RSS FeedAs far as Arab society is concerned, openly declaring a disbelief in God is a shocking and sometimes dangerous thing to do. It can lead to being ostracised by family, friends and the local community – as well as charges of apostasy which in some countries carry the death penalty.
Arab atheists – or at least those prepared to declare their atheism openly – remain a tiny minority but they are gradually becoming more visible, partly because online media have now given them a voice.
Writing about this in a blog post last week, I invited Arab atheists to send me an email about their journey into disbelief. Many thanks to those who replied, and I shall be posting some of them here over the next few days or weeks.
More emails are welcome (send them to brian@al-bab.com). Please describe how you became an atheist – any particular books, etc, that influenced your decision – and, if you have told people about it, how they reacted. You can remain anonymous if you wish.
As the Qur'an says, "there is no compulsion in religion", and the point here is that people have the right to believe, or disbelieve, as they see fit. Their ability to assert that right without harassment or repression is the essence of freedom and tolerance.
Although Islam is the predominant religion in the Arab countries it is important to remember that it is not the only one, so I'm starting the series with an email from a woman who was raised in Lebanon as a Catholic Christian.
Brian Whitaker
'It's not really a choice I've made'
by Greta Ghacibeh
I'm a 46 year old Lebanese-American (ex)-Catholic, born and raised in Lebanon where I spent most of my life before moving to the US about 10 years ago. I only recently became a confirmed atheist – by which I mean that I do not believe in personal external supernatural being watching us from above, judging us and making decisions based on our faith and deeds on whether to award us heaven or send us to hell for punishment.
I have struggled with faith most of my life, since I turned 13 and the answers given by the church gradually stopped satisfying my inquisitive mind. I first identified as secular, then agnostic, and now atheist. Throughout all these phases, and until only recently, I never had the courage to state my non-belief out loud and clear to my family and community. Instead, I simply proclaimed myself to be a lazy non-practising Christian who's not particularly interested in attending mass every Sunday (or ever) but would not refuse to go to church for special Christian occasions – so as to avoid making a fuss about it.
One reason why I went on in this way for so long is, perhaps unconsciously, for fear of isolation and losing my family and friends' support which I badly needed during those long years where I was struggling to make ends meet with my two young kids after my divorce. I needed any support I could get – it was simply not the time to start a war with anyone.
But another perhaps a more important reason is that I simply did not have the time to seriously explore this issue at a deep level and come up with answers that would convince me of the validity of my non-belief. Therefore, I left those questions on stand-by until finally, only this past year, I was given the chance to explore. My kids grew up and went on their own. My job put me in a relatively isolated yet independent place, geographically and financially, and with very little to do all day.
After many weeks of complaining about being lonely and bored, and flirting with depression, I came across a short interview with Bishop John Spong on Facebook, was intrigued and bought two of his books. I then went on from Dawkins to Dostoievski to Ferry and Gibran and many others.
In the Arab atheists series ...
Arabs and atheism: the shock of disbelief
Email from an Arab atheist (1)
Email from an Arab atheist (2)
But even after reading all the major philosophers in ancient and modern history, along with the history of science and human evolution, and all the major religions, I have come to the conclusion that while philosophy and religion do attempt to answer the most urgent question on humans' mind, science does not: "If we're humans because we're conscious (the difference between us and living animals and plants), what's the real point of a consciousness that has not ceased to bring us suffering and fear caused by our awareness of our own mortality?"
It's simply impossible for me to go back and cling to religious belief, even if I have come full circle and my initial anguish has not been stomped by science alone. As realistically and pragmatically as I now see the world and the universe that I'm part of, the fact is that I'm still anguished by my mortality, and find it hard to be satisfied by humanist values alone no matter how great and important they are for a sane human life.
How do I find happiness? By being virtuous? I'm not convinced. Why? Because we humans are partly selfish and partly altruistic, and I have not found that pushing ourselves to be more altruistic and less selfish (or the other way around) has produced great happiness for anybody, when performed via secular values alone and disregarding completely any other-worldly rewards.
I think we atheists and agnostics must find alternative answers to this critical question that lingers on all humans' minds, and that is still the driving force that keeps the promises of religion so popular despite the great advancement of science. Bashing religion alone doesn't validate the non-believers' stand as long as we're not seriously scratching our heads to offer alternative answers to rightfully anxious humans in regard to the purpose of their conscious being, the meaning of their material life, and the senselessness of their death.
The difference between believers and non-believers is simply where each has decided to cast their lot. It's a guessing game at best for both parties, and none of them is able to bring proven and uncontested truth to the other, until this day anyway.
I may consider myself to have been more courageous when I decided to reject the "given truth" that religion offers, and tackle head on the questions of my mortality elsewhere, but I have to admit that I also denied myself the comfort of faith, yes, the comfort of faith, and instead set myself on a turbulent path that will most certainly not be resolved during my lifetime.
However, it's not really a choice I've made. I believe people are simply born different, and the fact that they choose to submit to faith or or challenge it is an in-born trait that is almost like a destiny that we cannot change. The fact that we don't trust the unknown, that we rebel against absolute yet unproven truths, that we thrive on thinking outside of the rigid given is what made civilisations move, sometimes towards positive progress, and at other times towards degradation of humanity.
Posted Sunday, 11 August 2013
