Atheist in the Maldives Kills Himself

I don’t think anybody in can in good conscience go for vacation in Maldives until they clean up their oppressive system there.

It’s country where you get executed for thinking freely, thanks to a strict interpretation of the Sharia.

Whenever I debate moderate Muslims I hear they are tolerant. The Qur’an says: “There is no compulsion in the religion.”

I get cognitive dissonance every time the real world becries this claim. In this case I’m outraged. Just like atheists need to be assertive, it is high time that tolerant Muslims become assertive and say no to this kind of stuff.

It creates a very odd and bad dichotomy if it’s always the non-Muslims criticizing Islamic regimes for their civil rights records.

If anything, I’m expecting this to turn into a spin about how there is no happiness without god.

@Hitch
It depends, there are bits in the Quran that do advocate violence, and bit’s that don’t, as well as parts that are the same with tolerance.

The problem being that a lot of the Quran lacks the historical context of when the suras were written. Generally speaking though, tolerance was advocated during the early years of it, while intolerance cropped up after the Hijra.

But for the last point though, there are muslims that do criticize Saudi and the like, but it either tends to be on interpretation of the Quran and the Hadiths, or not very publicly, since most Muslim nations don’t tolerate criticizing Islam.

I don’t know if there’s a way to fix it

Eventually the problem will fix itself… at least as far as the Maldives are concerned. The Maldives are the lowest-lying country in the world; the highest point being only 2.4 meters above sea level. Global warming has already worsened the effects of storm surges and tidal peaks upon it. Within, perhaps, the next 50 years, sea levels will have risen to the point where the Maldives will disappear beneath the waves like some repressive Islamic Atlantis.

MILLIONS were forced to their death in officially atheistic countries.

Including my grandparents, who sent my mom out with her sister.

MILLIONS.

I hold you all in contempt because your pretensions to superiority are so hypocritical.

Friendly atheists?

Gimme a break. This is barely a step above a hate site.

Randall Morrison-
It’s true that millions died in those countries, but the rulers didn’t do those evil things in the NAME of Atheism. They did it because they were power hungry, and couldn’t afford any dissent. I don’t recall Stalin sending people to prison because there is no God.

You really can’t compare a man killing himself because he lived in a society where a certain religion it mandatory to all the people who died under the reign of Stalin.

Here is another probable suicide attempt by a freethinker:

Well-known Maldivian writer and blogger, Ismail Khilath ‘Hilath’ Rasheed, 34, has been found unconscious from a suspected drug overdose on an uninhabited island in Raa atoll, according to a Haveeru report in Dhivehi.

http://minivannews.com/society/maldivian-writer-and-blogger-found-unconscious-on-raa-atoll-8565

I’ve been reading a lot comments from the minivan site since May. Hilath even stood up for homosexuals, the only one I ever seen there to do that. There is a mix of really hateful islamists and some very liberal muslims (defending freethinking and evidently evolution is taught in schools (for now)). Maldives hangs in the balance. 2004 it became an ‘democracy’ but too many only understand ‘democracy’ as the tyranny of the majority over the minority (to paraphrase a Maldive commenter).

From the comments: having an honest opinion of not believing in god needs to be ‘peacefully resolved’ (on Nazim), another commenter equaled it to ‘espionage’.

The Constitution defines every citizen as ‘muslim’ which makes for an Orwellian farce that some recognize while others want to … pretend I guess.

Under the dictatorship islam was enforced but retards like Naik Zakir was kept out. The Maldives are fast radicalizing, women are losing rights, a ridicoulus new ‘islamic ministery’ wants to puts it noose into everything, supported by parts of government unfortunately.

Hannah- In response to Randall’s comment, you make the point that Christians and Jews were sent to death by Stalin because he couldn’t afford dissent, not because of their beliefs. He sent people to prison and killed them because they believed in God.He got rid of people of faith because he wanted to set up a society that was free from the influence of religion because he was an atheist. These people were killed for their beliefs and were not free to worship as they believed. It was the same as this poor gentleman coming from the opposite end of the spectrum.

