Why i am not a muslim ?

[Majed]

Why i am not a muslim? 
Things you can enjoy without being a muslim: alcohol, pork meat, insect meat, sexual freedom including masturbation, casual sex, pornography, homosexuality... enjoying parties, drugs, flirting casually with the same or the opposite sex. 
Not having to pray like a dumbass 5 times a day, not having to torture myself fasting the whole month of ramadan. 
Not having to fear hell 24/7 for every misbehavior, not having to torture myself repressing my sexuality and guilting myself over it. 
And especially enjoying the mental freedom of appreciating different philosophies, worldviews, religions, cultures, traditions, spiritual techniques and ways of life beyond what islam has to offer. 
So my question now is: why be a muslim when you have all of life to enjoy without being a muslim ?

[Majed]

As well as enjoying music and art freely, gambling, wearing gold chains... My list is definitely non exhaustive. 

[Princess Arabia]

Because after they do all that stuff you're talking about, and they do, they need to pray for their sins for fear of going to hell. 

[integration journey]

I’m a Muslim and partake in most of the “bad shit” that you mentoined.
For me being a Muslim is just a loose identity, one of many that I have , I’m able to drop it anytime

some call this blasphemy but oh well. 

[Davino]

7 hours ago, Majed said:

So my question now is: why be a muslim when you have all of life to enjoy without being a muslim ?

Some people indulge in all of that and still are miserable. Some people are muslim and are happy. What determines happiness to the individual, what makes me most happy, that could be muslim, at least for Mahoma was. So maybe hedonism works most for you or asceticism or who knows. Life is very abundant in this sense.

I just saw a dog with only three legs. Happy af

Edited May 2 by Davino

[Nemra]

8 minutes ago, Davino said:

What determines happiness to the individual, what makes me most happy, that could be muslim, at least for Mohammad was.

Gaining happiness by subscribing to a religion at what cost.

Although the decision is very easy for simple-minded people.

If you are aware of and observe your epistemology, then religion will be too limiting.

[Basman]

Most religious people are religious because they where raised such. Their community/society maintains a bubble of religiosity. Religion is largely cultural.

If you are secular, there is very little reason to subscribe to a particular religion. It is kind of like selling your soul, but more like you ability to think and act independently. Make up your own mind about stuff.

7 hours ago, Majed said:

Things you can enjoy without being a muslim: ...insect meat...

Insect meat?

[Emerald]

This isn't specific to Islam, but there are some benefits to following a religion.

It's just up to the individual person as to whether those benefits are worth the costs.

One of the main benefits to following a religion is limitation... and a sense that God is an all-knowing authoritarian father that is always 100% correct and is setting the rules and limits for people. (And this is a viewpoint on God where God is understandable and fits in your pocket)

This meets a need for certainty... as well as a need for social cohesion with others that belief in the exact same cosmology... and a sense that we don't need to know it all because we can just trust in the all-knowing father.

And it allows us to externalize the burdens of uncertainty and personal responsibility onto this all-knowing father who we can trust to always be right.

And with limitation, we are more easily able to create and hold onto meaning in a universe that is empty of inherent meaning. And we can get the sense that we're on the right track if we just follow the rules.

It also gives us the sense that our institutions are real and built on a foundation of certainty and are ordained by God.

For me (and seemingly for you), these benefits are not worth the costs. And I would not be able to keep my mind bounded to a narrow set of dogmas.

And my mind would always end up straying like a lamb from the flock to go dance around in uncertainty-ville no matter what.

But for many people, their needs are met by having these limitations imposed upon them and the certainty is comforting... and it gives them a platform through which to live their lives without gnawing questions of existential meaning as those questions are already answered by God in the big book of answers.

[Nilsi]

13 hours ago, Majed said:

Why i am not a muslim? 
Things you can enjoy without being a muslim: alcohol, pork meat, insect meat, sexual freedom including masturbation, casual sex, pornography, homosexuality... enjoying parties, drugs, flirting casually with the same or the opposite sex. 
Not having to pray like a dumbass 5 times a day, not having to torture myself fasting the whole month of ramadan. 
Not having to fear hell 24/7 for every misbehavior, not having to torture myself repressing my sexuality and guilting myself over it. 
And especially enjoying the mental freedom of appreciating different philosophies, worldviews, religions, cultures, traditions, spiritual techniques and ways of life beyond what islam has to offer. 
So my question now is: why be a muslim when you have all of life to enjoy without being a muslim ?

There’s a lot of real beauty in shared tradition and sacrifice. These aren’t just restrictions for the sake of suffering - they build a sense of belonging, loyalty, and meaning that most modern lifestyles completely fail to replicate.

By sheer contingency, I’ve had the opportunity to be deeply exposed to Muslim culture - and I count myself fortunate for it. I’ve always felt not just accepted, but genuinely respected by the Muslims I’ve spent time with. Honestly, no one - not my biological family, not my closest friends, not even my most intimate partners - has ever shown me the same unconditional sense of kinship and care. They’ve consistently insisted on treating me as family, making that explicit not only through words of affirmation but also through their actions. And this wasn’t just a one-off experience. It happened across multiple occasions and entirely different chapters of my life, so I doubt it’s simply a matter of chance. It’s not casual hospitality - it’s an ingrained ethic of solidarity and shared life.

You don’t have to be a Muslim to appreciate that. But you also can’t reduce Islam to a checklist of prohibitions without missing the deeper currents that give it real power.

[Hojo]

@integration journey That might be a bad idea you might be agreeing to a set of rules you dont need too and then breaking them cause its a joke to you.

[Twentyfirst]

There's a right way of doing something and there is a wrong way. You did it the wrong way and then project that to all of islam. You can have extreme amounts of fun and bliss while also following the guidelines. Just because you can't manage it doesn't mean it can't be done

[integral]

Hedonism