Today on Deen TV just after 15h00 a program is scheduled called Why Muslims are leaving Islam. Deen is pretty much a halal channel, so the act of leaving Islam may well be presented as problematic. Still, it may be worth watching.
ETA: Programming changed or something … didn’t happen. ???
So now we need to know why programs about Muslims leaving Islam are leaving Deen TV… 
I would be interested to see such a program. But I can imagine why: the fanatics have given Islam such a bad name that decent people do not want to be associated with it. Plus, Muslims are increasingly unwelcome, well, everywhere. Plus, many versions of Islam are oppressive and backward and unpleasant.
This is precisely why I never worried about the whole notion of Islam taking over the world by Muslims emigrating to western countries and then conquering them by outbreeding the locals. It seems to me that in the modern world, you either leave your religion, or you greatly modernize it, or you fuck off to ISIS-controlled areas.
CSOL*. I see it’s now been re-scheduled for 19:28 tonight … but my hopes aren’t high, once bitten twice shy. :
A long time ago my knowledge of and interaction with Islam were restricted to a few times a year when blaring horn speakers mounted on little towers in the mosque a few clicks from my home went off at ungodly hours, and made me turn over in bed. That, and the wonderful pickled fish traditionally had over the Easter weekend, which trumped by far the best chocolate egg any rabbit could care to deliver. Then suddenly came Dawkins and Youtube and terrorism, and now Islam is of major interest to the world.
I would be interested to see such a program.Me to. It seems such a thing can go one of two ways.
They can cite reasons that are totally useless like:
or, perhaps more meaningfully:
2. the fanatics have given Islam such a bad name that decent people do not want to be associated with it3. progressive philosophy and skepticism
I wonder which it will be.
Rigil
[i]
The main (and only) reason given for people abandoning Islam was the questioning, typically by youngsters, of stuff in the Q’uoran that does not make sense to them when measured against the mores of modern society. The speaker then attempts to convince that such questions are temporal and wrong, and that rationality itself is not only undefined, but culturally relative, and that the doubter should take a step back and just accept that some divine rules, whilst perfectly rational, are intellectually unfigureoutable.
Oh, and apparently young girls developed faster a few centuries ago, and at nine years were the physical and mental equivalent of today’s sixteen year old, and as such perfectly ripe and ready to be married off to leering old men.
Unless you have something better on which to spend 25 minutes - Spongebob Squarepants springs to mind - you can view the program here.
Rigil
That is probably quite true. They will either lose their faith (or at least the more extreme versions of it), or have to completely isolate themselves from the world, like fundies do.
Signs of the times: Signs of good things happening. Look at me, an atheist talking about “signs”. 
When the fundies start to panic is when you know you’re having an impact.
EDIT: HAHAHA I’m listening to it now. “Islam is not irrational, it’s supra-rational”. That is a refutation within the point kthx.
EDIT2: Also, religious people make bad decisions and thus reason cannot be trusted.
EDIT3: Yeah, that was pretty weak. The guy just waves his hands saying “just believe it” is the answer, and just don’t question. TADA!
He’s going to find that this will not lure the young people leaving Islam back into the fold. No wonder they have to fall back on death threats.
This is what the extreme Islamophobes don’t get: the threats and anger and demonstrations and bomb blasts are not a sign of strength but of weakness.
It’s the customary corny collection of compulsory clumsy canards, smugly silly swindles and puffed-up pontificatory prestidigitation required of apologetics across all religious and irrational belief systems. (cf., for example, Martin Luther: “Reason is the devil’s whore.”)
However, this one comes with a special overarching irony that is as deep as it is delicious: All along, Yasir Qadhi promotes the idea that simple-to-frame-but-hard-to-answer questions about Islam must be taken as transient (“Beyond the scope of the intellect,” as he puts it) due to the transient historical and cultural contexts in which those questions arose. It obviously hasn’t occurred to him that Islam and the Qur’an are at least as much encumbered by their own respective historical and cultural contexts.