@Robert
Atheism was not his motivation. His motivation was that they dissented. He wanted people loyal to the state, not the church. He wanted no other power structure to exist that could challenge him. I would love to see anything that says “Atheism demands that I, Stalin” well, do anything. His motivation was power, not “the lack of belief in deities”.

Randall Morrison,

Don’t be ignorant. Islam and other religions have had long traditions and laws derived from scripture or authorities, demanding horrible punishment for apostasy or heresy. If you don’t know about Islam’s hadith, then you haven’t got a clue what you’re saying. If you haven’t read the Qur’an or the Bible then you don’t know what you’re saying.

Atheism doesn’t motivate anyone to do anything. Atheism has no customs that are passed on. Atheism has no laws, no scripture, and no authorities. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods. Atheism has no book that calls for punishment of non-believers. Atheism doesn’t logically lead to Stalinism or any other form communism.

Not all religions are violent or oppressive, but they’re all based on faith which can lead anywhere. It’s inherently dangerous, for example, to trust people who claim they’re talking for gods. Yet most of the main religions have prophets, religious people follow others, claiming to speak for gods. More dangerous, are those themselves who claim to speak for gods.

Actually, this news report sounds a bit suspicious to me because he was found dead at his workplace. Was foul play perhaps involved? At least in the US, only 3.5% of suicides occur at the workplace. It’s far more likely to be assaulted or killed at work. Maybe by calling it a suicide they’re shifting blame onto him and not investigating a murder. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it’s just a thought…

@ Randall Morrison
So because someone who lacks a belief in gods, yet has absolutely no connection to the regimes you speak of as well as no support whatsoever for them, chooses to speak out against a government that is actively persecuting anyone who thinks differently, you hold us ALL in contempt. Excuse the run-on sentence, I didn’t know how to tackle all that was wrong with your post. I realize you have a very emotional connection to what you see as the issue, but I assure you, you are not seeing this site/issue/situation clearly.

And it worked. We talk more about Stalin than about harm people take here and today.

I’m not bothering with Randall. Blah blah, totalitarianism as a quasi-religion blah, atheism has no creed blah. He either has an interest in investigating the reality of the beliefs he holds in contempt or he can move to the Maldives, where he can find a whole country full of intolerant small minded people just like him.

@Chaoticag, my thoughts exactly. Instead of recoiling at the horror that a man could be made so miserable by the ostracism and threats of violence due to having a differing opinion they’ll just say “This proves that atheists are all depressed Nihilists!”

I wonder, can an atheist living in a country whose official doctrine is execution of atheists apply for asylum in the US or Europe? I hope so, but if not it would be something worth fighting for.

That’s so sad. Why don’t people realize by now that theocracy doesn’t work? The leaders scare the people so much that they can’t consider changing their minds and, as we see here, even some members of of the population won’t associate with people who are not of the “right” religion — whether out of fear or hatred, I don’t know.

I don’t know what can be done here. The only way to improve the situation is to change people’s minds, but that requires the willingness to talk with others of different religions and realize that they are regular good people. With the laws against different religions, people may be afraid to associate with non-Sunni Muslims just out of fear of the government.

Recently, I read about another very sad news story, about a woman who was convicted of adultery and faces execution.

http://www.irshadmanji.com/im-with-the-world-cup-over-theres-a-new-way-to-a-world-citizen

(In this case, the blog post is by a Muslim who is speaking out. It’s a step, but there have to be more Muslims speaking up about these kinds of human rights violations, or there’s going to be the inevitable accusation that the calls for reform are just interference from the outside. Reform in Islam can’t be done unless Muslims are a part of it.)

