus seems to react so harshly. OK, so he’s hungry, and we all get a little cranky when hungry, but come on, the fig tree had done nothing wrong. This just seems like abuse of powers to me.
The moral of this story? I honestly can’t think of one. This story seems so unimportant and purposeless yet both Mark and Matthew mention it so it must have some importance. The best I can think of is: don’t disobey Jesus, even if you’re an inanimate tree.

God decides not to kill Moses after seeing some foreskin blood on his feet.
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Continuing the Bible’s fascination with all things foreskin, we get the bizarre story of God trying to kill Moses because his son isn’t circumcised. God is about to obliterate Moses when his wife Zipporah takes out a flint and quickly cuts the foreskin of his son (ouch), throwing the bloody skin fragment at Moses’ feet. “You are a bloody husband to me!” squeals Zipporah, flint in one hand, child in other. God, clearly freaked out by this woman, backs off and Moses is saved.
The moral of this story? Never turn down a woman for being a psycho. Someday she may save your life.

Exodus 4.24-26

Fancy a drink, Dad
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Lot and two daughters have fled Sodom, and are hiding in a cave. His daughters worry that there aren’t any men around. So they take it in turns to get their father drunk and have sex with him. They both get pregnant, and their sons each start great dynasties.
From Genesis 19:30-38 .

Abram pretends his wife is his sister, so Egypt gets punished with the plague.
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Abram pretends his wife is his sister, so Egypt gets punished with the plague.
Abram’s wife Sarai is seriously good-looking, so Abram is worried that the Egyptians will kill him to steal her. He asks her to pretend that she’s his sister instead.
The Egyptians do indeed think she’s very good-looking, so they tell the Pharaoh, who gives Abram “sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels”, and takes Sarai into his household. But this annoys God, who punishes the Pharaoh’s family with “serious diseases”.
From Genesis 12:10-20 .

Lie down on your side for one year, and eat bread baked with human poo!
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God tells Ezekiel that in memorial of the siege of Jerusalem, he needs to build a model of the city. Then he needs to lie down on his left side for 390 days, then his right side for 40 days. During this time he is only allowed to eat bread which he has baked over a fire of human shit.
Ezekiel protests at this last bit, so God lets him use cow shit instead.
From Ezekiel 1:1-16 .

God says he doesn’t want any sacrifices from people with damaged testicles.
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God tells Moses that he is very particular about who can offer food at his temples. No one with a “defect” is allowed. That is, “no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores, or damaged testicles”.
From Leviticus 21:17-24 .

Extremely bizarre tale

Within the Bible, one occasionally finds stories so horrible, one can wonder what their purpose is. Not only is this story utterly bizarre, but it is also absolutely disgusting. A man and his concubine are wandering the streets when they decide to seek shelter for the night, and find a man kind enough to let them stay. That night however, a group of men turn up at the door and demand to see the guest so that they may have sex with him. The owner is unwilling to let his male lodger be raped and so offers up his virgin daughter instead. However, this is still not good enough for the men, so the owner offers them his guest’s concubine and the men accept. The men brutally rape the woman and leave her on the doorstep where she bleeds to death. If that is not enough, when she is found by her husband, he chops her up into twelve pieces which he sends to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.
The moral of this story? I would hope none.

A lesson for those who dare mock male pattern baldness
Found in: 4 Kings 2:23-24
One of the more inspirational passages in the Bible tells the story of Elijah, a wise man, yet one cursed with male pattern baldness. One day he was minding his own business, making the long walk to Bethel, when he is attacked by a roving band of children who tease him with names like “bald head.” But Elijah was having none of this, he turns round and curses them in the name of the Lord, and instantly two female bears emerge from a nearby wood and maul all 42 children to death.
The moral of this story? Don’t make fun of bald people. Frankly, why this story isn’t included along with the Ten Commandments is anybody’s guess, but I think it would serve as an excellent lesson for children who think baldness is something to be made fun of.

