My story! I am an Ex-Muslim, became and Atheist. I was visited by an Angel of God.

[Prince]

Fear is a huge factor, it's probably religion's biggest weapon. The fact that anyone is scared of what "god" might do to them is clear evidence that they don't think really god is someone who cares about them. That's someone being scared of an overly harsh authority figure. I understand being scared of what other believers will do, I am very afraid of that! If I lived somewhere with extreme Islam I'd be shit scared. So I reckon there are probably loads of atheists who dare not say anything. They have realized god isn't a threat, but the zealots around them are. Again, the fact that people feel the need to violently force people to follow god shows god is not loving, and is in fact so weak that he needs us to do his dirty work.

All you can do is be there for people who are struggling, if you go after someone who isn't interested it's very unlikely to work. I've changed people's minds about issues at various times in my life, but it's almost always been because the person came to me with questions. They really wanted to think things through, and ask me why I have the position that I do. Maybe one day your brother will come around to wanting to talk to you about it. It's really sad his thinking is being stifled this way.

If Allah has a problem, let him sort it out himself. I'll call him a piece of crap fascist dictator every day until he comes personally to face me. Some maniac with a hatchet or a gun is not Allah doing anything.

Not only that, successful religious people tend to think that they became whom they are now by maintaining a strong faith & relationship with God. I would argue, that's not necessary true, because there are many great rich people out there whom are Atheist and with happy life. If you put it in context, if We don't believe in God, he will make our lives miserable, but if We believed in Him & prayed, he will make our lives successful. 

In reality, we know that is not the case.

[robvalue]

That's right. Believing in any fairy tale could "help" you, if you believe you have an imaginary friend constantly cheering you on and saying how great you are, it may give you more confidence. But at the end of the day, people get where they are through their own actions, and sadly often give the credit away to non-demonstrated things.

The same effect can be had without having to believe fake things, by working on your own confidence. You could visualize people cheering you on, without having to believe they are real.

It's when such a belief causes you to make a bad decision, that is when it costs you. And the further away your internal model of reality is from actual reality, the more likely you are to make a bad decision. This affects not just you but also those around you.

[Prince]

That's right. Believing in any fairy tale could "help" you, if you believe you have an imaginary friend constantly cheering you on and saying how great you are, it may give you more confidence. But at the end of the day, people get where they are through their own actions, and sadly often give the credit away to non-demonstrated things.

The same effect can be had without having to believe fake things, by working on your own confidence. You could visualize people cheering you on, without having to believe they are real.

It's when such a belief causes you to make a bad decision, that is when it costs you. And the further away your internal model of reality is from actual reality, the more likely you are to make a bad decision. This affects not just you but also those around you.

Wisely said!

In fact, I have an argument for you. If I told you, Is it wrong for being a slave to God, and follow his laws? (I have been asked this question by my young brother)

What would be your definitive answer regarding this question. Because Islam teaches that we are nothing but slaves.

[robvalue]

I'd say it certainly is wrong, for many reasons.

1- If he has the right to own us just because he's so powerful and we can't stop him, that's means he is a "might makes right" fascist dictator. That means we'd just be doing it out of fear which is a bad reason. I'd pretend to worship a psychopath until I got away from him. But where is Allah? He's not even here to scare me one bit.

2- Allah is not even telling us to be slaves, humans are telling us to be slaves to something they can't even demonstrate is real. And by that, they mean do what they say. So we would be slaves to other humans preachings. They pretend to have the backing of a god to leverage more power.

3- Allah is meant to be all powerful. An all powerful being would have no use for servants of any kind, either to do his work or worship him. He'd need nothing at all.

4- If we do what Allah says, according to his laws, we discard all our morality. We become amoral mindless servants. And again since this God can't even be shown to be real, we would be slaves to a book and to what humans tell us it means.

5- There's no reason to think an arbitrary load of laws from almost 2000 years ago are going to have anything to do with actual morality, that being the wellbeing of life on Earth. The only way to find out which laws are moral and which aren't is to use our own reason and empathy, in other words our own morality. The fact that anyone who actually follows all the laws is labelled an "extremist" shows that almost everyone is filtering the laws in this way, no matter what they claim.

7- We have no originals of the book. Even if the original somehow involved Allah, these are human copies which we are trusting to be accurate.

8- Allah clearly isn't doing anything about all the other religions, nor all the atheists. So it doesn't seem like he cares whether people follow him or not. Look, I'm calling him a cock right now. Allah, you're a cock! Lightning bolt me! Oh you can't, you're not real.

9- Any belief system which has to be forced onto young children when they are vulnerable and then protected by punishing people asking questions clearly has not got a firm foundation of truth. No one needs to be stopped from asking questions when teaching some real like maths or science. In fact, questions are encouraged. Why must we protect Allah from having his feelings hurt? Why is a god such a pansy?

10- All the claims of why Islam is the one true religion and Allah is the one true God are just the same as all the other religions, with a few details switched. A book we're supposed to believe is magically written by God, but which has no supporting evidence for anything beyond the mundane; a load of characters doing ridiculous things that you'd never believe actually happened in any other book; circular logic with the book "validating itself"; and the idea that faith (believing in spite of lack of evidence) is a good thing.

11- It's impossible to follow all the laws anyway because of all the contradictions in the Quran.

That enough for starters?

