I know I said I’ve quit. But this I cannot ignore:

It’s hard not to write about the visit of the leader of one of the most destructive religions on the planet. I’m astonished to see how the news media just loves him (the Pope). He’s intelligent, sweet, little old man. But the media seems to not want to discuss some very important things:

1. The Catholic Church forces its priests into celibacy. Arguably, sex is one of the most important things in life (perhaps behind breathing). I know many people that if you asked them whether they’d like to have sex, a burger, or a coke, they’d pick sex. Sex is pretty important in life, and to restrict young men (priests) from doing it, is ridiculous. The priesthood has become some brotherhood of men who are gay, but cannot reconcile their religion and who they are. Unfortunately those straight guys who want to be priests are mixed in with these gay guys who are repressed. Even straight priests must find it annoying to constantly have to clean up after their wet dreams. It’s either that, or they secretly spank-off and just pay the price (penance).

1(a). When you have thousands of cases of child abuse under one organization, it’s not just 1 or 2 priests, it’s a lot of fucking priests. The numbers prove that this was no anomaly , it’s a problem

2. The Catholic Church hates Gays. Oh they “love” gays, but they’re going to hell if they don’t stop spanking other men. (or women if they’re lesbians)

3. The Catholic Church hates women. Oh they don’t really “hate” women, they’ve simply made them 2nd class citizens. They cannot hold any power in the Church. They cannot use birth control, therefore are at the mercy or their husbands (or God forbid, their boyfriends).

3(a). The same guy who thought it would be great for priests to be celibate was probably gay himself. Either that or was constantly thinking about women and found it a distraction. Or just kept the whole Adam and Eve bullshit going. Either way, men create religion and therefore men place women in 2nd class status.

4. The Catholic Church hate sex. This notion that your “seed” shouldn’t be spilled is fucking sick. Should I have felt guilty for having a wet dream when I was 14? How many babies must I have accidentally destroyed by spanking-off! It’s insane.

Most importantly, the Catholic Church continues to stand behind it’s moronic birth control policy. Now you’re probably thinking: “I know many Catholics that use condoms/birth control”. It’s true. Most Catholics in this country do use contraception. That’s because people in this country are smart. It’s the unfortunate, uneducated people of the 3rd world that are being screwed.

The Pope (a.k.a. the Church) believes that if you tell Africans to stop fucking, that they’ll listen. Instead of giving condoms, or teaching kids about sex and the fact that you can catch AIDS, or other VDs, they’re telling kids nothing (except stop having sex). Not only is it inadequate education, it’s fucking DEADLY! It’s inhuman. It’s mean spirited, purposely withholding knowledge from kids that you know could help them.

The kids don’t know they can catch AIDS or have babies by having sex, so they get pregnant. Or even worse, they catch AIDS. All because the fucking Church has a ridiculous notion that contraception is bad. Not only is it sad, it should be illegal.

You can see why I came out of hiding just to write this. Not saying I’m back for good. But this I just couldn’t keep in.

Nimbu

My original intent with my blog was to document my metamorphosis from non-practicing Muslim to full blown, flaming atheist. The tone of this blog has shifted away from just writing down my thoughts about atheism. I think my metamorphosis is complete. I don’t feel like writing anything regarding the subject.

Now that it’s been over a year of my new life, I’ve been watching the world without my tinted glasses. All of a sudden, I find myself surrounded by fucking idiots. I just heard on the radio this morning (NPR), about how some southern Baptist ministers are gathering folks in Georgia to “pray” for rain. Are you fucking kidding me!

This is newsworthy?

Was NPR’s attempt to show how crazy Georgian Baptists are? Or were they just giving equal airtime to the religious right?

I find it baffling that stories of god(s) still make it to the news. Fluff stories, no less.

What I’m trying to say here is that this blog for me is becoming depressing. I think it’s time for me to move on. Move on to happier topics…like technology, movies, music, etc.

As I write this, I can’t help but think about the daily traffic to this blog. I hope that I can influence some on-the-fence-Muslim to really critically think about their religion. Even if just 1 person is persuaded, I’m happy. I may stop blogging on a regular basis, but this site will stay up. I hope that more and more of my fellow Pakistani Muslims will start to analyze their lives, their country, their family structures, and most importantly their religion.

I will get the email notifications if people post, so I won’t be completely out of touch.

I remember as a youngster, looking at my fellow Christians and Jews with a superiority complex. Not only did my parents instill this in me, but every religious “leader” in my life forced/encouraged me to believe that every non-Muslim was just simply ignorant. They didn’t know the truth. They were beneath me – it was my responsibility to teach them the truth. That was my mission. I should be grateful to have been born a Muslim.

I see the same condescending attitude all around me. From Muslims, Christians, Jews, and even Hindus & Buddhist.

They look at me as if I’m lost. As if I’m beneath them. It’s their mission to “teach” me.

This is a really interesting role reversal. I’m digging the dark side…

This is one of those strange moments for the new atheist: going through Ramadan with a newly opened mind. For the first time ever, I’m entirely guilt-free while I eat during the day!

Wooohoooo!

