Greerings, AR community!

As I've mentioned in the title of the thread, I am a teenager that used to identify as a Muslim. I have only left the religion (and theism in general) recently, although not publicly. I have discovered this community today after a friend shared a post from the Facebook page, and I decided to create an account. I'd like to share my experience of converting to Atheism with the community as a first interaction! This is going to be slightly long, but please bear with me for a while.

My change of belief seems really sudden, but it only happened after a long inner battle and identity crisis.

I am a seventeen year old girl that lives in a large Muslim community. My maternal family was never one to be religious, but my paternal one is. I've received an Islamic education for as long as I can remember, and although I used to believe, I have always felt uneasiness. I was always one to question everything and point out what I see strange for a righteous God to do, which sometimes got me in trouble. I've never really practiced, and haven't felt any spiritual relief when trying to pray, nothing at all.

However, despite being rebellious and quite skeptical, I still believed. Why, you ask? Well, I have been convinced that there was scientific "evidence" to the Quran, mentioned facts that have been written in it centuries ago but only discovered "recently", so I jumped to the conclusion that an all-knowing omnipotent being must have written it. However, as I've started interacting with my non-Muslim friends more often, and as I've started learning philosophy as a subject, my uneasiness grew, to the point of frustration. This religion contradicted my own style of life, my own thinking, my own (now atheistic-)agnostic philosophy that if a God were to exist, it should represent the order and energy of our universe, rather than bind humans with rules that sometimes harmed them. I didn't want to be part of the religion anymore, yet felt shackled because of my convinction. I spoke to my mother (who, as I mentioned, is not religious), my philosophy teacher and few friends about my frustration. They were all supportive and told me to stop stressing myself and to slowly walk the path of uncertain truth without hurry, but I couldn't help it, I felt like the endless contradiction was about to break me.

That's why I jumped at the very first skeptical explanation of how "new" discoveries were in the Holy Book, which might seem hasty, but it feels right.

Luckily, as I was struggling, I came across some facts, and it wasn't hard for me to reach a realization. Throughout history, people would destroy development of former civilizations once conquered. Furthermore, some archeological objects were found with such technology that astonishes current scientists, with no documentation whatsoever. That explained it all! Those "new" discoveries that were in the Quran must have been achieved long ago, but had evidence of them removed. I felt so naive for thinking, believing that those writings were from a Holy source just because of that, while a logical explanation has been waiting for me all along.

I told those who supported me about the realization, and they were happy that I've found my inner peace. However, I am unable to share my view publicly, as I'm sure my paternal family would blame my mother, who hasn't shown any signs of Atheism to them but simply doesn't follow the rules, for educating me to be an Atheist, because, you know, a young person straying from the path of God must have been mislead by the devil. It's not like I can think for myself or anything.

Now of course, no conclusion is certain; science, philosophy, all reseach is in constant development, but even if I end up believing in some sort of God someday, they would be a symbol, a philosophy I created for myself, not one to worship and believe in blindly with no proof. I know that what I did was right, because I feel free.

So even though I'm a little confused, happy, but confused, since all of this happened so fast, I currently consider myself as a young Agnostic-Atheist that has freed herself from the shackles of religion and that wishes to learn from and be suppported by the experienced adults in this community.

Thank you for reading, and I apologize if there were any unnecessary details!