@Randall: I assume you don’t like it when people accuse all religious people of being hateful based on the actions of a few, so please don’t assume that all atheists are hateful based on the actions of a few. You say that this is a hate site, but Hemant and various commenters have expressed concern for religious people who were being discriminated against as well. Do you care when others are being discriminated against, or do you only care when it’s people of your own group?

@Randall,
As a former cold warrior and rabid anti-communist, I do understand where you are coming from. I regret any pain or suffering your family and others have had to endure because of communism. Know this, however…the political systems that you despise were pseudoreligions in and of themselves.
Why do you think so many “atheists” in the former Soviet Union immediately converted to Islam or Orthodox Christianity after the fall of the Evil Empire? They had spent their entire lives in worship of the state…not in atheism. My wife was raised in the Soviet Union. She is just as superstitious as folks from my father’s village in southern Lebanon. Why? She was told there was no god, but she was never raised to think for herself. There are those who are atheists in the loosest sense because they are told there is no god. There are those who can think for themselves and have come to the conclusion that there is no god based on experience and critical thinking.
I’ve seen your anti-atheist rants here before. I ask you to think about what I’ve written and reconsider your point of view in light of the facts I’ve brought up.
Atheism or no atheism, some people will do evil and some people will do good.

@ Claudia

Possibly, although I have no idea whether they would accept the idea of asylum. Either way, it might be safer to do what I plan to do and apply for a citizenship secretly. It’s that, or live a lie of sorts in my case, or death, but I can justify moving to the US for career reasons to my family, should I choose not to cut off ties.

It’s gonna be a loooooooong wait.

@Hannah C,
You were right, don’t be so quick to back down. 🙂
The issue is that there was only room (in Stalin’s mind) for one system that would exert control over the population. It’s not that these groups were religious and that Stalin was an atheist, it was that religion by its very nature is a competitor with politics for the control of men.
How else does one explain the constant struggle for power between the Catholic Church and monarchies throughout the history of Europe?
Atheism was and is irrelevant to the discussion. It’s about competing systems of control and manipulation. Soviet style communism was one such system. So is religion. In Russia, it came down to who was the toughest and meanest kid on the block. Religion lost, Soviet communism won.

All it takes is one good atheist to disprove the notion that “goodness comes from believing in God”. There are plenty of good atheists. There are also plenty of bad believers in God. Whether or not someone is good or not is dependent on many factors including how grounded they are in the notion of doing as little harm as possible and helping and being fair to as many people as possible.

We can all agree that Stalin was an example of a bad atheist. But no generalizations can be made from that fact.

Muggle, my point was not to say that all atheists are bad. I know better. My only point was that you can’t separate Stalin’s atheists views from his acts and merely call it politics. As for Hitler, you are not claiming that he performed his atrocities in the name of Christianity are you?

@Molly – That was my immediate thought, too, when I read “at work,” and on rereading, I saw phrases that made it being murder even more likely. If he was afraid for his life, why would he sacrifice it?

Robert,

“Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of communism”- Lenin

“our program naturally includes the propaganda of atheism”- Lenin

The two were tied together. In order to pursue their communist agenda, they had to promote atheism and persecute religion.

If you don’t think that their atheism played a part in their murder sprees, and that it was really just control and politics, would you then please quit saying that religion has caused wars. You can’t have it both ways.

Lenin was right, atheism is a part of communism, more specifically Leninism. Communism is not a part of atheism. No one is denying that communist regimes promoted atheism. The two are not tied together, that’s ignorant and false. You’re absolutely right, as a communist agenda they promoted atheism. It’s communism that motivated their actions. Leninism and Stalinism, plus various other forms of communism, forcefully promoted atheism as part of their ideology. I have no problem saying that Stalinism led to the deaths of people because they were not atheists.

