This is a short interview with Mariwan Halabjaee, author of a controversial book titled "Sex, Sharia and Women in the History of Islam" that sparked a wave of demonstrations and threats in Kurdistan.

A discussion with a kurdish believer

Today I was bored, and decided to log on to a Kurdish chat room. I chose the nickname "Spinoza", just for fun. As usual I was multitasking thruogh the net, watching a debate of Hitchens vs Olasky <video>, when someone started sending me pm's. Somewhat surprisingly he requested to know what my nickname means! I went ahead and gave him a brief discription of the great Dutch philosopher and his contributions to the Enlightenment, and in the process making explicit remarks about my atheism. He (I assume the person was a man from the nickname and his conversation) was rather unlike most muslims whom I dared speak with about religion before. He didn't seem to get angry very much when I directly challenged his believes about the supernatural and the existence of God. I probed into his understanding of life and he asked me questions about how I am made if it is not for God and where do I go when I die. He passionately argued about the importance of Islamic scholars in the advancements of science although he dismissed the great achievements in astronomy, medicine, biology and in particular evolution that I cited. I was most surprised when he stressed that there is only one sun in the entire universe, a claim that he held with stubborn belief despite my vain attempts to explain the arrangement of stars, solar systems and galaxies. He openly said that he doesn't trust Western science and demanded that I prove seing these other suns by my naked eyes before he could lend credit to my claims.

Anyway, I think the debate was not conclusive, we said goodbye without either changing a bit from his or her ideas. I am still an atheist and he on the other side still a believer. But I discovered one thing, that despite the growing sense of unease at debates with fanatic muslims the ordinary people are more open to argument and persuasion. I mean at one point he asked whether I had a telescope so that he can look at those suns with his own eyes. Although I thought for a second that he wanted to disclose my address so that he will come and punish me for what I said I welcomed the idea of perhaps enlightening his mind with the beauty of the universe. May be he will become more open to the majesty and owe of science and divest the religious shroud of ignorance?

When you know the facts of how the universe works and the scientific explanations of biological processes, you start wondering why there are people there still believing in the absurd stories of religious texts? 

My Blog: First Post

Hi,

This is the first ever post I write on my blog. I am a bit undecided as to what to write and how to proceed. I love the idea of having a place where I can express my thoughts, which have mostly been circling my neurons for a long time. 

I am a young Kurdish man, brought up in Kurdistan and nurtured on the customes and traditions of the region. Fortunately however religion was not pushed down my throat, unlike the majority of people in Kurdistan. Besides, I was always skeptical of the certitude religous people had about their faith and the satisfaction they got from scripture to answer any question they had about life. However, I never put my ideas and skepticism on the public, mostly being apathetic about people and what they believe. It wasn't until a few years ago when I realized that it is a duty of every learned person to question the validity and authenticity of any text they adhere to, particularly religious scripture. And being an advocate for science myself, applying the rigour of scientific inquiry into the claims of religion fast unveiled the inconsistencies and misperceptions about the physical world contained within the scripute, of which people are either unaware or forgive out of reverance or fear. 

Why do I do this? Well there is no straight answer to this question. In part it comes as a retaliation to the unnecessary indoctrination and blind adherence to faith that people in my country have, and partly out of a desire to raise the consciousness of fellow kurds against dogma and theocracy. I want people to embrace science and modern worldview, and I want young similar minded Kurds to shake off the veils of nonexplanation that is called religion.