Hello everyone. Nerdy, animal-loving viking here :D

[LadyDay]

Even that sounds better.  In North Carolina, we get long, humid, buggy summers, a good chance of getting a hurricane during the fall, and winters that range from extremely mild to moderate - even snow storms on occasion.  A less erratic and malevolent climate would be a huge improvement.

Bring a raincoat and rubber boots and you'll love it here! :D

[drunkenshoe]

Aaaaaah. The profiles do not say which country people live in, so I assumed USA. Sorry about that.
Where in Turkey do you live? Istanbul is one of my very favourite places on earth! :-)
I'm pleased to hear my country has a good reputation out in the big world :-D
I'd love to hear more about religion in Turkey! It's my impression that Istanbul, Ankara and the western half of Turkey is not super religious, more like Denmark if anything, but that the eastern parts of the country are quite religious? Were you raised religious? Is it controversial to be an atheist in Turkey? Like it is in US for example. Most people here are from countries that are mainly christian, so I'm curious how being in a mainly muslim country differs, if at all :-)

I have grown up in Ä°stanbul, but now I live in Ä°zmir. It's a city of 4 million and a 100 K in the Western Anatolia, Aegean shores. It's a good place to live. Close to international vacation places.

Turkey is having the worst time of the modern republic. After the religious party came to the power (2003), there is a certain decline. No, I don't think anywhere here is like continental Europe, let alone Denmark. But there are places you can call relatively secular. But I refuse to define the country as a secular one. Bullshit.

It's controversial being a nonbeliever here. I am openly a nonbeliever and haven't experienced any bad reactions yet. It's a republic, so there are laws. State is supposedly laicist...Pfffft my ass. It's pretty a double standard islamic 'laicism'.  But there is always the worst, disgusting propaganda against nonbelievers and seculars. Hate speech in certain tv channels. So it is not a secular country, it is just secular compared to other muslim countries I guess. Pork is legal for example. But you can' t buy it around everywhere and just in specific places in package. Alcohol is full throttle though. Secular muslims drink worse or better -depends on how you look at it- than Irish. Adultry is not a crime. I don't know what happened with prostitution legally, since brothels pretty much exists everywhere and are under state control. Drinking age is 18. You can buy alcohol everywhere, but we hear that certain regions deep in Anatolia is not that comfortable and some even closed their few bars.

The religious party is doing anything in their hands to change anything secular in the country. Change the constitution, system (they want American system) so they can dictate properly. Half the country is relatively secular -not to my standards-  half is religious, minority is secular. But nationalism is an equally powerful threat. We managed to make the Kurdish party enter the parliament for the first time and they created a shit storm that resulted in an unbelievable death toll. So life sucks here nowadays, bombs are going off, people are dying. 102 peıople died in a bombing just a few weeks ago. Reported as ISIL. There is always something bad goin on. I am not following it any more for my health.  I can't sleep and get depressivie. 

Well, that's the general picture I guess. Yes, it is a religious country.

[SGOS]

It also took me a while to get rid of the fear of Hell. The power of indoctrination I guess. Funny how you can realize that it's silly, yet still get anxious about it. What do you think made you get rid of it? Just spending enough time thinking about how ridiculous the concept was?

I went for a long time as an atheist without admitting it.  I could muster the courage to call myself agnostic, but not admit I was an atheist.  My fear of Hell had been dwindling over the years just as my belief had been dwindling, but somehow (I can't really explain it) just admitting the truth about my atheism seemed to wash away all remaining fear.  It might have disappeared without that admission too.  But in my mind it seems like cause and effect, because the two things came together.   It might be something I'll never understand.  Early in my agnosticism, I remember dealing with a lot questions about my belief, and I knew I could never know for sure whatever truth religion claimed to have.  I felt like I dumped over a large garbage can of things ranging from idiotic nonsense like accepting the mythical flood to things that could not be answered, but for a long time there were a lot of maggots still clinging to the insides of the can.  Fear of Hell was one of those things.  I can only explain it as the power of indoctrination, which in my case, seemed to run deeper than a lot of others here.

[Mike Cl]

There have been mass graves in the US associated with unofficial abortion clinics or contrariwise ... birthing centers ... that existed for girls who got pregnant, couldn't go home, and didn't want to enter prostitution .... which was pretty much all a girl could do before women had support outside the home, if she got pregnant outside of proper society or was otherwise abandoned by her family.  This may have happened to my grandmother's oldest sister here in the US.

Many bodies of people were dug up in he basement of Benjamin Franklin's London residence ... presumably because he had a medical student lodging with him ... and dissection was illegal.  Or do you want to believe that Benjamin Franklin was a serial killer perhaps?  Not saying that your grandfather may have misinterpreted the evidence.

Come on Baruch, what does this have to do with a story my grandfather passed on to me.  I know all that stuff you brought up.  My point was that my grandfather, with his story, started my interest in religion at a fairly young age--that was the only point.  Oh, and that he was an ex-Lutheran.

[LadyDay]

I have grown up in Ä°stanbul, but now I live in Ä°zmir. It's a city of 4 million and a 100 K in the Western Anatolia, Aegean shores. It's a good place to live. Close to international vacation places.