Atheism has no ideology, no book, no authorities. No one has an “atheist agenda” or does something because they are an atheist. Atheism is just a lack of belief in a god or gods. How could atheism play a part in murder sprees? Murder does not logically follow from atheism. You say “because of his atheism” or “his atheist views”, you are wrong, those phrases are illogical, and show your complete ignorance of atheism. Atheism doesn’t naturally lead to communism, libertarianism, democratic socialism, or any other secular ideology.

Do wars logically follow from religion? It depends on the religion, obviously, but the way in which religion is created, through irrational belief in authorities such as prophets, books, and preachers, religion could promote anything. I guess you think religion has nothing to do with the various wars over the “holy lands”, including crusades and the creation of Israel. Apart from that example, religion usually only plays a minor role in motivating wars, it’s good at justifying the violence when it has already started, as religion is often present within militaries. However, you cannot say religion hasn’t motivated governments to kill large proportions of groups it doesn’t like, religion has many murder sprees of its own. Heresy and apostasy were punishable by death in both Christian and Muslim states for centuries.

People should read the communist manifesto.

There is one key justification of the use of force in it:

“If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.”

No trace of atheism in that justification. The justification for the use of force comes from the Marxist notion of class struggle, not of atheism.

But yes, the communist manifesto describe a post-religious utopia too. But that doesn’t mean that all atheist are post-religious utopian or that all post-religious utopias have to come about through the violence of communist class struggle.

In fact those two qualities, the totalizing nature of the utopia, and the permission to use force to bring it about are the key criticisms that I would leverage against communism.

Neither of these criticisms have to do with religious disbelief.

It’s a critique I have for any world view that is totalitarian and permits force to implement it.

Getting back to the original topic, I’ve been looking for Muslims mentioning this case online, but there’s pretty much nothing out there.

There are some Muslims standing up against the persecution in the comments here, but there’s also a whole lot of victim-blaming going on:

http://minivannews.com/society/hanged-air-traffic-controller-sought-asylum-for-fear-of-religious-persecution-9381

Because they did not believe in God and didn’t want anyone else to either, they persecuted those who did.

No, that is not why. Please read the pages Godless Monster mentioned. Also read The Black Book of Communism.

“atheism is integral to communism” does not mean “communism is intregral to atheism” or “communism is a natural result of atheism”

A->B does not mean B->A

As for the comment that Atheism does not have an agenda and no one does anything because they are an atheist, that simply isn’t true.

Atheism does not have an agenda. Individual atheists have agendas. Not all atheists have the same agendas.

Atheists certainly have an agenda of removing any reference to God or religion from public places, our schools, our currency, and even from prayer at city council meetings. That is why they file lawsuits and protest.

The “reference to God and religion” that appears on our currency is the official national motto of the United States, “In God We Trust.” It is the official national motto of the United States by an act of Congress in 1956 and is found in the United States Code at 36 U.S.C. § 302.

Can you explain, Robert, how this conforms to the First Amendment to the Constitution, which provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”? What is the purpose of the national motto except to imply that those who do not “trust in God” are not to be regarded by all right-thinking individuals as part of the “we” who make up the American people? Do you think that if Congress were to respect the Constitution here, and, oh, I don’t know, revert to the original (if unofficial) national motto, “E pluribus unum” (which one can still find on the reverse of the nickel), God Almighty would reach out and smite our country with the mightiest of smites?

P. Coyle,

My point was to counter the notion that nobody does anything because they are an atheist. Those to have agenda’s to promote atheism or to remove religion from the public places do so precisely because they are atheists.

As for your other questions, this is not the proper thread for that discussion, but at the risk of opening it up I will briefly respond. The founding fathers of this country were Christians. They believed in God, but they also believed in religious tolerance, including the tolerance not to believe. They were fearful of the state promoting any particular religion as part of any mandated requirement or establishment. I don’t think they were concerned that some people might not believe that this nation was founded under God or that they trusted him. Agree with it or not, but this country was founded by religious people seeking religious freedom and built a country with that premise in mind. It is part of our history. It doesn’t mean that they were also building a country based upon religious freedom and tolerance.So I don’t think that this motto violates the First Amendment in anyway.

