“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has believed in.

Some of us just go one god further.” -Richard Dawkins

Let’s begin with me. I’ll keep my name to myself for now, but I’ll share the rest. I’m a 15 year old boy, living in Dubai. I spent the first 6/7 years of my life in Australia, where I was born. My parents are both Pakistani, but my mum was also born and raised in Australia.

In Pakistan there are only 2 things that keep the citizens semi-happy: Cricket and Religion (and we aren’t the best at Cricket). I grew up in a very “religious” (I use the quote marks on purpose) household that promoted the values of Islam, but didn’t truly follow them.

My father is basically one step lower than ISIS in his love for Islam, and has often expressed his love of Jihad as it is a truly holy thing to do. My father’s knowledge of Islam comes from articles he read online about how the Quran is full of scientific miracles and the such. He prays, every now and then. Me and my brothers only really pray on Jum’aa, and that is only if my father doesn’t have a hangover and is awake to take us.

My mother has almost 0 religious education, and is also quite focused on online articles. I’ve told her about my atheism, and I’m glad that she is as calm as she is about it. She was once quite agitated around me, and I think my coming out hurt her or something. But she’s more ok with it now.

My brothers will try to find any logical loophole in Islam to exploit, in order to avoid anything they have to do. They are lucky enough to be under the “age of judgement”, so their sins go unpunished at the moment. When they grow up, i’m sure they’ll come up with some excuse to avoid having to pray or read the Quran.

I was never really a Muslim. I never prayed, I hated reading the Quran, I was full of lust, etc etc. But that didn’t stop me from brainwashing myself to believe I was a Muslim. My plan was to study religious studies in the future, and become a Muslim debater or something. If people spoke about evolution or the big bang, I would block my ears and run away. I always had a story of some prophet or the other ready to share with my brothers. The Quranic miracles were unmistakable proofs of God, rather than anti-scientific blish blash.

Up until March 2014, religion was my only pathway. I knew most of my friends were not very religious, but I didn’t mind. My close friends were all religious, so I was set. But then one of my friends began spouting pro-gay speech and anti-muslim rants, so I cut her out of my life. Back to bliss. Then my best friend told me that he wasn’t a Muslim anymore. I tried to coax him back to the light side, but then I got reeled in.

Atheism just made sense to me. I was never a Muslim, I just wanted to believe that I was. The quote at the top of this post defines the first major thought that persuaded me. Then I started reading into the big bang and evolution and science. And it was so enticing. Religion filled me with doubts that I was too scared to resolve, but science solved questions. It gave me answers. It taught me that it’s ok to change my mind and to say “I don’t know”.

For the most part, my family (besides my Mother) doesn’t know about my (dis)belief, but they do know my love for science. Recently, I’ve started expressing my intrigue in the Theory of Evolution, which has caused a bit of a chasm between me and my brothers, but I’m a lot closer to my grandfather (who is surprisingly liberal, for an old Pakistani).

Well, that’s my first post. I’ll just be sharing my thoughts and stuff on this page. If you’ve got any questions you want to ask me, comment below. I’ll add an AMA box or something when I learn how to. Sorry for the wall of text, just wanted to get my intro out of the way.

Thanks,

Veracis