Leaving Islam for Atheism, and Finding a Much-Needed Place Among Peers

[cbayer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/us/leaving-islam-for-atheism-and-finding-a-much-needed-place-among-peers.html?_r=0


Heina Dadabhoy, 26, says that leaving Islam was painful. “My entire life, my identity, was being a good Muslim woman.” Credit Monica Almeida/The New York Times

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Women talked about “coming out,” being open with their families, leaving “the closet” at a conference here this month. But the topic was not sexuality. Instead, the women, attending the third Women in Secularism conference were talking about being atheists. Some grew up Catholic, some Jewish, some Protestant — but nearly all described journeys of acknowledging atheism first to themselves, then to loved ones. Going public was a last, often painful, step.

Anyone leaving a close-knit belief-based community risks parental disappointment, rejection by friends and relatives, and charges of self-loathing. The process can be especially difficult and isolating for women who have grown up Muslim, who are sometimes accused of trying to assimilate into a Western culture that despises them.

“It was incredibly painful,” Heina Dadabhoy, 26, said during a discussion called “Women Leaving Religion,” which also featured three former Christians and one formerly observant Jew, the novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. “My entire life, my identity, was being a good Muslim woman.”

Ms. Dadabhoy, a web developer who lives in Orange County, Calif., and who often gives talks about leaving Islam, said the hardest part of the process was opening up to her family.

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[SevenSixtyTwo]

1. What a pretty young lady.

I wish her a good future.