Freedomain Radio

I would like to begin by saying I have been here on these forums for about 7 months posting under a different username. Why have I made a new username? People I personally know are aware of that username (I use it in many places and sites).

I am a young adult with 2 parents and a sister who are muslim iranians. I hope you can now understand why I made this username. To Stef: if multiple usernames are not allowed or if you like, please delete my other username. Send me a PM so I can tell you my other username.

My journey away from islam was a tough one. Not only did I spend most of my schooling years in a muslim school (in the US), but my parents would force me to go to a weekly session where a guy interprets the koran.

The beginning of my rejection of islam came about 2 eyars after transferring to public school. I cannot tell you how much agony I was in (inside of me of course; I never told my parents about this). I would miss my prayers (5 times a day) and scribble tallies on a piece of paper I kept in my safe (to remind myself to make these prayers up later). Soon enough, this list got to extraordinary numbers. To fulfill these "obligations", I would have to pray nonstop for at least 6 hours. It is hard to explain how much this list would eat me up inside.

I have noticed several habits and behaviors of mine realted to parenting (which is inclusive of many thigns including religion). I notice that I bite my nails whenever I hear someone I know talk about religion (and believe me, this happens often in muslim communities). Of course, I bite my nails anytime I get really bored but it gets downright disgusting when I hear someone talk about "sinners this" and "judgement day that". Another thing I've noticed is how unassertive and closed-off I can be to strangers (and even people I know). The reason I am unassertive is because of my dad. For example, I was playing someone in a game (let's say chess) and without asking me, my dad would move the piece to a new spot while saying "this is a good move".

Both my mom and dad have anger issues. I blame part of it on their nicotine addiictions, but that's simply not the full story. For even asking a "dumb" question to make sure I do something right, they yell at me. ANytime my mom would give me a chore that is needlessly complicated, I would ask to do something simpler that would accomplish the same task. To this request, my mom would always say "you have no vote!". At the same time, I find it ironic that they always talk about how to be a "good muslim" and all sorts of goals they've never attempted while acting very angrily and disrespectfully towards their kids. It's sort of expected when the koran has tons of verses about how parents must obey their parents yet little to nothing to be said about parenting.

FDR helped me understand how truly twisted falsehood is. In my muslim school, we had 2 hindus (don't ask why they were there). They were treated horribly and even I remember taunting them. If I could see these 2 people again, I would apologize from the bottom of my heart. It's not so unusual when you think how ingrained it is in kids' midns that they are the ones following god's will.

The guy who interprets the quran is quite a sophist. I mean he draws all sorts of random crap from everywhere to justify his beliefs. For instance, he says that the record of time has already been written by god and thinking that you can change it by altering your actions is not possible. Yet he says you are responsible for your actions.

http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-9-27/60180.html

^^He says that proves the existence of a human soul (nafs in arabic).

He rarely mentions philosophers but he really likes to bring up Kurt Godel (his incompleteness theorem proof for God) and Albert Einstein (who was an agnostic).

As with quite a few on this board, my journey towards FDR began with the Ron Paul campaign. I think Stef's approach to dissecting the Ron Paul campaign was just fine. With all the mistakes Paul made in keeping to his word, I forgave him (back then). Now that the Libertarain Party has chosen Bob Barr, I'm astounded how people can support this guy with too many mistakes to count. But that really doesn't matter to me anymore, they're going to have to discover FDR for themselves.

Hope I wasn't too much of a bore!

retrapher,

My heart really goes out to you, man. I grew up with almost the same situation, the only difference being my parents were "christians". It shouldn't be but it is SO amazing that growing up in either religion sounds EXACTLY the same. The abuses. The "You have no say/vote!" bullshit. All of it. I guess allegiance to irrational absolutes is the same no matter what 'name' it's given. I am so happy that you have found your way out. HUGE kudos to you for that, my friend. I shudder to think of what it would be like if I hadn't gotten away from it.

One thing that my be of help to you in your journey is to hold on to this idea, "What was done to you, does not HAVE to define you IF you acknowledge and deal with it. It is the unacknowledged and dealt with that is the most dangerous." I forget where I heard this said, and I am sure it was said better than I have but I believe I got the essence of the statement. It's helped me a great deal.

Keep on truckin', my friend.

Thanks so much for posting, and I am truly sorry about the intellectual and spiritual horrors that you experienced as a child. I do remember some posts in this vein before, and I have no problem with people using multiple accounts, if that's their preference.

 Can you tell me what your relationship is at the moment with your family and this community as a whole?

Thanks Citizen_Z, but I haven't deFOOed yet. To explain why, I'll just tackle Stef's question.

I am in my late teens going to start college in the fall on a scholarship (full tuition, nothing else). I live at home with my parents and so they pay for my bills. The lessons FDR has taught me are very eye-opening about how to tackle my everyday conflicts with my parents. So rather than take their abuse and follow their orders like before, I try to confront them about their anger issues. Of course, I'm not hopeful for them to change; I just want to get yelled at less while I'm still living with them.

