The ‘Young Woman’ in this dialogue lives in the West. She’s in her mid-20s. She stopped believing in Ahmadiyyat (and Islam generally) several years ago. She just hasn’t formally resigned from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community—yet. Her parents want to keep her apostasy quiet to save face.
Lessons Learned on Community and Dissent
How do tight-knit religious communities manage dissent? How do they employ social and emotional leverage to control the flock? This article explores the role of religious communities and the drive to live authentically. It draws upon the author’s experiences with Ahmadiyya Islam, as recounted in The Things We Think—a prequel to this piece.
I have made peace with the impending fallout in my personal life and with the social blowback my loved ones will incur within the Community. To normalize dissent, we have to start somewhere. Those who seek to shame the family members of we who are speaking out; these are the people onto whom our collective scorn should be directed. If anyone, these are the people who deserve to be the targets of a counter-campaign of naming and shaming. Not the families of those of us who are expressing dissenting beliefs. None of us should be discouraged from expressing open and honest disagreement with the ideological beliefs into which we were indoctrinated.
Reasons Why Many Muslims Haven’t Left Islam—Yet
The ex-Muslim label is gaining prominence in the religious zeitgeist of the 21st century. There are however, many more ex-Muslims than just those who have consciously or publicly adopted the label. For every person who identifies with the ex-Muslim label, I have met 100-plus born Muslims who have mentally and informally, checked out of Islam.
This article enumerates some of the reasons why many born Muslims haven’t formally left Islam yet. The focus is on Muslims in the West, although this piece does touch upon challenges unique to those living in Muslim majority countries.
Religion can be a force for encouraging good
This post is a follow up to a Twitter conversation. I believe that it is important that us non-theists do not fall for the fallacy claiming that no good ever comes from religion. To @Meandillar1: I’m not referring to your true kindness statement. I was referring to this statement from @AtheistSensei: …your religion removes selflessness […]