This was one of the most confusing and painful parts of Islam. I was given many reasons for its existence: From sympathizing with the poor to cleansing, to being closer to God. But growing up, I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t feeling closer to God. I was just plain hungry. Hunger with an extra benefit of stinky breath.

Oh yes, all you non Muslims. When you don’t eat or drink water all day, you get nasty breath. Uber-nasty.

It sucked.

I couldn’t concentrate in school. I had nasty heart burn all morning, because we’d wake up at an ungodly hour to gorge! I always thought it was insane to consume virtually the same amount of calories, just at odd hours. Doesn’t it defeat the purpose? I guess that wasn’t the purpose anyway…

Anyway…what was really bothering me was this: Why would God want you to punish yourselves in his honor? Does he get some sort of sick pleasure watching children as young as 7 or 8 try to starve themselves all day? What the fuck? I’ll give you another example: There are many women in my life and some of them are extremely old with various medical conditions. They all feel compelled to fast. It drives me insane!

I don’t go over there preaching, trying to convert them! I simply get emotional and tell them: “God doesn’t want you to punish yourselves like this. You’re in no condition to fast.”

But the Islamic mind is not thinking rationally. I know what these ladies are thinking:

“I know I don’t have to fast, but if I do, perhaps I’ll get extra-credit!”

That’s right, folks. Extra credit. All religious people believe in it. It stems from the eye-for-an-eye philosophy. Catholics are instructed to say stuff repeatedly and count beads…and that’ll make up for spilling their seed last week! Or for having dirty thoughts about their neighbor’s wife!

Many Muslims cling to insane traditions similar to the Catholics: repeat this phrase a gazillion times and you’ll get what you’re looking for. What?!? It’s true. My mom believes it…all of her friends believe it. And you can find it anywhere on the internet. The magic of prayer! With step-by-step instructions.

Back from that tangent…

I’m super glad to be eating. I can’t believe that people can be so well disciplined. To not eat or drink (or smoke, or screw) all day takes will power. Now if only Muslims could apply that same will power to making their own countries and villages and societies better.

It’s too bad that wasn’t one of the 5 pillars of Islam. Perhaps there should’ve been a sixth:

Pillar number 6: Please don’t kill people. Never. I don’t like it. I’m God telling you that I don’t want you to kill people. It’s never justified. Don’t do it. This is the 6th pillar of your religion. By God. It’s me. I wrote this on a very large mountain in every language…on every continent. In fact, if you look at your palms right now, it’s written there too…in your language. You know how I did that? I’m God!!! I can do anything. That’s right. This is the end of my 6th Pillar

I’m done ranting – now it’s time to eat!!!

I’m talking of course about all Abrahamic religions; but I want to focus on Christianity. No other religion pushes the loving nature of its god as much as Christianity. Apparently Jesus loves everybody, except homosexuals, idol worshipers and many more…too many to count. Apparently hell is going to be a very busy place.

Recent events in US politics have brought this issue up again. I just can’t seem to get around the circular argument that many Christians make: God loves you…but hates you because you’re a guy… and you like other guys. Why does God care about your sex life? Seriously: Is loving somebody of the same sex something to really hate? If I were god, I’d put people’s sexual stuff pretty far off my radar. It wasn’t so long ago that God didn’t like doggy-style! It was missionary position, or you’re going to hell. Again, why does God care about how you have sex?

Tangent…If I were God, I’d try to fix hunger first. Too many kids die every year from hunger and malnutrition. I wouldn’t give a shit about whether you do it with another guy, or girl, or a donkey for that matter.

End tangent.

God seems to really care about sex. No wonder people assume he’s a guy! That’s why I firmly believe that Christianity, in particular, was manipulated by Monks to make the rest of us feel guilty for wanting to have sex. The reason being this: Monks were the photocopiers of the past. They copied Biblical text. Is it too hard to believe that there were some editorial changes made?

Plus, monks loved the alcohol!!! Perhaps one drunken evening…

People often ask me why I’m so anti-religion. My replies over the months and years have fermented into this: god loves slaves. In fact, god loves slavery so much, in his last book (according to Muslims), he gave specific instructions on how to treat slaves. Never mind that he never mentions that slavery is bad. People can side-step and dance around other topics in these “holy” books all they want, but there’s one thing that they cannot escape. The clear absence of any passage remotely condemning slavery is significant.

If you’re an ex-Muslim or ex-Christian that’s trying to bone-up on their debating tactics against the believers, practice saying this: “God loves slavery”. I challenge any person to find a passage in the Bible or the Quran that openly condemns slavery and states that slaves should be set free. No fuzzy, gray innuendos; I want god to say straight-up: “Let your slaves go. I don’t like slavery.”

I hate the burka. I’m seeing unsettling pictures on TV where women are running around my former home of Pakistan wearing the burka in Islamabad. How sad. Pakistanis have worked so hard to rid themselves of this silly, religious leftover. I know personally that many (probably most) Pakistani women hate the burka.