As for my relationship with the islamic community, I still have to go every week to the session where the guy interprets the koran. How you might ask do I end up going? It's not like my parents toss me in the car. They just give me a disappointed look (which I couldn't care less about) and give me the cold shoulder (and I suspect they're becoming more aware that I'm not religious). The only times I don't go is when I feign napping (even then, they know I'm faking it cause I take the nap around 8 pm). In short, I go to prevent them from becoming suspicious. I think this predicament will soon change once I'm busy with college work and can make excuses that don't make them suspicious.

Every now and then, I go to the mosque for special islamic and iranian events (they're pretty much intertwined). Of course, I don't stay for the program. I just wander around outside and talk to my friends (who have similar parents).

One of these friends (let's call him "Bob"), invited me to his home (not for the first time) and I notice a Nietzche book on his table. So I get to talking about how nihilism is BS and he tells me he's an agnostic. At that moment, I felt a huge sigh of relief. It's nice to find someone going through the exact thing I am going through. At first, I didn't know what to say (I never told anyone I'm an atheist). So we got to talking about philosophy and he talks about nihilism (Stef, can you guess my alt username now?) and how morals are subjective. So I start explaining UPB to him and while the nihilism rotted away most of his basic logic, he still agreed with me that objective ethics exist. What happens next? I give him a link to FDR and he listens to some podcasts (more podcasts than I ever listened to; I prefer written media especially the formats of Stef's books and STR articles) and now he's hooked. I wouldn't say he's 100% there, but I think he's gotten past a few hurdles of falsehood.

One thing about Bob is that he came out about being an agnostic/atheist to his muslim parents. Of course, they got disappointed (proabbly cried) and acted like he was still a muslim deep down inside. The weird thing is that he's more brave (stupidly brave if you'd ask me) than I ever was yet he maintains little to no resentment towards his parents while I never came out about my beliefs and I live everyday with resentment. Who is more dedicated to the truth? The coward with a cause, or the blunt idiot?

That's all for tonight. I have many other interesting stories to tell, but I don't want to create a novel here.

BTW, firefox 3's spellcheck doesn't work in this form for some reason.

 I'm sorry, I'm sure I am just a little confused,but I'm not sure that I understand why you need to live at home to go to college, particularly when you have tuition paid for. You could get a part-time job or 2 -- and work in the Summers -- and easily afford room and board of your own, or as a roommate...

 I'm not suggesting that you have to do this of course, I am just curious as to whether or not you have explored this option.

I thought you might ask that. Well, I have plans to go to med school and given that many smart people I know (including my sibling) have been rejected by med school, I need to focus these coming years on extracurriculars and studies to get into a good med school (much less any med school) to have a good shot at a competitive residency (this includes doing research and clinical jobs which pay very little during summers).

But I would be lying if I said that was my reason for not deFOOing yet. As I said before, I am very unassertive and do not like to experiment. Of course, I always say to myself I will deFOO someday (i.e. better financial situation), but that could just be my false self trying to procrastinate until the day I die. The date I hope to have a better financial and education situation is when I graduate from undergrad.

I'm just looking at the economics of the situation. I am making an investment (resentment for 4 years) for a high return (good-paying job as a doctor). Also, I plan to transfer to on-campus (or near-campus) housing by spring with my parents paying the cost so it's not like these 4 years are going to be dealing with psychopaths every single day.

Hi retrapher,

I failed to read your post in introductions before I replied to your question in my intro thread. I only just got to this thread and realized that you were raised a muslim, so sorry if my comments on religion were insensitive to the horrors that were and are still being inflicted on you by the familiar vise grip of Iranian culture, Islam, and "strong family values." I'm glad you have been taking steps towards personal liberty by rejecting Islam.

Sorry to bug you with many questions, but I'm extremely curious about your response to Stef's query about your living situation and your career plans.

Was it your decision to compete for medical school admission? Was it your sibling's own decision to compete?

Just so you know I was in your exact same position after high school about 10 years ago, and it was my father's decision for me to go pre-med. Some advice about this would have saved me a lot of time.

If you are planning to be a physician, an excuse like "I don't have enough money to deFOO" could easily delay many individual freedoms for the next 11-15 years (counting college, med school, and residency). Is that an acceptable timeframe to you? Could living your parents or being financially dependent on them for rent during university hurt you academically?

My sibling did not want to go to med school as far as I could tell. She gave up pretty quickly (i.e. she did not apply to foreign medical schools despite ahving knowledge of successful doctors in the US who went to foreign med schools). Also, she is very squeamish, so I don't know how she could have standed med school.

As for me, I am not 100% deadset on becoming a doctor. I plan to get some clinical experience to decide if being a doctor is right for me. From the experience I've had in the apst (working in a hospital), I am not turned off by it. And really, I wouldn't be completely devastated if I didn't become/wanted to become a doctor. I would just like to keep my options open at this point and I'd have to do that by being financially dependent to have time for building my resume for med school.

So, it is not so much about finances than it is about keeping options open. If I decide to deFOO now but end up not getting accepted to med school or not wanting to become a doctor 4 years from now, I will be stuck with $32,000 in loans to pay off.

Once/if I get into med school, I will deFOO right then because they won't pay for my expenses at that point.