I was raised as a religious Muslim and was in the same Saudi private school from year 1 until college. Now, if you’re planning to put your child in one of the most irrational hubs of life, my school was the place. Arrogance and emotional arguments were glorified. As you can imagine, I was a machine of irrationality. I had no concept of ‘evidence’, I only engaged in emotional arguments, and I was riddled with all sorts of biases. I was a big fool and a gigantic mess.
Then I met a friend in my second year of university who was once a Christian and became an Atheist thanks to Richard Dawkins. We spent a few months discussing religion, where I tried to outright deny, dodge and duck evidence, and do everything else that a massive idiot like myself would do. After these few months, I found myself cornered by my friend’s arguments and then a wild, blasphemous thought occurred to me: There actually is no god.
Thanks to my dear friend, I never looked back. Through Dawkins I discovered Steven Pinker, Neil degrasse Tyson and Sam Harris. And through them all, I discovered a whole new world of science and reason. As someone who always identified myself as a ‘smart’ person, and who loved feeling smarter than the masses (self-esteem issues, I’m sure), I embraced this new world. But this process led to incremental change.
The real second big leap happened after I graduated from university. I took a year off to learn how to manage my finances and invest in the stock market and lo and behold, I stumbled across my heroes, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. They truly changed my life. They were radically different to everything I grew up with. They were rationality machines, and they introduced me to a little something called ‘humility’, which I needed very much. Thanks to them, I am learning, growing and becoming more rational every day.
After these few months, I found myself cornered by my friend’s arguments and then a wild, blasphemous thought occurred to me: There actually is no god.
I’m curious about this—how did it actually happen? Was the convincing gradual? Was it something you always sort of knew, but couldn’t admit to yourself?
There’s no question that the convincing was gradual. Deep inside, I sensed something was wrong with Islam and god, but obviously I didn’t even try to investigate this. If I encountered something that didn’t make sense, I magically rationalised it away (which was very often). Funnily enough, before this discussion with my friend, I always considered myself an open-minded Muslim (I snort at this now, because it was a mere delusion), but when my friend brought reason to the table, I naturally became defensive. This defensiveness slowly, but surely, turned into silence. He made far too much sense, time and time again. The dawn of realisation that god didn’t exist, however, was sudden. And it makes me smile thinking back to that moment :)
I was raised as a religious Muslim and was in the same Saudi private school from year 1 until college. Now, if you’re planning to put your child in one of the most irrational hubs of life, my school was the place. Arrogance and emotional arguments were glorified. As you can imagine, I was a machine of irrationality. I had no concept of ‘evidence’, I only engaged in emotional arguments, and I was riddled with all sorts of biases. I was a big fool and a gigantic mess.
Then I met a friend in my second year of university who was once a Christian and became an Atheist thanks to Richard Dawkins. We spent a few months discussing religion, where I tried to outright deny, dodge and duck evidence, and do everything else that a massive idiot like myself would do. After these few months, I found myself cornered by my friend’s arguments and then a wild, blasphemous thought occurred to me: There actually is no god.
Thanks to my dear friend, I never looked back. Through Dawkins I discovered Steven Pinker, Neil degrasse Tyson and Sam Harris. And through them all, I discovered a whole new world of science and reason. As someone who always identified myself as a ‘smart’ person, and who loved feeling smarter than the masses (self-esteem issues, I’m sure), I embraced this new world. But this process led to incremental change.
The real second big leap happened after I graduated from university. I took a year off to learn how to manage my finances and invest in the stock market and lo and behold, I stumbled across my heroes, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. They truly changed my life. They were radically different to everything I grew up with. They were rationality machines, and they introduced me to a little something called ‘humility’, which I needed very much. Thanks to them, I am learning, growing and becoming more rational every day.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
I’m curious about this—how did it actually happen? Was the convincing gradual? Was it something you always sort of knew, but couldn’t admit to yourself?
There’s no question that the convincing was gradual. Deep inside, I sensed something was wrong with Islam and god, but obviously I didn’t even try to investigate this. If I encountered something that didn’t make sense, I magically rationalised it away (which was very often). Funnily enough, before this discussion with my friend, I always considered myself an open-minded Muslim (I snort at this now, because it was a mere delusion), but when my friend brought reason to the table, I naturally became defensive. This defensiveness slowly, but surely, turned into silence. He made far too much sense, time and time again. The dawn of realisation that god didn’t exist, however, was sudden. And it makes me smile thinking back to that moment :)