The First Step

According to Wikipedia, 60.4% of Malaysians are officially Muslims, 19.2% Buddhists, 9.1% Christians and 6.3% Hindus, 2.6% Confucianism, Taoism. That leaves 2.4% of Malaysians for other faiths such as animism, Sikhism and Baha'i. What about atheists?

Atheism is not a religion, but if you are an atheist, you clearly do not belong in any of the groups stated above. Let's assume that of the 2.4% of Malaysians who belong to other faiths, 10% of them are avowed atheists. So with a population of 26 million people, we should have about 62,400 atheists in Malaysia. That figure may be higher because some people who profess to belong to a religious group, are fundamentally atheists, as in, they do not really believe what they ought to believe yet chose to be identified with the group for various reasons. But let's just take this figure of 62,400 atheists. Who are they? Which parts of they country do they live in? What are their jobs? What is their educational background? Are they happy with their lives? Are there any prominent Malaysians who are avowed atheists? What's their story?

Clearly, not very much is known about atheists in Malaysia. The obvious reason is that atheism is simply disbelief in God or gods and religion. It is not a faith, atheists do not congregate every week, atheists do not plan to take over the world, atheists do not challenge other peoples' beliefs and lastly atheists do not know other atheists. As far as I know, there isn't a single society or group in Malaysia whose common interest is the disbelief in God and religion.

For that reason, this blog hopes to serve as a meeting point for all atheists and atheistic thoughts in Malaysia. We hope this will bring together all the interesting, like-minded people who share a common disbelief. This blog is non-political and non-discriminatory. There are no political motives, we're not trying to incite religious or racial hatred among Malaysians. We're not trying to convert anyone to atheism (as I said earlier, atheism is NOT a religion) because I believe you can only become a disbeliever on your own, after careful deliberation. Maybe there are some books you need to read, some videos you need to watch, some tapes you need to listen to, some people you need to talk to or some religious camps you need to attend before you arrive at your conclusion. Point is, your (dis)belief system is a personal journey and that journey is on-going for as long as you live.

This blog will also examine and comment on various issues of interest from a non-religious point of view. We hope to employ logical, reasonable and non-biased analysis on the issues and certainly welcome input from everyone, especially non-atheists. We are always open to intellectual discussions and we hope our views will be heard by everyone (i.e. uncensored). Hopefully this is the beginning of an enjoyable ride!

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