Source: The Jakarta Post
BY Harry Pearl
Agence France-Presse
An Indonesian man views the Facebook page of Atheist Minang, operated by a group of Indonesians with godless beliefs, at an internet shop in Jakarta on February 2, 2012. A defiant declaration of atheism by an Indonesian civil servant has inflamed passions in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, pitting non-believers and believers against each other. (AFP/Romeo Gacad)
As a university student, Luna Atmowijoyo prayed five times a day, refused to shake hands with men who weren’t relatives and was “more fundamentalist” than her pious Muslim parents.
But a decade later, Atmowijoyo has turned her back on Islam and is among a small number of atheists in Indonesia who live in fear of jail or violent reprisals from religious hardliners.
Leading a double life — devout Muslim on the outside, non-believer on the inside — is often the only choice for atheists in the world’s biggest Muslim majority country.
Categories: Asia, Atheism, Indonesia, The Muslim Times