[nihilistcat]

Haha ... I woke up one day with a boner, visited by a porn angel, or was that the devil (she was "horny" after all, hmmmm)

[Prince]

I'd say it certainly is wrong, for many reasons.

1- If he has the right to own us just because he's so powerful and we can't stop him, that's means he is a "might makes right" fascist dictator. That means we'd just be doing it out of fear which is a bad reason. I'd pretend to worship a psychopath until I got away from him. But where is Allah? He's not even here to scare me one bit.

2- Allah is not even telling us to be slaves, humans are telling us to be slaves to something they can't even demonstrate is real. And by that, they mean do what they say. So we would be slaves to other humans preachings. They pretend to have the backing of a god to leverage more power.

3- Allah is meant to be all powerful. An all powerful being would have no use for servants of any kind, either to do his work or worship him. He'd need nothing at all.

4- If we do what Allah says, according to his laws, we discard all our morality. We become amoral mindless servants. And again since this God can't even be shown to be real, we would be slaves to a book and to what humans tell us it means.

5- There's no reason to think an arbitrary load of laws from almost 2000 years ago are going to have anything to do with actual morality, that being the wellbeing of life on Earth. The only way to find out which laws are moral and which aren't is to use our own reason and empathy, in other words our own morality. The fact that anyone who actually follows all the laws is labelled an "extremist" shows that almost everyone is filtering the laws in this way, no matter what they claim.

7- We have no originals of the book. Even if the original somehow involved Allah, these are human copies which we are trusting to be accurate.

8- Allah clearly isn't doing anything about all the other religions, nor all the atheists. So it doesn't seem like he cares whether people follow him or not. Look, I'm calling him a cock right now. Allah, you're a cock! Lightning bolt me! Oh you can't, you're not real.

9- Any belief system which has to be forced onto young children when they are vulnerable and then protected by punishing people asking questions clearly has not got a firm foundation of truth. No one needs to be stopped from asking questions when teaching some real like maths or science. In fact, questions are encouraged. Why must we protect Allah from having his feelings hurt? Why is a god such a pansy?

10- All the claims of why Islam is the one true religion and Allah is the one true God are just the same as all the other religions, with a few details switched. A book we're supposed to believe is magically written by God, but which has no supporting evidence for anything beyond the mundane; a load of characters doing ridiculous things that you'd never believe actually happened in any other book; circular logic with the book "validating itself"; and the idea that faith (believing in spite of lack of evidence) is a good thing.

11- It's impossible to follow all the laws anyway because of all the contradictions in the Quran.

That enough for starters?

Fantastic reasons, to add up;

For us, we are not going to benefit in this life if we worshiped a certain deity day & night.
  
If you examine the irrational logic of religion, it proves that Prophets in the past where nothing but deceivers.
 
What is the difference between an invisible God & existing God (pagan deity)? Both concepts are whoreshit and similar in terms of irrationality.

- When I was a Muslim, I used to go to Makkah and revolve 7 times around a massive cubical structure… I honestly felt I was worshiping the Cubical as an existing God rather an invisible one. Logically speaking, all these times I tend to think Islam is nothing more than a pagan religion.

“We are good by nature but corrupted by society”, a quote by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I believe we can develop naturally through educating ourselves from nature itself. And experiencing of things which are around us. To add an extra weight such as religion doctrine will make the life of a human being seems less valuable than the life of an animal. I would characterize God as a selfish prick who loves to be praised by slave’s morons, in exchange of letting his creation suffer in this world, not only that, to urge his believers unto fighting amongst each other by promoting genocide.

What a filthy God (Allah) indeed. 

---

Haha ... I woke up one day with a boner, visited by a porn angel, or was that the devil (she was "horny" after all, hmmmm)

What was the porn Angel name? or maybe, it was just your filthy mind. 

[dahrling]

I hope you're able to leave the Middle East soon. Unfortunately it is not a safe place for atheists.   

AF, a civilized society? My goodness, in all your life you must never have left the Middle East.

At a young age, i have visited USA to Orlando (Disney World) & Dallas. I have been to Australia & NZ. That's all. I haven't left the Middle East since 2001... Fuckin Hell! I haven't left ME in 14 years. I wonder why my mind was so disoriented all those years.

The second part of that post was actually an attempt at making a joke.
I know, I failed miserably.

I do hope you find another, more secular, place to live (: The culture and the people around us can have a huge impact on our own wellbeing.

[Cyberman]

So Islam teaches that we're all slaves. Not sure what we're meant to learn from that, but let that slide. Slaves to whom? To Allah? But he never shows up; and conveniently, the only people to whom he allegedly speaks are the priests. How many of them wear rags? How many of them live in the streets? How many of them have to eat scraps, drink filthy water, or nothing at all?

Not all slaves are created equal, it would seem.

[nihilistcat]

Haha ... I woke up one day with a boner, visited by a porn angel, or was that the devil (she was "horny" after all, hmmmm)

What was the porn Angel name? or maybe, it was just your filthy mind. 

Her name was Nikki Lust (a/k/a Diamond Starr) ... LOL

[Iroscato]

So Islam teaches that we're all slaves. Not sure what we're meant to learn from that, but let that slide. Slaves to whom? To Allah? But he never shows up; and conveniently, the only people to whom he allegedly speaks are the priests. How many of them wear rags? How many of them live in the streets? How many of them have to eat scraps, drink filthy water, or nothing at all?

Not all slaves are created equal, it would seem.

Sigged. Excellently put, sir.