Turkey is having the worst time of the modern republic. After the religious party came to the power (2003), there is a certain decline. No, I don't think anywhere here is like continental Europe, let alone Denmark. But there are places you can call relatively secular. But I refuse to define the country as a secular one. Bullshit.

It's controversial being a nonbeliever here. I am openly a nonbeliever and haven't experienced any bad reactions yet. It's a republic, so there are laws. State is supposedly laicist...Pfffft my ass. It's pretty a double standard islamic 'laicism'.  But there is always the worst, disgusting propaganda against nonbelievers and seculars. Hate speech in certain tv channels. So it is not a secular country, it is just secular compared to other muslim countries I guess. Pork is legal for example. But you can' t buy it around everywhere and just in specific places in package. Alcohol is full throttle though. Secular muslims drink worse or better -depends on how you look at it- than Irish. Adultry is not a crime. I don't know what happened with prostitution legally, since brothels pretty much exists everywhere and are under state control. Drinking age is 18. You can buy alcohol everywhere, but we hear that certain regions deep in Anatolia is not that comfortable and some even closed their few bars.

The religious party is doing anything in their hands to change anything secular in the country. Change the constitution, system (they want American system) so they can dictate properly. Half the country is relatively secular -not to my standards-  half is religious, minority is secular. But nationalism is an equally powerful threat. We managed to make the Kurdish party enter the parliament for the first time and they created a shit storm that resulted in an unbelievable death toll. So life sucks here nowadays, bombs are going off, people are dying. 102 peıople died in a bombing just a few weeks ago. Reported as ISIL. There is always something bad goin on. I am not following it any more for my health.  I can't sleep and get depressivie. 

Well, that's the general picture I guess. Yes, it is a religious country.

Thanks for the quick course on religion in Turkey! 
Turkey has a special place in my heart, mainly because my closest friend is from Ankara (she's lived here in Denmark for some years now though) and because Istanbul is probably the most incredible place I've ever visited. It must be amazing to live in Izmir! I'm imagining gorgeous beach, amazing weather and (yummy!) Turkish  food!
Your description of religion in western Turkey matches what my impression was. I was surprised hearing the imams singing from the mosques five times per day (that was a cool experience! Except that tone-deaf imam from the mosque right outside our hotel at sunrise)But the atmosphere, with lightly dressed people hopping from bar to bar and such, seemed a lot like any large european city to me (which, of course, it partly is). And it was my impression that the occasional woman wearing niqab was arab tourist, not turkish.
I'm so sorry to hear there's a lot of unrest and people bombing each other at the moment. I didn't quite understand, is it the kurdish people being bombed or doing the bombing? I'm happy to hear the kurdish party has been elected into the parliament. It's been hard to be kurdish for a long time.
I'm sorry it makes you sad and depressive. I hope it gets better soon. So you can enjoy being in a great holiday destination, rather than worrying about explosives.
Have you ever visited Denmark/Scandinavia?

[LadyDay]

I went for a long time as an atheist without admitting it.  I could muster the courage to call myself agnostic, but not admit I was an atheist.  My fear of Hell had been dwindling over the years just as my belief had been dwindling, but somehow (I can't really explain it) just admitting the truth about my atheism seemed to wash away all remaining fear.  It might have disappeared without that admission too.  But in my mind it seems like cause and effect, because the two things came together.   It might be something I'll never understand.  Early in my agnosticism, I remember dealing with a lot questions about my belief, and I knew I could never know for sure whatever truth religion claimed to have.  I felt like I dumped over a large garbage can of things ranging from idiotic nonsense like accepting the mythical flood to things that could not be answered, but for a long time there were a lot of maggots still clinging to the insides of the can.  Fear of Hell was one of those things.  I can only explain it as the power of indoctrination, which in my case, seemed to run deeper than a lot of others here.

Haha. I also went through that stage of calling myself agnostic, because I was to scared of calling myself atheist. I think it's a common phase. My biggest fear was of what my family would say if I used the word atheist. I knew they'd be sad and worried and afraid I didn't wan't to be part of the family anymore. I love my family so much and obviously didn't wan't to cause them any pain. I figured the word agnostic would be a little easier for them to deal with.
How did your family react to your journey away from religion?

[SGOS]

Haha. I also went through that stage of calling myself agnostic, because I was to scared of calling myself atheist. I think it's a common phase. My biggest fear was of what my family would say if I used the word atheist. I knew they'd be sad and worried and afraid I didn't wan't to be part of the family anymore. I love my family so much and obviously didn't wan't to cause them any pain. I figured the word agnostic would be a little easier for them to deal with.
How did your family react to your journey away from religion?

If you are raised as a Christian, there's a good chance you're knowledge of atheism is going to be one sided.  Consequently, you learn to attach a lot of incorrect assumptions and add a lot of negative baggage to it.  I lived 2000 miles away from my family after I turned 17.  That's when I began my quest for truth on my own.  I never even used the word agnostic around my parents.  They probably thought of me as "not too religious," but that once I grew up a bit, I would come back to the fold and start going to Church again.    By the time I realized I was an atheist, my parents and grandparents were all dead.  All that remains now is my sister, who switched from Lutheranism to the Catholic Church, but she has no problems with my atheism.  Nor does her husband who is also a Catholic.  They are both respectful of my lack of belief.