The Bible is full of many fascinating tales – many good, and some bizarre – here are the top bizarre tales from the Bible.
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1. You asked for 100 foreskins? Here are 200, hope that’s OK.
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Before Byron, before Casanova, there was David. Young and in love, David desperately wants to marry Saul’s daughter Michal and offers Saul anything he wants to let him marry her. What could Saul possibly want? Money? A vow of love? No. Saul wants foreskins. 100 to be exact. Why? Who cares. If you want my daughter, you’re going to have to find 100 foreskins by tomorrow. David finds this odd, but then again this girl is hot, so he goes out and kills 200 men, and collects their foreskins. It’s only then he remembers that he only needs 100 foreskins. Oops. Oh well, maybe if he hands over twice as many foreskins, Saul will be doubly as impressed. Indeed he is and duly hands over his daughter to David.
The moral of this story? Never be ashamed to do crazy things for love.

Found in: 1 Samuel 18:25-27

EyeHateGod:
@op take out those pic tank me later

Done that bro, thanks

[size=14pt](Please note that I will not reveal my name for safety purpose).[/size]

was born in a middle-class Pakistani family, and thus I was brought up in a very religiously (Sunni Muslim) strict manner. As the eldest son, my mother paid a lot of attention to me. She used to tell me about the stories and Miracles of Prophet Mohammed and Qu'ran, she told me that I was very lucky to have been born into a Muslim family. I was happy knowing that Allah cared so much about me and that I will go to heaven when I die. As a curios child, I once asked my mother that "What was Allah doing before he made the universe? I mean he is always there and has no beginning, right?" to which my mother replied "Don't even think about stuff like that ever again". I was fine with that. If I do exactly what the Qu'ran and Prophet Mohammed said I was going to get rewarded with Heaven and who wouldn't want that?
And since everybody in my family considered me a genius they had a lot of expectations from me and so I was sent to a local Primary school at the age of 4. At age 12 (after I was done with 8th Grade), I was sent to a Madrrasah to memorize Qu'ran.
Those unfortunately were the worst day of my life. At first I was very excited about this, because I was told that If I memorize Qu'ran, Prophet Mohammed will personally welcome me to heaven (if that makes any sense?). First few days were good, but for some unknown reason the Qari (Imam or w/e you want to call him) hated me. After a couple of weeks he started beating (well not just me other students as well) me no reason at all and each day it got worse, I convinced myself to believe that he was probably doing this so I don't make any mistakes (which I rarely ever made) because if I do, Allah will send me to Hell. One day I was sick but was I was not allowed to be absent from Madrassah so I went there anyway, but couldn't memorize the work I was given. When it was my turn to recite the Qur'an, I told the Imam that I didn't memorize it and apologized. He didn't say anything, instead he picked up the water hose and lashed me around 20-25 with it( I was begging that sadistic monster to stop, but he didn't), then he smashed my head the desk (which caused two of my teeth to break). When I went home that day and told my parents about it, they said "Well, you must have done something wrong, you are not supposed make mistakes when it comes to Qur'an. We'll still talk to Imam-Sahib tomorrow". That was it. I was infuriated, I mean how could an All-Merciful Allah allows such severe punishment of such small mistakes (not even a mistake since I admitted that I didn't memorize the work and even apologized)? That was when I started to have doubts about Islam. The next day I told my parents that I don't want to go to Madrassah and I wanted to continue my studies. Of course, my parents protested a lot but I had already made up my mind and so they had no choice but to accept my decision (though they didn't talk to me for a whole month after that). I started High School and became a good Muslim again, I met a guy in school (he was an Ahmadiya. I was told that I should never talk to him) and we became good friend. It was when the suicide bombing started in Pakistan and my friend died in one of them. What was worse that my parents actually supported the "Jihadits" although they did condemned the bombing in their own Muslim countries. They said that these Jihadits should wipe out America. I was left speechless, I mean how could my parents even think of such inhuman thing? And how could any religion even allow anything like this?

