I hate Islam. There’s just a problem with it, but people defend it to the bitter end. I grew up in a Muslim family, but compared to my cousins, our parents never forced us to participate in it. We weren’t forced to pray, we weren’t forced to wear a hijab, and we were allowed to wear revealing clothes, experiment with our appearance, and so on. I’ve known since childhood that I don’t believe in God, and I never went through any phase of denial or anything like that. But my deep hatred stems not even from personal experience, but from seeing how my sister (again, my cousin) suffers. She really wants to take off her headscarf, wear pants and short skirts, and be more open, but her father won’t let her. She cried—I’ll never forget it. Just to be clear, I am strongly opposed to genocide and the oppression of people based on their religion, and I am strongly opposed to what is happening in Palestine. But I can’t stop hating Islam. And many believers make me hate it even more. Sorry if this sounds harsh—I was writing this in the heat of the moment :(