On a slight tangent: I was discussing with my family how sharia law is insane – just like Old Testament laws are insane. Many of them instinctively jumped to the defense of old-school Islamic laws. Clearly, they hadn’t read a word of it. They’ve just been spoon-fed fluffy details by mullas. “Oh, you don’t have to read it, it’s way too complicated. Just believe that it’s God’s law.”

“Oh, ok. If you say so.” (I say with a sarcastic smirk)

It’s insane to punish people with death for something silly like adultery. Why does anybody care whether or not somebody has sex? What business is it of theirs? Is having sex with someone other than your partner worthy of a death punishment? Maybe your wife wants to kill you, but does the government actually have to kill you? Believe it or not, it is also Christian doctrine that promotes killing the adulterer. Even though, it’s understood that it’s really the women who commit adultery that are killed. The civilized world has moved away from such barbaric beliefs. In the west, it is not illegal to commit adultery; even though all of the “big” religions say that it is.

I’m still perplexed as to why God cares about people having sex? Anybody care to help me out here? Shouldn’t he be worrying about really big subjects, like AIDS, cancer, starvation, etc.?

Back to the burka: It’s becoming more and more apparent that Europe is going to swing towards Turkish law banning burkas. I don’t blame them. It’s not a symbol of Islamic identity – it’s a symbol of male-oriented religious oppression of half of God’s creatures. Fucking idiot mullas would have you believe that it’s to protect women from the nasty glares from men. So it’s the fucking men that are the problem, again! So, in order to protect my female friends from the dirty looks from men, they need to cover themselves from head-to-toe? How about I just kick their asses if the look at them funny? I’d love to do that. Oh, God, how I’d love to do that! Even better, how about we just keep our women locked up, away from everybody! Man this blog is making me soo mad.

I need a break.

Women’s rights (or lack thereof) is what drove me away from Islam in the first place. There are lots of women in my life: wife, mother, sisters, daughters, friends, daughters of friends, wives of friends (no pun intended). Increasingly I found Islam to simply hate women. Islam is not the only one religion that hates women; hatred of women exists in all 3 monotheistic faiths. Oh, many women of “god” will disagree with me, but I think they’ve just been brainwashed into thinking they’ve got it good. Even women of the west, find that Christianity doesn’t hate women. I disagree. Just because Christianity isn’t as backward as Islam doesn’t mean that it’s free of this problem.

I recently read a blog where a journalist was interviewing a Saudi woman who simply loved that fact that she wasn’t allowed to drive, vote, or be seen in public without a brother/husband/father. I believe the quote goes something like this: “Why do I need to vote, when my husband represents me?” What a magical and fascinating work of nation-wide brainwashing! Let’s break away from the holy-land for a minute: you can see Muslim women all over the world either defending backward ideals, or showing indifference. It’s the vast majority of women in Islam that simply ignore these things that makes it worse. It is the rest of the modern world that has enabled Muslim women to break free of their veils; I find it shameful that more women, and even more men don’t stand up for what is right. Let’s stop being “tolerant” of these backward notions.

Just remember this one rule: Just because it’s traditional, doesn’t make it right. After all, it was traditional for Hindu widows to throw themselves onto the fire at their husband’s funerals.

I was talking with some Catholic friends regarding the Church’s reversal on the limbo – you know, that place where unbaptized babies are sent when they die. Now, I’ve been a big critic of the Catholic church, specifically regarding important social issues such as birth control, homosexuality, women’s rights, and more. I never thought that the church would ever change their stance on any topic, clinging to the “slippery slope” theory, i.e. if you change one thing, then everything might change.

The Catholic church’s stance is that “it never was church doctrine”! What the fuck! You mean to tell me that hundreds of years of fear-mongering were useless? Millions of new parents all over the world (perhaps billions) worried about having their kids baptized in time for fear that they may wind up in limbo. A claim that limbo never existed comes a day late and a dollar short for all those people.

I wonder how much pain and suffering this non-existent doctrine has caused the poor parents of still-born children, or of children that died before their baptism?

Now that’s the cynic in me talking.

If you look at the glass half-full, you see that the Catholic church can change; even if it is by lying about what it preached in the past. The church has done a great job in convincing its followers that limbo never existed. I hope the church can also have enough balls to come out of the closet and start loving their gay priests and let their people wear condoms!

Now I know he did a lot of good with his church; but I will miss the gay bashing. I will miss the fiery spirit that he brought to religious fundamentalism. As an ex-Muslim, I was glad to see that even righteous Christians can be duped by what Hitchens calls a “charlatan” . Just like stupid kids can be brainwashed into thinking that by blowing yourself up you’ll get virgins in the afterlife, Christians likewise were convinced that if gays were to marry, God will destroy New Orleans. Which he did!

First it was Ted Haggard (still alive), now Jerry, who’s left? Only one man can fill the shoes of these two: It’s Pat Robertson. Thank God he’s still alive. I remember fondly when Jerry blamed the 9/11 attacks on the ACLU, gays and women. Aaah, those were the days. I remember when both Jerry and Pat got together on the subject of AIDS and how it was God’s punishment for homosexuality. Now, all that’s left is one: my friend Pat.

God bless you Pat. You keep doing what you do best!