An Atheist young girl in a religious country

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dan DuPree on November 19, 2010 at 1:30pm

Hello Estee and welcome to AN and the US. I've read up a little on the church/state relationship in Indonesia, but I realize that Americans rarely understand that often the state policies on religions and the conflicts between religious groups are often based on and enforced arbitrarily according to political and ethnic positions.

In your own situation, if you get US citizenship, and attempt to visit Indonesia and still have citizenship there, how strongly would they attempt to enforce civil law, as in not allow you into the country, if you declared no religion or atheism? Would you come under sharia law and be subject to some extreme penalty for apostaty(sp?)? What about tourist? Are they visitors required to declare a religion and forbidden entry? I read blogs by 'moderate' muslims who claim Indonesia as the model of a moderate islamic state, but the news from there doesn't seem to support that often.

Permalink Reply by Estee Koen on November 20, 2010 at 11:12pm

i have plan to move out from indonesia citizenship and become a citizenship from another country, and its not impossible to still living in Indonesia,in that way. Indonesia doenst use sharia law, even most of people of Indonesian are muslim, so maybe it could seems easier.

some people declare themselves as muslim moderate, coz theyre not as extreme as in mid east. in Indonesia there are 6 religion which is allowed, so people in here have to choose one of those religion according their faith, but still atheism isnt allowed.

Permalink Reply by Robert Christiansen on November 23, 2010 at 2:27pm

just be very careful on who you tell. and it will get better.

Permalink Reply by Will Faithless Sophia on January 16, 2011 at 5:28pm

You are very brave, it's just another level of pain when your whole society is against you. At least here in Canada, the cities are safe for atheists. Could you change your religion to like... Buddhist, as their are some atheist Buddhist sects, although I am not sure if there are any in Indonesia... maybe you could get some support that way. But from what I understand in Indonesia conversions from one religion (the one of your birth) to another are very controversial/difficult.

 

Good luck ^^