There is a group on Facebook named The Intellectuals. It is full of atheists and/or freethinkers from the Arab world. There are 950 members currently.
I think this great, and it does quash a few misconceptions that I, and many others I'm sure, have about freedom of speech and atheism in Muslim territory.
I still don't know how much backlash an atheist in Egypt or Iraq gets from being a known atheist or how courageous, if at all, it is to be an open member of this group, knowing full well that one's Muslim friends would quickly find out that one thinks belief in Allah is full of crap.
I found out about this group because my blog happens to be one of the many GREAT atheist blogs linked on their Facebook site. They do have very good taste it seems.
I'm not courageous enough to join that group yet. What would my non atheist friends and family think? Do I need to explain myself that much to them? Besides, I'm not an Arab and I don't live in a Muslim country, so I'll use that as my excuse for now.
I stay away from my atheism on my Facebook site for the most part, though I do identify myself as a non believer and I have a few atheist bloggers as my friends.
I'm curious what the description of The Intellectuals group means. Maybe one of my readers can help me out. Here it is:
جروب لأرشفة أهم المدونات والمواقع والمنتديات الإلحادية واللادينية -والمناهضة لمظاهر الظلام الديني- على شبكة الإنترنت
