If I could go back in time and restart my life, there are so many things I would change, but the one thing I would not change is leaving Islam. This one change opened up the doors for me to freedom...
Leaving Islam gave me the ability to live my life the way I wanted to live it, not the way the muftis and molvis and scholars determined it should be.
We dont know for sure what Muhammad really said and did. But what the companions and the scholars decided to preserve is what we got. I don't know about you, but I'd rather live my life being free rather than being a slave to what Muhammad wanted me to say and do.
It's reported Muhammad once said that this life is a prison for believers. Do you want to be in a prison your whole life? Both a mental and physical prison, where you are told what to wear, what you can read, what to do and not do, all for an imaginary paradise?
"The day of judgement is coming" is another technique of prophets and scam-messiahs. They use this technique to keep their followers in check. Not just Muhammad but even modern prophets have been known to scare their followers with threats of the next world coming.
Wayne Bent who was the leader of Lord Our Righteousness Church eventually told them he was the messiah and that anyone that follows him will be safe from the coming wrath of God on a specific date. The date came and went and nothing happened.
You would think his followers would have seen through him by now, but they didn't. He just gave them a new date. Wayne was eventually arrested for sex with minors and put on a 10 year sentence, of which he served 7 because he got skin cancer.
In "Strangers" @Gladwell talks about our truth-bias. We have a bias to assume people are telling the truth, and it takes insurmountable evidence to flip that. We also tend to believe people are transparent. This gives confident con-men an advantage in deceiving us.
The only difference between modern cult leaders and ancient religious leaders like Muhammad is that in an age of superstition and darkness these weeds grow and over time they change into religion.
Once cults become a religion and get state approval births and conversions push the religion into the millions and billions. Other than that, there is no difference between a modern cult that is shut down and a religion like Judaism or Islam that began the same way.
