I’m sorry if it seems as if I just keep beating a dead horse when it comes to this topic, but please believe me when I say that I wanted to avoid making this topic because of that very reason. I suspect I won’t be believed though, because so much of the content I’ve written on regarding Atheism, Enlightenment Values, Secularism, and the Ex-Muslim activism have been my own lengthy complaints about internet forums or criticisms of the social movements. I think I’ve listed complaints to the point that I’m sure many readers or potential readers view it as merely whining. I had taken the Ex-MNA discussions on Enlightenment values to heart and had seen my own lengthy criticisms as a form of respect, but I’ve found that this respect was not entirely reciprocated. They were mostly respectful and I appreciated that, but there is one person in particular among the Ex-Muslim social groups who I have absolutely lost all of my respect for. It’s to the point I regret praising him in my book. I want to be careful and clear with what I’m communicating on this point; this is not about the organization of Ex-Muslims of North America or my disagreements with the current Ex-Muslim social activism, per se. It is about one specific Ex-Muslim individual who I wanted to avoid talking about in-depth because I’m convinced that this individual will just dramatize my complaints for their own self-indulgence in order to ignore the specific arguments being made. There is no nice manner of communicating this and given what they’ve done to me personally, I think niceties shouldn’t even be a factor at this point. I’m livid with this individual, the complicity with another individual, and what I went through most certainly has value to anyone who has an interest in financially supporting this particular Ex-Muslim social activist and possibly his co-host. The person I’m speaking of is Armin Navabi.

I had a debate with the Secular Jihadists Podcast over my criticisms of the Ex-Muslim social movement, Ex-MNA’s views, and what I feel is a failure on the Ex-Muslim social movement’s part to defend the Enlightenment values that they claim to support. Sadly, after waiting over a month, it seems they scammed me on their patreon since they seem to have absolutely refused to show this debate. I had thought it was going to be released to the public in audio format (as they always release each of their discussions) so I didn’t look at the camera at times and even had my eyes closed. Sadly, it seems after spending some money each month on their patreon (I spend more on Sham Sharma and Kushal Mehra), Secular Jihadists just chose to scam me because I think they were embarrassed to have essentially lost their debate to me. This debate was chiefly about my 5-part Blog Post where I criticized the Ex-Muslim social movement and in particular, the non-profit group known as Ex-Muslims of North America that these two co-hosts are a part of. The debate happened on May 15th and the next episode I was in the comments section pointing out Pew Research facts and why I thought it was hopeless to make the changes that Ex-Muslims seemed hopeful would happen in their lifetime. For my trouble, I got temporarily blocked from the comment section of the Patreon video, a service which I am paying for, just because Armin didn’t like my views. This is particularly bizarre since they claimed even Furkhan Khan’s bigotry against Hindus was a defensible Free Speech issue. They then made very bigoted comments against me as a Hindu. To be clear, it wasn’t criticism of Hinduism the religion, their comments were anti-Hindu bigotry. The comments were completely at odds with their comments when interviewing me. Armin defended Furkhan Khan’s bigoted comments as free speech, but didn’t see blocking comments on a livestream as a free speech issue. Ali made rather bigoted comments claiming my views reflected some Hindu Nationalist slant. They conflate the enlightenment ideal of Free Speech with the legal view of it and pick and choose which version to follow based upon how they view the opposing side, at least that is the impression I’ve gained from repeated observation of them and my own interactions. Essentially, their views on Free Speech are very subjective and arbitrary depending upon their personal affectation to the view being shared.

They claim to be open about criticizing their own views, but it has been over a month since my podcast interview with them where I repudiated their views by demanding they provide concrete evidence for their beliefs – which they couldn’t do. They portray themselves as being open to challenging their beliefs, but I’ve realized from personally interacting with them that they don’t want that at all. I thought they honestly did and that they really meant it when they said that they were open to challenging themselves, but they don’t mean it. I see that clearly now after having wasted time with supporting their so-called social movement. They want a revolving echo chamber where their view is correct and all others are wrong. For example, while claiming to support Enlightenment values and Free Speech, Armin sent me an audio message in private telling me to stop posting my blog posts and meme images on the Secular Jihadist patron before inviting me to their podcast. In their podcast, they completely ignored the issue of NPR losing credibility if the woman making bigoted comments wasn’t fired and even compared it to Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist who isn’t credible. Then after that podcast, on a service I’m paying for, these pro-Enlightenment values, pro-free speech hosts decide to block me from commenting because my views are negative and I keep pointing them out when hardly anyone else is talking. Every criticism I receive usually isn’t on the points either, it’s personal attack followed by their self-justifications that they’re not bigots. I don’t think they’re anything other than an echo chamber at this point.

I don’t think I’ll ever support any more Ex-Muslim groups ever again. All I get is scammed out of money, insulted, and told I’m a bigot for my troubles. The only exception to this was Apostate Prophet and he isn’t wholly consistent in arguing in favor of Free Speech either. Armin Navabi is one of the worst people I’ve ever met. He seems incapable of understanding that arguing in favor of a bigot on NPR who made a bigoted comment against Hindus is actually supporting bigotry against Hindus and yet shuts me out of comments sections for Patreon exclusive content I’m paying for while claiming I don’t understand Free Speech. Supporting Ex-Muslim groups is a worthless endeavor. Only thing I learned from this experience is never have any faith in Secular causes. Oh, and if you think this is “whiny” check how much of my real money that I gave these people. I tried arguing with Patreon about the June one which was taken on May 27th after I had already cancelled my subscription on May 26th. Despite being a “creation” pledge, I had set a monthly limit of only being required to pay once a month from the specifications that I set. They claimed it was already billed on May 5th, but that charge is false because when I checked the initial post that caused the billing and it was due to the most recent interview with a Turkish Ex-Muslim fellow but seems to have been modified since then. Patreon refuses to help its pledgers with anything and simply demands that people work it out with the Patreon Creators while refusing to accept any accountability of any financial robbery that happens on their platform.  Here’s how much I paid each month and remember, keep note that this is not accounting for how much I paid towards Ex-MNA:

Also, while some of this may seem particularly whiny, keep in mind everything I criticized beforehand through repeated criticisms, and how those criticisms ultimately ended-up meaning very little. These people are essentially the next-generation of New Atheists claiming to hold and continue the torch of the New Atheist movement. They work with and interview people like Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, and even once interviewed Steven Pinker. Yet, all I can see is a bunch of uncritical bigots who can’t accept any criticism and who willfully waste their political clout to make meaningless political “statements” about Free Speech such as standing atop a Jewish memorial. When backlash follows from their asinine behavior,  they accuse those who criticized them of having ill intent. Thus, I call their “movement” and their behavior an utter joke.