Let God Sort Em Out
I've never been a religious person. When I was 10 years old and in the third grade, I was so excited to be the black sheep among my peers so I started acting like I was a Christian. Idk how but I thought being in a predominantly Islamic country is a profitable way to show off why I'm a remarkable human being. The outcome? The principal called my home and discussed my "weird behavior" with my mom. My parents weren't "religious" that much. While they believe in "God", they don't practice any specific religion. That day my mom asked me "Why did you become a Christian?" and my honest response was "I found it cooler than Islam".
No shade to muslims, but my experience with Islam during my life in Iran was possibly the most not-cool religious experience. While now I don't see it as a problem of Islam itself, I think the issue with Islam was the fruit of an extremist authotorian regime and an extreme shitty society who poke their nose into other people lives and label it as an Islamic stunt while in reality, is just nosy fools doing their best Peter Parker expression by spinning from one house to another. So let's say the religious people you meet in Iran ain't the best breed. For sure, there are some respectable individuals here and there but all-around, not ideal. Then it was during my time studying for a bachelor's degree that I went to an Islamic university in my hometown which is likewise a very religious city and the occasion there was unsettling. While I made a couple of friends, I still didn't feel like I belonged to that community, and our contrasts, politically and ideologically were too obvious for me to ignore. I remember during the whole "Women Life Freedom" movement, a close classmate of mine started bullshitting the campaign and feminism and that was the moment I acknowledged that I had to make some changes to my social life in the university. (You might have a question about how an agnostic ended up in a religious university which needs its post but overall: it was the cheapest option.)
Also, I'm too lazy when it comes to religious practices that I don't want to do in the first place, and praying 4-5 times per day is not my type of thing. I mean there's a chance that I would get a kick out of it if the motive wasn't raising my GPA as "discipline" is one of the subjects that influences that and the whole praying/being a promising muslim was a part of that discipline. I still don't know how all these make sense but yeah our educational system in Iran is a joke to begin with as the "promising muslims" will have much better privileges.
Then I came to Shanghai and met my roommate from Morocco. Even though I had a couple of muslim friends back in Iran, he was the first person who changed my idea of muslims. For sure, he didn't make me muslim or religious at all, but our friendship and his empathy towards me uplifted that shattered image for me. At one point, I looked at myself surrounded by that Moroccan community that was all muslims and all very kind to me. After that, when I started my Master's here, again, I met some new muslims and I think the process I went through made me more sympathetic to them., I don't see myself as a muslim or a follower of any religion, in some ways I even see them as ideologies that occasionally are close to mine and sometimes not, but as long as they don't force me to believe anything. I'm fine and not biased.
This is how I had this shift in my ideology. I never called myself an anti-religion, but I had my fears. I saw how people can exploit a religion to achieve their very "divine" objectives and regardless they were deeply corrupted. It was an interesting ride, but one needed for finding an inner peace with the past that I'm still trying to maintain even though I fall short from time to time.