I couldn't find an updated ongoing mega thread to post this, so I've decided to ask this question out of curiosity, while also including my personal odd journey to pure agnosticism.

Here's my story: I grew in Italy and I never had a chance to talk with an ex-muslim. I was 20-something when I stopped believing entirely in the god of Abraham, but before I did that I realised what I believed in was closer to some kind of syncretic chimaera out of Lovecraft's twisted mind than some "human" figure. I mean, hardcore Islam is all about iconoclasm, right? No pictures of God or holy figures like Muhammad are accepted, Jesus is definitely not the son of God, humans are not based on God's likeness... it all made sense to me. In a huge universe that by the law of big numbers could possibly contain infinite lifeforms, some of which could be sentient, who are we to say that it all has to be anthropocentric? If there were to be only a single god, wouldn't it have made sense for it to be the god of other hypothetical clever beings in space, too? I was willing to accept Allah as some sort of eldritch force of good that was beyond human understanding. My conception of it was something that mashed up Spinoza's pantheism, Higgs' field, and the lifestream of Final Fantasy VII for visual aid. To me, Allah was some sort of abstract force that made the world tick, with an odd will of its own that mere humans could not comprehend, lest they wanted to go crazy like Abdul Alhazred. What I couldn't bear to explain was why would the Almighty have their holy jimmies rustled by a couple of lasses scissoring each other to the point they'd nuke two cities, or why would God be so much against music, art or entertainment, or most importantly, why would all my friends (which I was not technically allowed to befriend as they were almost all atheist) or any good people that has ever lived that did not belong to the "People of the book" end up in hell. I mean, according to Islam Marie Curie is going to hell, while plenty of inconsequential Middle-Eastern women cosplaying as ninjas are halfway through heavens' gate. I used to argue that the god that I would like to believe in would surely consider whatever someone has achieved for mankind before passing the final judgement, but I do realise that used to be merely my own belief.

All the rest sounded pretty cool in my head, though. I liked the idea of being the kind of person that tries to empathise with the poor through fasting, or pray five times a day for... uh... some egoistical reason like the salvation of your soul, all that classic cult mambo jumbo. I even used to read the Quran in Arabic, which by the way I did not understand. At some point a bunch of my braincells pushed me to read it in Italian instead, and I'm glad I tried at least to understand the book, dumb as it may have been. Some people still read the Quran with no idea what it says, and I really find it puzzling. How can some folks even claim it's perfect if they've not even read it? I even tried catching up with the rest of the semitic lore by reading the Genesis illustrated by Robert Crumb, and I still need to figure how do you call "compassionate" someone who almost pranked you into killing your son. Or made my parents pay a third-world medical practice to slice off a chunk of my penis. Genital mutilation is fucking barbaric.

Weird as it may seem though I feel like I've been more into religion than your average muslim, even if I secretly had an occasional glass of liquor once in a while, or smoked a joint. Wasn't the no-alcohol policy different anyway, at some point? That alcohol verse being updated always seemed shady. Anyway, I've always felt that as long as you don't harm others you're doing fine, and karma is to be rebalanced by doing good stuff in the worst case. I'm glad I ain't straight edge, life would have been way more boring. I remember reading somewhere that Muhammad was probably suffering from epilepsy, and had some cool visions during his so called "revelations", which would explain a lot of stuff. Lots of great historical figures had these epileptic episodes, and if I'm guessing correctly it's pretty much like trying out psychedelics. You can definitely come up with a religion on acids. I never felt like denying that Muhammad could have had epileptic seizures, I would perceive them as the means through which God would send his texts. They probably didn't have cellphones after all, right? Jokes aside I had my doubts, but my faith was not faltering yet even when I took into account everything I mentioned so far.

What about the rest though? The denial of darwinism, the dehumanisation of LGBT people, the subjugation and humiliation of women, legal polygamy centred exclusively around men, Muhammad being a nonce, and so on and so forth? I'd say the latter is a matter of historical perspective, but the rest... I tried to justify it by telling myself that Allah's greater design was a thing too complex to understand, and modernist scholars do use Tafsir to make it all still work regardless of the contradictions, right? I was basically putting my head under the sand.

Things started to feel strange way later. After I graduated and got my first proper job as a programmer I started having quite a bit more cash in my pocket, so I decided to give some to charity. I thought God's love was to be shared with everyone and it would count for zakat, but I found out that apparently it only matters if you donate to people that belong to your faith. You can still donate to others and get some plus points in God's account book, but there's definitely no obligation, your soul will still be saved even if you're a sad discriminating self-absorbed asshole, and you just donate the bare "flat tax" minimum. I looked at these heartbreaking pictures of kids with deadly diseases and all those young ones that lost their homes because of some war in Africa no one cares about, and I figured... Would they all end up in hell if they survive enough to grow up, if they don't have the "luck" of being raised as muslims? I had pondered before about God allowing evil to exist and I had come to terms with it by saying that again, it was for some "incomprehensible higher purpose", and accepted it. Shit happens. I know God describes themselves as Almighty, they let people suffer without intervening to test them. I'm not a stranger to that idea myself. I make video games for a living, and in the game I'm currently working on I do have the ability to create religions, and I am able to make people do bad things because of it. I don't feel "evil" for it. Maybe mildly entertained? There are fair parallelism to be made though. Our reality is probably deterministic. We may not be able to know it for sure on a quantic level right now, but if God is all-knowing, then everything is a bit predetermined. God does know the outcome of these "tests" they put us through already, don't they? They wouldn't be omniscient otherwise. Every person is a product of the environment they grow in, no one has really a choice of becoming what they want. Some people are forced into certain kinds of lifestyles, without the possibility of deciding otherwise. And thanks to Islam all the choices you're supposed to make will turn you into an insufferable moron.

I think this was basically my breaking point. Childish as it may seem, discriminating the poor ain't something I'm into. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I don't care. Due to a lack of evidence I'm keen to say there's nothing, but I'd rather be a pragmatical agnostic than a blind fool. If the God of Abraham is real though, I must say they're a petty, diabolical wee cunt.

P.S. Last but not least, I feel like I've been stuck with religion so long 'cause at some point due to terrorist attacks around the world Islamophobia became a thing and as Islam was part of my perceived identity I felt I had to defend it, and became more attached to it than I should've been. Sure, the islamic world is a complex canvas that features a buttload of folks with different values, but I think no one likes to feel unjustly demonised because of the actions of others, especially if most muslim folks you know are good people... more or less. My life's way better now that I'm agnostic and I live on my own. I wish I could say I'm free, but that is true only to a certain degree. My parents keep on bugging me about finding a muslim partner, and I genuinely don't know what to do.