I left Islam almost 2 years ago now, when I was 16. I used to be a pretty outspoken Muslim, often taking to the Internet to defend Islam and show it as a good, and peaceful religion. I guess I was a bit of a reformist, cherry-picking the good parts Islam and ignoring the bad. That all changed as I began to learn more and more about Islam. I would often debate with athiests, and their attacks on Islam would require me to research and learn more about some of the dirtier aspects of Islam. And that line of extra research began to show me what \"true\" Islam really was, and it all went down from there. Hadith like \"Women are deficient in intelligence and religion compared to men\", \"Whoever changes his religion, kill him\", as well as the numerous scientific errors in the qur\'an started to put serious doubts in my mind.

I guess I went through a crisis of faith for a while. All of this questioning Islam took place during Ramadan, a time where I was supposed to be strenghtening my deen, not questioning it. But the more I learnt, the more I thought and analyzed it from an outside perspective, all of the things about Islam started to appear ridiculous and brutal to me. At first I didn\'t want to leave, I thought something was wrong with me. I mean, I believed in Islam for all the 16 years of my life, how I could I question the truth and blessings Allah had given to me when he made me a Muslim, the purest of all religions? Also I guess it was just... hard giving up on everything your family and friends believed to, but after a few months I decided that I just didn\'t believe in Islam. I did some pretty serious thinking for a while, I mean it was probably a year long process almost, but I finally came to terms with my phiolosphical outlook on life. I\'m now an athiest, and absolutely reject the fairy tales and brutality of Islam.

Of course, I can\'t tell any of my family or friends. I live in Canada, but even then the violence that Islam demands on apostates is still a possibility, not to mention that I\'d get disowned by my family and abandoned by my community. It really sucks having to put up with this charade, having to keep my mouth shut everytime I hear Islamic bullshit. Haha one time a guest molvi came to our mosque, and gave a speech why evolution is false, the big bang is a lie, Einstien was wrong and a dirty Jew, and so on. I was so furious, I was ready to get up and just storm out, but I realized that would probably attract to much attention on me so I kept shut, even though I really really wanted to speak out. I hope one day I can just leave this behind and live my own life.

Thankfully I\'m not alone It\'s so great to hear there are other people going through the same problems!