That was when I started critically analyzing Islam, I spent my entire free time reading various Islamic books and Tafseer of Qur'an (I didn't have internet or even a PC for that matter, so I used to spend all my time reading various books). And guess what? Rather than clearing my doubts that I previously had, it made things worse. I begged Allah to show me the true path, and a tiny sign so I could believe him. But nothing happened (useless God I know).
I was mess those days my grades started to drop to point where I actually failed in two subjects, so to fix all f this I decided to never think about it ever again and started my studies again. 2 years ago I finally got a Laptop and an internet connection (through the money I got from scholarship and tuition's). Life became normal once again, although the "religion-thought" did hit me from time to time.
6 months ago, I saw this anti-Islamic post on Facebook and I got angry at the guys who were posting hateful comments towards Mohammed, I told them that they were sick bleeps and will eventually rot in hell to which one of them replied "If you're telling me that I will go to hell for asking logical question, then I'm fine with that". I told him to read Qu'ran to get his answers as it was the perfect book and he replied "I'm sure you've already read it, are you certain that it's perfect?" and I froze. I immediately logged out of Facebook (and haven't used it since that day) opened YouTube (Using a proxy server of course. You'll be surprised to hear that it's still blocked) and started watching Muslim owns Christians/Hindus/Atheist (funny, right?), Zakir Naik destroys Atheism (I'm still surprised by the fact that I actually used to like this guy) and Christian converts to Islam videos. Of course, I was desperate and I would believe anything that could justify Islam and Qur'anic Miracles. One day I was surfing YouTube and accidentally (best accidental mistake of my life) opened a video of Richard Dawkins and that was when everything changed. And after that I started watching Sam Harris/Hitch/Dennet/Richard Carrie/Krauss/Shelly Kagan and other intellectual Titans. I felt much better and felt more intelligent than ever so I kept doing research for the next 3-4 months. So, last month I finally got rid of Islam for good. I can't describe how good I felt doing when I left Islam, I've never once in my life felt so free, so alive and much happier. I felt like I had gotten rid of some huge burden off my shoulder.

Of course I didn't tell anyone, because you know I didn't wanted to die, especially when there is no Afterlife.
But around 15 days ago my aunt and my cousin came to visit us, he told me that he wanted to use Facebook, so I gave him my Laptop and went to by stuff for them. I don't know why but he actually searched my history (I think he wanted to check whether I watch any porn or not?). Unfortunately, my history was full of "Anti-Religion" content, he showed this to my mom and went to tell everybody about it. I already knew what was gonna happen. Suddenly everybody was standing around me like I was some sacrificial lamb (in a way yes I was). They asked me what is the meaning of this and I told them that I could not believe anymore and they all started yelling at me. Suddenly, my Uncle grabbed my collar and told me that I was worthy of being shot in the head. For some reason I was incredibly calm at that time, so I said that "That's just about the only thing I can expect from someone who could not even pass 7th Grade" (stupid of me I know). It infuriated him even more, he pushed me back and said "*Amir you might as well behead him if he's going to bring such shame to the family". I didn't say anything and kept quite, after a while they all left. My parents didn't talk to me for a whole week, but things are starting to get normal again especially after my mother asked the reason of me taking such step and after I asked her a couple of questions to which she didn't replied (obviously she had no answer) and haven't brought up this subject since.
Although my relationship with my family is bleeped, I feel more relaxed now. I still can't say that there is no God as there are many unexplained things in this universe, so in a sense I'm an agnostic. But I can say one thing for a sure that God of Abraham is the worst fictional deity ever.
I don't hate Islam or Muslims, and I know most of them are peaceful, but it's the Radical that kill and the peaceful maturity doesn't matter. In fact it's actually frightening when these so called "peaceful" people support the Radicals. It's time we throw the religion in the garbage where it actually belongs. I do not ever want to see a country that where they have Sharia. We need to stop this cult named Islam from spreading, otherwise it'll be too late.
*Fake name
So that is my story folks, sorry that it's too long but I wanted to share my experience with anyone going through the same phase. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

P.S: Ignore any grammatical errors. My English is not perfect, but I am always improving it.



N.B this monicker is not the author of this story, he's just spreading the word