I dedicated my life to activism, and to fighting religion and dogma in general.
So, I went looking for other atheists, because I was the only atheist I knew, and soon, I
discovered that there's actually a lot of us out there, and that was very encouraging,
and it felt like finding a family that I didn't know I have.
And these were - at the beginning, they were just atheists in Iran, and I was surprised
to find them, and they were surprised to find me, and we were all surprised to find each
other, and we were all happy to find each other.
It was such a great experience, and I thought, 'This can't be just happening in Iran, there
must be a lot of other atheists all around the world, and they would benefit from discovering
each other as well.'
So, made a more global platform, and it just grew, and grew, and grew, and it became now
1.6 million followers worldwide and still growing.
People in the non-Islamic world, they usually are looking at it in a very selfish way.
They're talking about danger to them.
Islam was dangerous way before any terrorist attack happened here in the West.
The cost of Islam and religion in general, it's not a suicide bomb here, and terrorist
attack over there.
When you say 'dangerous' you have to add up all the costs that religions cause, that are
much more subtle, much less newsworthy, much less interesting, that a lot of people suffer
every day in the Islamic world without us noticing.
Let's say a Muslim that is dedicating his entire life to Islam, or her entire life to
Islam, that doesn't hurt a single other human being, that doesn't preach or influence anybody
else's life, we think of that person as somebody that is not causing any harm, but he is causing
harm to himself.
He has wasted his life to a lie.
The Muslims that are peaceful or moderate, they're not peaceful and moderate because
they have a reformed version of Islam.
They're ignoring Islam.
They are abandoning Islam.
They are Muslim by name, they're not practicing Islam, they're not practicing a reform, they
are nice - these are people that are nicer than their own religion.
The only way to reform Islam is to get rid of Islam, because any other concept of reform
other than the abandonment of Islam, involves believing in things without evidence.
Historical versions of reforming Islam never denied Islam, never denied the Quran as the
direct Word of God, never denied that Muhammad was an infallible role model.
These new, reformed, Western reformed versions of Islam is something that is never going
to happen, and it's actually dangerous because it's suggesting to the West that there is
a version of Islam that is not going to harm you.
So, it's just a politically correct solution that is never going to fly, and is taking
our attention away from the actual movement that is growing, that it does have a chance,
that is the ex-Muslim movement.
The reform movement is very condescending because it's suggesting too that the people
living in the Islamic world are too dumb and too stupid to understand that there is no
God.
So, let's just - these dumb people, let's just hope that they believe in a version of
Islam that is not going to harm us, because it's too soon for us to even introduce secularism
and atheism to them.
But guess what?
Secularism and atheism existed in these countries way before the United States was even a country.
The first two people that I talked about atheism in Iran, in my university, became skeptical
about the religion within weeks.
There is much higher chance of people abandoning their religion, once you show them what their
religion stands for.
It's easier for me to make an argument that, 'Hey, where is the evidence for God?'
than to go make a gymnastic argument, 'Hey, maybe this verse that tells you that you can
beat your wife, maybe it doesn't mean you can beat your wife.'
Try making that argument, because it plainly says in black and white that you can beat
your wife, that you should beat your wife, and there is a lot of Hadith that supports
what it actually means.
So, you have to really think that these people are crazy for you to be able to sell that
argument.
The only reason why they might buy your argument, because they are nice people, and they're
desperate for this verse to mean something else.
It's not because your argument for reform makes any sense.
The reform movement is treating the Muslim community like children.
You're not giving them enough credit, that they might actually be reasonable enough to
understand that without evidence you can't believe in things.
The reform movement is a sugar coating for the poison pill of Islam
The only solution to fighting any form of delusion, is to provide people with critical
thinking skills to understand that what is bullshit, and what is fact, and that's what
we're trying to do with the ex-Muslim movement.
It has a lot more hope, it's growing faster, the reform movement is a fringe group.
This is why me, and Ali, and Yasmin, and Faisal, we started a podcast called 'Secular Jihadists
From The Middle East', and it's ex-Muslims, and this is why I believe in ex-Muslims of
North America, the Council of ex-Muslims in Britain, and all the other ex-Muslim groups
that are out there, and I think this is a battle that we're losing.
People think that secularism is winning against Islam, but Islam is growing faster, they have
much higher presence on social media, they know what they're doing, and they're growing,
and this is something that we can't afford to get wrong.
So, betting on the wrong movement against Islamic fundamentalism, is going to cost us
dearly, and I am telling you that ex-Muslim movement is where you have to put the fight
against Islam, not the reform movement.
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