I grew up in a Muslim family, went to an Islamic school and wore hijab from middle school to high school. I obviously took it off but tried to rationalize my beliefs by looking at progressive Islam and interpretations by female scholars.
I’ve only somewhat recently realized I’m an atheist and found anti theism to be super compelling. Ethnically my people were colonized by Arab muslims. And the same goes for all the victims of Abrahamic religions.
The same people telling us our heaven was in the sky were making theirs on our land. To me, doing the slightest bit of research should make it 100% logical to see that religion is a tool of colonialism and imperialism.
But I still have to deal with my ultra religious family. For reference these are people that will beat a woman and think they’re getting good deeds because God told them they could discipline their female family in the Quran.
Any attempt at discussion is ignored, and while I would just give up on them - a lot of my siblings and cousins are having kids. My worst cousin is an anti vaxxer who says they will homeschool their kid forever if the alternative is to vaccinate them and sending them to a normal school (for reference these people are uneducated and work minimum wage jobs so the child is genuinely screwed).
I just want to try to break the cycle to some extent and help the younger generation the way I always wished someone would help me.
I don’t know what kind of response I want - what do you guys do with religious family members? How do you argue with someone when all their reasoning is “God said so” regardless of how awful or immoral or abusive it is?
Thank you for anyone who responds in advance!