And this resolute and systematic failure of honest introspection is the chief reason why apologetes/apologians end up the unintentional and involuntary comedians they invariably are.
'Luthon64
FTFY.
It obviously hasn’t occurred to him that Islam and the Qur’an are at least as much encumbered by their own respective historical and cultural contexts.
How’s the all-knowing all-powerful creator and ruler of the entire universe supposed to know morality without referring back to whatever upright apes are doing? He’s just a slave to their whims, after all.
... is the chief reason why apologetes/apologians end up the unintentional and involuntary comedians they invariably are.
Comedy to us, a call to murder-suicide for others.
And now I have reason to amend the above opinion, maybe. My landlady’s son and daughter went on a brief holiday to the Netherlands to go visit friends, after which they went on a short detour to France to go visit Disneyland before returning home. They tell me the difference between the Netherlands (which is fairly strict on immigration) and France (which is not, or where perhaps the genie has left the bottle) is striking. The Netherlands is clean, safe and orderly. France is turning into a dump. There are Muslims absolutely everywhere, the trains reek of unwashed bodies, and in Disneyland itself they saw some Muslim women throwing a fit because a ride attendant requested them to remove their headscarves (just as he asks EVERYONE to remove things like scarves and hats and voluminous coats - on some rides these are a safety hazard).
Now these kids have a younger adopted sister who is black; they are decidedly not racists. And yet they tell me they can begin to see why the French are turning right wing en masse. In short, the French are losing their country without a shot being fired; the few incidents of terrorism are the least of their problems.
Can’t remember now whether I have posted this before or whether we have discussed it:
In which Nassim Taleb boldly states: “The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.”
I do find it amusing that the very people who, for decades, made a big noise about apartheid, are now scurrying around in a panic and considering instituting similar laws. But schadenfreude aside, I am beginning to wonder whether, and to what extent, people like Le Pen and Trump may actually have a point…
And now I have even further reason to entertain doubts about Muslim immigration. On the art message board where I hang out, a debate is raging between, on the one hand, me and other westerners, and, on the other, a fundamentalist Muslim of the Salafist variety. He is perhaps the single scariest and creepiest personality I have ever met on the web, and I don’t say that lightly.
His interpretation of the Quran is the only correct one. Everyone else is wrong. Yes, adulterous women should be stoned to death. Yes, in Muslim majority countries non-Muslims should be required to either pay a tax or join the military. Etc. etc. etc. in an endless litany of utter barbarism. The more I read his posts, the more my skin starts crawling. Ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you that we cannot allow that kind of person to come live among us, if for no other reason than to spare HIM the trauma.
Now this case is actually interesting, because in some respects I kind of admire him. For one thing, he absolutely rejects ISIS and terrorism etc. He claims they completely misinterpret the Quran (apparently he is blissfully unaware that Saudi Salafists are major sponsors of terrorism, but that’s another story).
But get this: he was born and grew up in the U.S. before he found Allah, and then voluntarily emigrated to Egypt, precisely because he saw that the west is completely inimical to everything he believes in. Now if he can see it, why is it that westerners apparently can’t? Western countries, particularly ones in western Europe, where they have never been very successful at integrating any immigrants, should think twice before allowing bazillions of these people to stream in. Hulle is besig om vir hulleself 'n moerse lat te pluk…
As the old saying goes, “There’s no zealot like a convert.” It has little to do with actual conviction, and everything to do with the convert’s need, bordering on desperation, to cement and anchor the newfound conviction in his or her own mind. The upshot is that rhetoric is the mainstay of the convert’s belief.
'Luthon64
Emphasis added. Bingo. This is the funny thing about religious fundamentalists: I get a very distinct impression that they go on the way they go on not because their faith is strong but precisely because it is weak. And thus blathering and getting more converts make them feel more secure.
Conversely, at least with Christians, my experience is that the real ones never, ever tell you that they are Christians. They don’t need to - you can see it from their actions. Also fits neatly with Christ’s own command that people shouldn’t pray in public.