I am basically from pakistan but have been living and working - as an NHS doctor - in the UK for the past decade. My parents were middle class people whose prime emphasis in my upbringing was to provide me with an excellent education and a comfortable life. My mother, a housewife all her life, always was - and still is - very religious and taught me namaz and quran. My late father, a doctor himself, was more open minded and often used to question islam except in his later years when he started going to the mosque regularly and did haj (most certainly due to the influence of the pakistani society around him). I was always more questioning than my siblings about many aspects of islam (they still remain quite religious) and prayed and fasted only because my family and other relatives around me did so too (more of a communal rituality rather than something I wholeheartedly concurred with). Somehow, islamic beliefs and practices didn\'t make much sense to me.

Not living amongst loads and loads of brainwashed, uber-emotive, bigoted sheep, i.e. pakistan; maintaining interest in enhancing my understanding of the marvels and beauty of science; listening to sensible, intelligent rationalists like Richard Dawkins and thorough perusal of articles on your site and many others which dissect and expose the ugliness of islam by mentioning and referencing its own pivotal teachings (quran and ahadith) have finally convinced me to give up that backward thing called islam. All religions, in my view, are risible fairy tales anyway but my main issues with this medieval creation of illiterate, savage bedouins are:
* The depraved, murderous nature of its founder - as evident from ahadith themselves!
* The moronic practices it imposes on its followers as \'farz\' - no, I\'m no longer interested in torturing myself with that absurd ramadan fasting rubbish (definitely unhealthy - it is a medical fact that dehydrating oneself all day is damaging to human physiology, let alone doing so for a whole month!!!) or that stupid \'requirement\' of prostrating in humiliating postures to an imaginary being five times daily!!!
* The blatantly visible connection between islam and present day terrorism as well as blood curdling violations of human rights. I\'m now sick and tired of so called moderate muslims trying to fool everyone with fundamentally false statements like islam is a religion of peace. No it is not. It teaches its followers to kill - what else is jihad??? It isn\'t a term invented by present day criminals who are just using the name of islam. It is entrenched in the very foundations, establishment and early spread (profoundly unfortunate as it curses humanity to this day) of this cult.

So, I am relieved and proud to be free of the evil of islam and now consider myself to be a secular humanist. I have not yet revealed this to anyone in my family including my (quite religious) spouse as I am sure that, if I do, the reaction will be emphatically unfavourable. Your site is the first that I have posted my views on; I shall continue to do so on other similar sites. I feel that, for peace and harmony to prevail amongst humankind, it is essential to rid the world of islam. That will be done by continuing to expose it and encourage its deluded followers to leave this system of barbaric ignorance and take more interest in understanding the beauties of scientific discovery which continue to enlighten humanity and broaden its horizons. I applaud your efforts at CEMB and would like to join and support you in any way I can.