About Me

This started out as me writing about Islam, politics, life, and all that other fun stuff. Now I’m not a Muslim anymore, so what is it about? It’s still about everything, it’s about being confused and unaffiliated and just sort of admitting that and going from there. I didn’t morph into a Muslim-hating neocon, nor did my basic priorities as such change; just some specifics.

I guess what I’m asking when I’m not writing self-righteous rants or boring you with my music tastes (I still do both a lot) is; What’s real? What’s true? What’s not? I can’t answer those questions as readily as once I could, and I’m willing to bet that for most people reading this, regardless of their philosophical orientation, honest self-reflection would make it a bit harder for them as well.

So anyway, biographically, I’m 27, raised Mormon, was areligious for my teens and early 20s, converted to Islam when I was almost 24 and left when I was almost 27. I like traveling, languages, culture, philosophy, the outdoors, bikes, boxing, cooking, writing, reading, eating, religion, art, music, politics, good beer in small quantities, history, social work, anarchism in small quantities, comics, some other stuff. I’m engaged to someone who sticks by me no matter how weird and hard it gets, and I am grateful to the most high every day that she came my way.

Who are you?

Responses

“I believe in ‘islam’ with a small ‘i’, a balanced way of life in touch with the truth..My aim each day when I get up is to do as much good as possible, improve myself, and try to enjoy the process. ”

Sounds like big ‘i’ Islam to me. Why doesn’t this form of Islam deserve a capital ‘i’?

If anything islam as an “organized religion”, as you describe it - in the form of tradition and culture and show - is small ‘i’ islam. Thoughts? :)

By: null on May 27, 2007
at 5:53 am

“I believe in ‘islam’ with a small ‘i’, a balanced way of life in touch with the truth, but have left big ‘I’ organized religion of ‘Islam’ behind me.”

Very well said. Adhering to the culture, the ideas and the decrees behind a religion is great, all religions in essence tell us very similar things, “DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE”. But organized religion takes all that and adds the views and opinions of whatever patriarchs are in power at the moment.
Which is why I’m all for disorganized religion.

On the subject of cars being slow suicide- sometimes they’re faster than that. Yesterday, while riding on the partition, something I understood was allowed when the lanes are gridlocked, I was hit almost head on by a car in the oncoming traffic lane, going really fast.
Broke my clavicle, smashed my bike.
No bicycle will ever have the dangerous potential of cars, to break, smash, kill, and provide an industry for which the wars for oil in the middle east depend on.

By: jacob on June 1, 2007
at 5:00 pm

Peace Parallelsidewalk,

Having come across some of your comments over at Ali Eteraz, I thought I’d stop by your own blog.

Ma sha Allah. Very interesting. I could even place the reference to ‘getting busy in a burger king bathroom’ (though not something I’ve ever done, fortunately)!

Insha Allah, I’ll be stopping by in the future.

Peace to you and yours

Abdur Rahman

By: Abdur Rahman on September 3, 2007
at 9:47 pm

If there’s one thing Bilal is for, it’s literal “islam” and getting busy in a burger king bathroom.
ALLAHUMMA SALI ALA MUHAMMAD WA ALI MUHAMMAD!

By: Bilal on September 22, 2007
at 4:51 am

*Those are two things, actually. Or are they?

By: Bilal on September 22, 2007
at 4:51 am

So, is every Muslim blogger completely clueless or what?

By: Burhan on September 29, 2007
at 1:46 am

Hey David, how did you find out about my site? And why are all the comments on your blog so vicious?? I too studied Islam, Sikh and Judaism. You in the NYC area as I’m looking to set up a Sikh/Jewish/Muslim think tank group. email me if you’re interested.

By: Jewish Destrudo on October 1, 2007
at 9:54 pm

Burhan,
Lalalala.

JD,
I found your site through Shalom Keller’s blog. I am not in the NYC area currently though I will be up there again in Spring to attend a friend’s wedding, I would like to talk about it inshallah.

As for the comments, who knows? That large pileup clusterfuck of an argument was kind of an anomaly and has about 3 times as many comments as any other post.

By: parallelsidewalk on October 2, 2007
at 6:15 pm

Dude, I like ur style.
And maannn..woooot…u make me laugh
online is where ppl actually use their vocab.
LoL.awe-inspiring shizzle!

By: suz.uk.gal on October 18, 2007
at 11:25 am

Hey Dave, link away :) cool blog, i need to sit down and read it more thoroughly!
shabina

By: shabina921 on October 23, 2007
at 10:56 pm

http://www.islamscifi.com/

By: Brooke AKA Ummbadier on November 28, 2007
at 2:49 am

Very strange. Just read your farewell message and find it bizarre and almost scary that I left one on my site as well at around the same time. We’re also both 27, I wonder if its an age/growing/maturity issue.

Mine is much shorter, but a farewell nonetheless. If you want to talk, shoot me an email.

By: Jewish Destrudo on March 22, 2008
at 6:01 pm

I will, thanks. I owe emails to a bunch of people, but I’ll hit you up soon.

By: parallelsidewalk on March 24, 2008
at 3:27 am

Hi!

I just read your farewell message to Islam, and it really touched me. It perfectly articulated my feelings when I left my religion. I think you’ve articulated wonderfully a different kind of, well, I guess you might call it atheism, but it’s really something different. Not like the pushy aggression of New Atheism (though I’m sure that movement will do much good in our heavily indoctrinated world), but more just the realization that at some point religion stops being a helpful path for finding truth and more of a heavily walled path that won’t let you wander onto the grass to see if maybe truth is over there instead. I’m so glad to have found someone else who feels this way. Here’s my favorite part:

“I simply never want to have to do mental gymnastics to defend my view of reality again. I would rather learn to see reality more clearly. Dogma and legalism cannot help me with this. Staunchly held belief not only cannot help me, it will actively hinder me every step of the way.”

That’s it in a nutshell.

By: sunberry on April 16, 2008
at 9:30 pm

Thanks sunberry.

I wouldn’t call myself an atheist either, not really sure what term I’d use. More of an agnostic, not in the usual sense but in its original meaning, one who does not know. I agree with the new atheists on some things but dislike their general approach; I don’t view arch-materialism as a good (or accurate) way to look at the universe and some of them, Hitchens and Dawkins in particular, can be downright nasty. I do know that there’s some inherent meaning to things and something that ties it all together. Maybe it’s what people call god, and maybe it’s not. Still figuring it out.

By: parallelsidewalk on April 18, 2008
at 1:47 am

You lose an argument, accuse me of arguing incoherently, then close off my ability to comment on that thread. If you’re so sure I wasn’t slaughtering you logically, why’d you run and hide?

I think I’ve argued completely coherently. I repeated one word twice and typed “here” when I meant to type “where,” but as far as defending things point-by-point, I’m far outpacing you. You’re free to cite a single instance of a logical/argumentative flaw on my part here if you disagree.

You’ve lobbed out maybe two dozen accusations which you’d be entirely unable to buttress with facts. So I could see why you’d want to quit. Good night yerself!

By: Jim Goad on June 19, 2008
at 4:38 am

Don’t let the screen door hit you in the ass.

You can see it as running and hiding if you want. To the extent that I don’t have all night to argue with you, and don’t see any point in trying to kill each other with papercuts, you’re right. I hope you go to bed feeling accomplished tonight, like a real big man.

By: parallelsidewalk on June 19, 2008
at 4:43 am

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