I feel weird because I didn’t have a big atheist moment
hi so for context I’ve been raised in a somewhat religious household. My parents are Muslims but they aren’t super religious but still kind of religious. like for example they care about eating halal meat but not about me wearing the hijab I just need to dress modestly. no tank tops or shorts but they’re fine with leggings and a tight fitting shirt or an off the shoulder top.
They raised me for the first thirteen years of my life in a Muslim country, it wasn’t that culturally religious but it was still there. They put me in a private school that had Islamic classes as religion classes but it wasn’t a religious school. They also had a Quran teacher who taught me and we’d go back to our own country for religious holidays. My parents would listen to music and dance but my mum seemed more disapproving of me enjoying art as a kid. she’d let do it and she’d let me get art supplies often but every now and then she’d tell me off and say it wasn’t allowed but that didn’t stop me.
I think I first started to lose interest in religion when I had those Quran lessons as a kid and I was at the age where my teacher would ask if I had prayed and ’d either lie or shamelessly say I didn’t ( go me as a kid!) and I would try and pray when my mum would tell me off for it or if someone told me to and was actually watching me but I didn’t really feel it, like I didn’t feel like there was any spiritual presence there and I was trying to get it over with because I didn’t really get it. I had no interest in religion and it was quite obvious.
An interesting moment for me as a kid was Eid Al Adha because it was when you’d sacrifice an animal for god and I was back in my home country and I kind of befriended the goat that we were gonna sacrifice and I knew it was gonna die and I didn’t want it to die but I kind of had to accept it. The day before it died I didn’t go see it because I felt like it would hurt too much and then the next morning I woke my 8 year old self up and headed downstairs only to be met with the decapitated head of the goat I had befriended. It was a weird moment and I didn’t cry or anything I just looked at it until my grandma called me over. It was weird watching everyone eating the animal I had befriended and acting like the sacrifice was normal.
At around ten years old is kind of when I started questioning it more. By this point I had already heard the stories of hell and accepted that I was likely going there because I would inevitably sin. I even thought of a loophole where I would live my life how I wanted and ask for forgiveness on my deathbed. i remember the moment I was about to ask if you could leave Islam but the teacher never picked on me.
At thirteen was when I had realized I didn’t believe in Islam anymore and it wasn’t some profound moment it was just that I didn’t abide by the religion in any way and it would be better not to pretend I believed in the religion. Thirteen was also the age my parents moved me to a mainly secular country and I got bullied for being an ugly kid (character development at its peak) and it was a bad time for me and in those moments I truly realized I was alone. There was no God out there because he wouldn’t let this happen to me, he wouldn’t give me anxiety and make it so bad in my head that I wanted to kill myself. My mum would tell me to pray to God to make it better but that felt stupid and like she wasn‘t seeing me at all
At fifteen is when I moved schools and I still wasn’t fully healed at all, I was still depressed and I would break down crying multiple times in school for no reason and have panic attacks even though I wasn’t being bullied. It hurt so bad I resorted to self harm to cope with the pain. Around this age is when I started asking my R.E teacher about the existence of god and he was impressed with me and truthfully answered that he didn’t know. I was a little troll and I would troll people on Roblox about knowing their own religions like people who claimed to be Christian but couldn’t name 5 Bible quotes. I also distinctly remember trolling this one guy who was on tiktok live until 4 am because of his performative Christianity.
I don’t want anyone to try and convince me to go back to religion because it’s not gonna work but also I want the opinions of fellow atheists and if they had a profound moment of disbelief or was it gradual.