Life in an Islamic state was becoming exceedingly lonely for a newly formed atheist. He yearned to share his experiences and thoughts, and took to Orkut( think Facebook pre-Facebook, for foreign countries) to create what would become the spiritual predecessor to The Atheist Republic. Beyond his initial fears, he was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see so many people join his community, and discuss the topic at hand. He was elated to find others like himself. The crazy notion of a nonexistent God certainly didn’ t seem so crazy anymore.
Armin wished to reach more people, he wished to touch a larger audience. His intention wasn’ t to convince people that God didn’ t exist, or that religion is a lie. He simply wanted to find more atheists, discuss God and religion with any interested parties, but above all he wished for people to be made aware that atheism was a legitimate option. It was one of his life’ s greatest unfairnesses that he wasn’ t given a chance to choose, and he wished to ensure no one else would ever have to go through their formative years so blindly again.
Unsatisfied with the current reach and exposure of his“ Free yourself from religion” endeavor,( and largely spurred on by the popularity of Facebook and concurrent decline of Orkut) Armin moved on to the next phase in his development. In 2011 he started a page on Facebook. The main purpose of this page was to let everyone know about the many people who didn ' t believe in God, provide an invitation for them to explore these ideas if they were interested. But more than that, he wanted to create a community for atheists like himself, like you and me. He wanted us to feel less lonely and ashamed. He wanted us to know that not only are there others like us, but that there are people out there willing to listen, support and guide us. To this end, he created the private portion of The Atheist Republic.
The rest, as I’ m certain you’ re all aware, is what we have here now. The Atheist Republic means something either slightly or very different for each of us, and this is simply Armin’ s take on the matter, as well as its inception. I’ m certain your own experiences and thoughts regarding our community may be quite different. I just felt the need to share the creator’ s point of view with all of you.
P a g e | 13