I think it proves that Islam will have a hard time surviving in the United States, where Muslim-raised children are exposed to people of other faiths and other ideas. Intellectually, Islam is bankrupt. The only way it can thrive is in the absence of competing information.
Well if you want to discuss intellect then religion as a whole will die out soon. Islam and Christianity basically preach the same thing which is to rely on faith, rather than cold hard facts. I am a religious person but I recognize religion isn't based on any evidence or intellect. It is solely based on faith that a God exist and the religious text (whether it is bible, quran or Torah) is divine revelation.
But back to the discussion.
Islam has and will continue to survive in the US. Myself and the other millions of people born and raised as muslims have kept our faith. Many of us are educated and have been exposed to a range of religions. Especially since many Muslim children attend Catholic school and other non Islamic schools.
Many Muslim's like myself are children of converts so our entire families aren't even Muslim's which exposes us to different faiths. My maternal grandparents are practicing Catholics and my paternal grandparents are Methodist.
This whole argument that Muslim children aren't exposed to other faiths is weak.
And the Muslim's that do leave Islam generally do not join any other faith. They leave religion altogether.
If I were to leave islam I would definitely be an agnostic or atheist.
I disagree when you say religion isn't based on evidence or intellect. I am a lawyer, and after attending two years of law school, I used the skills they taught me to gather evidence about Christianity and make up my own mind whether or not to believe it. After conducting an investigation, I made the rational decision that Christianity was true, and that among the Christian denominations, the Roman Catholic denomination was the most true.
My faith was stronger, not weaker, after making this investigation, which I did at the prompting of my desire to save my marriage, which I felt was suffering from some deficiency in my character, caused by my indifference to my faith.
The thing I always say, because the evidence is so strong and indisputable, is that non-believers should examine for themselves the facts and circumstances of the miracle of the sun at Fatima.
While there have probably been many millions of miracles in human history, and more miracles every day, the Fatima miracle is the best documented as there were newspaper reporters covering the event, and 70,000 witnesses.
This miracle did not occur in some distant past of mythology and legend, it happened in the early 20th century. The miracle, once believed, is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that God is real, the Roman Catholic faith is the true faith, and that Mary intercedes in the world for mankind.
The typical reaction on non-Catholics is to refuse to look at this miracle, all while claiming that we Catholics have no proof of God. This is intellectual dishonesty, to say the least.
If you refuse to look at this evidence, after I have pointed it out to you, then frankly you no longer have a right to participate in an honest discussion about religion. You are a liar, mostly to yourself, but also to others for clinging to a non-belief that you cannot prove, and flies in the face of evidence I have shown you.
