{"id":1073,"date":"2012-06-26T16:36:48","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T06:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1073"},"modified":"2012-06-26T21:57:16","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T11:57:16","slug":"leaving-islam-as-a-teenager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1073","title":{"rendered":"Leaving Islam as a Teenager"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question from Ayesha:<\/strong>
\nHi,
\n
\nI feel the need to clarify that I am a teenager who used to be a Muslim, until recently when I just couldn’t pretend to myself that I believed in a God. Many of my friends know, and they don’t mind. The thing is my mother is completely religious and if she knew I was an atheist… well I don’t know. I want to tell her but I don’t know how to bring my point across without flushing and ending up looking confused.
\n
\nI suppose what I’m trying to ask is how does one go about trying to make others understand that your life isn’t just determined on your religion status and how to truly explain to someone – in my case, my mother – that just because you don’t believe in a God doesn’t automaticially make you a bad person? How would I tell her?
\n
\nAnswer by SmartLX<\/a>:<\/strong>
\nIf I were to take your question at face value, it would be truly tragic. Do you really think that your mother, who’s known you all your life, would suddenly and completely invert her view of you if she knew you’ve lost your faith? I hope she knows you better than that. You’re still the same person.
\n
\nI’m not saying she won’t have a strong reaction, I just don’t think that’ll be it. My guess is that she’ll ultimately be afraid for you. Not only will you be inviting Allah’s wrath from her perspective, but other Muslims might become very aggressive towards you. Even “moderate” Muslims believe (and can often be made to admit<\/a>) that the proper penalty for apostasy (leaving the faith) is death. Even in a country where people don’t usually follow through with that, they may feel justified in victimising quitters in other ways.
\n
\nIf you decide you do want to tell her, firstly it’s entirely up to you when you do it, and a lot of people roughly in your position do it after they’ve left home. Depending on the rules of your family you may not be able to leave home by yourself, but consider the timing carefully regardless.
\n
\nWhen you get around to it, let her know you’re open to questions. She’ll have many, even if she doesn’t ask any, and foremost among them will be, “Why?” It could also be a while before she asks anything because she might have to calm down first.
\n
\nShe’s likely to suggest various methods of restoring your faith, for example increased mosque attendance, Muslim camps (I’m guessing) and other group activities. You know what’s available better than I do. If you don’t want to be put through this, have ready explanations of why they won’t work. This might not actually save you, but it will lessen her shock and frustration when you return unmoved.
\n
\nUltimately I’m trying to advise one person I don’t know about dealing with another person I don’t know, and there’s only so much I can predict about what will happen. (I don’t know how proper Dear Abby columnists do it every week.) I think it’ll help others if we know what happens to you, so if you go ahead with all this please let us know how you go in a comment. Best of luck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question from Ayesha: Hi, I feel the need to clarify that I am a teenager who used to be a Muslim, until recently when I just couldn’t pretend to myself that I believed in a God. Many of my friends know, and they don’t mind. The thing is my mother is completely religious and if … Continue reading “Leaving Islam as a Teenager”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[375,286,377,376],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","tag-apostasy","tag-islam","tag-leaving-islam","tag-telling-parents"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pB6tr-hj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1078,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions\/1078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}