Hello. I'm from Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. Despite that, I was raised Protestant, participate in Pentecostal once, and then I became atheist. I'm also an HIV+ gay guy. So everything's marvelous lol. I wanted to participate here because I never had an atheist friend before. All of my friends are not practicing religious people (but still afraid of hell, etc), my mother is a very devout Christian and can't think for herself. My dad passed away when I'm 16.
It's pretty hard to be a homosexual - HIV+ - atheist here if you're not having positive attitude towards life. My country isn't that open yet with these kind of 'differences' although there's some areas which everything seemed to be more progressive (free treatments for HIV patients, and legally, medical world doesn't view homosexuality as sickness). But of course, social life is more judgmental, biased, uninformed, what have yous. It is not acceptable in my country to be an atheist. There's 'religion' column in our ID cards which cannot be blanked. So as long as you keep these differences secret, you good to go.
I have a partner who knows everything about me. My friends, my boss and some of my family members accepts my homosexuality without blinking, so in the grand scheme of things, I'm doing pretty fine. But maybe because I live in a big city in the most progressive island in Indonesia, I can't imagined those who live in rural areas (which often use religion as a strict social control) or other islands (in Aceh, northern Sumatra, they use Shariah law which may come with physical or even fatal punishments; and in Maluku, I will be extremely viewed as a social pariah if I refuse to go to church).
I found so much joy from atheist youtube videos and Atheist Experience. It feels like I found new delightful friends. I really hope I can make more friends here. That's all my introduction. Have a great life.
It's pretty hard to be a homosexual - HIV+ - atheist here if you're not having positive attitude towards life. My country isn't that open yet with these kind of 'differences' although there's some areas which everything seemed to be more progressive (free treatments for HIV patients, and legally, medical world doesn't view homosexuality as sickness). But of course, social life is more judgmental, biased, uninformed, what have yous. It is not acceptable in my country to be an atheist. There's 'religion' column in our ID cards which cannot be blanked. So as long as you keep these differences secret, you good to go.
I have a partner who knows everything about me. My friends, my boss and some of my family members accepts my homosexuality without blinking, so in the grand scheme of things, I'm doing pretty fine. But maybe because I live in a big city in the most progressive island in Indonesia, I can't imagined those who live in rural areas (which often use religion as a strict social control) or other islands (in Aceh, northern Sumatra, they use Shariah law which may come with physical or even fatal punishments; and in Maluku, I will be extremely viewed as a social pariah if I refuse to go to church).
I found so much joy from atheist youtube videos and Atheist Experience. It feels like I found new delightful friends. I really hope I can make more friends here. That's all my introduction. Have a great life.
