Women Leave Islam For Atheism

Praise the Lord! Those words are always coming out of my boyfriend William Jean-Bertrand's mouth. Okay, I get it. He's a good Christian and all but I just don't get why he has to remind everybody of it. A lot of people look at Will and I and are really surprised that we're going out. Will is around five-foot-eleven, slim, with light brown skin, curly Black hair and pale gray eyes. Born in Quebec City to a Haitian father and French Canadian mother, he's biracial and kind of cute. A proud son of the City of Montreal, Province of Quebec. We met at the Haitian Adventist Church in downtown Ottawa, not far from the Rideau Shopping Center. Normally I don't date mixed guys because they act whiter than Dick Cheney at a rap concert but there's something about Will that I simply dig.

My name is Stephanie LaCroix. I was born in the town of Cap-Haitien, Republic of Haiti, and moved to Ontario, Canada, with my family eleven years ago. I'm twenty two years old and study business administration at Carleton University. Although my passport and driver's licence both say Canadian, I still consider myself Haitian in my heart. It's blood, you know? I like living in Ontario. My favorite place in all of Canada would have to be the City of Toronto because it's so big, beautiful and active. Unfortunately, most of my family still lives in the City of Ottawa and I didn't want to study too far from home because of money issues so I opted for Carleton University. I would have gone to the University of Ottawa like most of my friends but it's just not my kind of place. Carleton University is more my style.

I met William Jean-Bertrand in my African Studies Class. At first I didn't know what to make of this mixed guy who acted whiter than William Shakespeare. I've always been afro-centric in my view of the world. I am quite saddened that a lot of Africans are at each other's throats. In Nigeria, African Christians and African Muslims are fighting for domination. In the mainly secular and pro-religious freedom nation known as the Republic of South Sudan and its mainly Muslim neighbor/nemesis Sudan, conflict over resources and territory are rising anew. Somali terrorists are striking at both Somali civilians and neighboring African nations like Kenya and Ethiopia. Yeah, race, religion and politics combine for a truly lethal combination all over the Black world.

I can't stand that. At all. I wish people of African descent would stop fighting each other. The foolishness of both African Christians and African Muslims boggles my mind. African Christians need to realize that Christianity came from the White People and historically, they've done terrible things to Blacks. African Muslims need to realize that Islam came from the Arabs, who were active participants in the slave trade, and continue to systemically mistreat Blacks in North African/Middle-Eastern nations even today. White people don't like Blacks. Arabs don't like Blacks either. If Africa embraced secularism and united under the banner of color rather than religion, we'd be a force to reckon with. Of course, it will never happen. Africans are killing each other in the name of Mohammed, the Founder of Islam, and Jesus Christ, the Founder of Christianity. The only thing these two have in common? They sure as hell weren't Black!

I am an anomaly among the Haitian population of Canada. A young Black woman of Haitian descent who's a proud atheist. Why? Simply because I consider religion to be the most destructive force in the history of humanity. Christianity. Islam. Judaism. Buddhism. Seriously. Someone should pound religion out of the head of every human being on the planet Earth. We'd all be better off. Religion is the reason why women have virtually no rights in the Middle East, with the possible exception of more secular nations like the Republic of Lebanon and the State of Israel. Religion is the reason why so many Catholic priests all over the world got away with sexually abusing the very souls they were supposed to mentor and look after. Religion is the reason why a bunch of nutcases from Saudi Arabia flew airplanes into those buildings in New York City, forever shocking America. Religion is the reason why that crazy white guy in Sweden killed those Muslim students. Religion is the reason why that radicalized Algerian Muslim guy in France killed those Jewish students before being hunted down, cornered and killed by the police. Honestly, when has religion done any good for the world?

Why am I dating a biracial Haitian-Canadian guy who's a staunch Christian if I'm such a big atheist? Simply because I believe in choosing the lesser evils, my friends. There are all kinds of good-looking, educated men walking around the City of Ottawa. It's a college/university town after all. Carleton University. The University of Ottawa. Algonquin College. La Cite Collegiale. To name but a few. I've seen some beautiful, educated young women with secular mindsets go through all kinds of hell because of the religion of the men they dated or married. Like my friend Meredith Harrington. A tall, blonde-haired and green-eyed beauty from the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has an MBA from the University of Ottawa and worked at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce as an account manager at the time we met.

The sad thing about my former sorority sister and close friend Meredith? She's got lousy taste in men. She fell in love with this Arab guy named Mohammed. He's originally from Egypt. A place where women's rights aren't exactly a big issue on the agenda of the ruling Islamic party. Well, Mohammed seduced Meredith and she married him. She converted to Islam to make him happy even though she was a staunch atheist for most of her life. Well, there was trouble in paradise apparently. She wanted to leave Mohammed, and the Egyptian brute wouldn't have that. He killed her in their Toronto apartment, you see. He escaped to Egypt but he's on the international most wanted list for his crime. In spite of that, lots of white women continue to date and marry Arab males. I wish them the best of luck. No way in hell I'd date or marry one of these guys, even if I were into brown men.

Meredith's death shocked Canadian society, but it really didn't surprise me. Arab guys can appear very friendly, charming and easygoing to western women but it's all an act. Underneath it all they're cold, calculating and controlling. Where they're from, women are slaves. Visit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and see what I'm talking about. Muslim men never tell the western women they're involved with the truth about their religion and what life is really like for women living under Sharia Law. Deceivers, the whole lot of them. Meredith wasn't the only woman close to me to meet a grisly end because of poor association. It's becoming a particularly common fate among educated women who should really know better.

Take my friend Fatima for example. Fatima Al-Mokhtar was born in the Republic of Djibouti but raised in Ottawa, Ontario. She has an MFA from the University of Montreal and used to work at Bell Canada. Fatima grew up Muslim but she was never very serious about her faith. She fell in love with a Jewish guy named Stanley Rosenberg and wanted to marry him. The couple was gunned down by Ibrahim Al-Mokhtar, this ex-convict who happens to be Fatima's distant cousin. When Fatima renounced Islam to marry her Jewish boyfriend, she became an Apostate and a pariah in the eyes of Muslims everywhere. Want to know a little something that Muslims don't tell new converts who join their faith? Anyone can join Islam of their own free will but once you join, you can't leave. If you're a Muslim who decides to leave Islam, you become an Apostate. And the punishment for Apostasy is D.E.A.T.H.

Yeah, two beautiful, educated young women I was friends with died because of poorly chosen men and religious issues. I can't seem to meet a nice, good-looking and educated brother who's an atheist. So I ended up with a cute young Black man who's a staunch Christian. My William is kind, friendly and gentle. And thanks to the influence of his white-bread feminist mother, he has deep respect for women. The guy worships the ground I walk on. Yeah, I could definitely do worse. Out of all the religions out there, Christianity is the one that respects WOMEN the most. That's why I choose to date ( and probably eventually marry ) a Christian man. I guess you could say that it's the thinking woman's religion, even in the twenty-first century.