Robert,

How could anyone do anything because they are an atheist? It makes no logical sense. Atheism doesn’t necessarily lead to these actions. It never does. No one denied that Stalin was promoting atheism. Your belief that atheism played a “role” makes no logical sense, and is completely ignorant and false. A lack of belief in something is not a motivation to do anything.

Also your example of an “atheist agenda” is pathetic. Some theists are against government establishment of religion, believe it or not, some theists actually approve of the US constitution. Deists have traditionally been against it, many deists were behind the ideas in the constitution. Some atheists are actually for government establishment of religion. Being an atheist doesn’t lead one to be against government establishment of religion, as it doesn’t lead one anywhere.

Plutosdad and Aj,

I said “a” reason, not the only reason. Promoting atheism was part of their overall plan to control their people. Don’t look to God, look to the state. The way they did that was to actively teach in schools and elsewhere that there is no God and to persecute, kill and destroy religious institutions. If they weren’t atheists they wouldn’t have promoted that. So not only is it logical that their atheists beliefs motivated them, it is a fact. But I never said it was their only reason.

My only point when this all started was to counter the notion that atheism played no part in their killing of millions of people. It clearly did.

Robert,

If they weren’t atheists they wouldn’t have promoted that. So not only is it logical that their atheists beliefs motivated them, it is a fact.

It’s true that if they were not atheists they wouldn’t have promoted atheism. You seem to have an inability to think logically or you do not understand what “motivated” means. A lack of belief does not motivate. How could a lack of belief impel someone to do anything? The truth is that Stalin had other beliefs that compelled him to forcefully promote his ideas, and that if he was not an atheist, would equally have motivated him to forcefully promote those other ideas. His actions have no connection with atheism, atheism was a goal, not a motivation.

Think for a minute. You lack belief in something. What should you do? Your answer should be obvious.

Those to have agenda’s … to remove religion from the public places do so precisely because they are atheists.

I don’t know who, in this country, is arguing for “removing religion from the public places” under cover of law. A good many people are in favor of not using government power to promote religion. Not all of those people are atheists by any means. The current director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State is Rev. Barry W. Lynn of the United Church of Christ. Unless I miss my guess, he’s no atheist. His organization is dedicated to the proposition that “church-state separation” is “the only way to ensure religious freedom for all Americans.”

The founding fathers of this country were Christians.

Except, of course, the ones who were not — that is, the deists among them. You might consider cracking open a history book some time.

Would we be correct to suppose that, if you think that the motto “In God We Trust” is constitutional because you think the founding fathers of this country were all Christians, you also think that it it would be perfectly constitutional for Congress to adopt, as a national motto, “In Jesus We Trust”?

I don’t think that this motto violates the First Amendment in anyway.

Is plain English your second language? How is an act of Congress providing for an establishment of religion not a violation of the express prohibition in the First Amendment against any act of Congress providing for an establishment of religion?

Nearly all elephants are grayish, but not all gray animals are elephants.

Watch out for those atheist gray elephants though, they killed millions! And eat babies.

Robert I think the point is there is a difference between saying

A: “X was killed because he was a christian (and it motivated him to action)”

B: “Y was an atheist and promotes it”

and

C: “Y killed X because Y was promoting atheism”

those are totally different statements, and A+B does not imply C.

Randall Morrison and Robert.

Whether Stalin or Lenin were also atheists is a side issue.It was the tyranny and abusive ruler what caused the problems.

If it wasnt you should expect to see atheists as a group all wishing death on all the faithful folks even today.

This isnt happening.

Robert,

You do not understand. A lack of belief has never motivated me, and you cannot come up with a single example of when a lack of belief motivated you. A lack of belief in gods contains not motive content. You cannot say an action was performed “because of atheism”, it makes no sense. It also makes no sense to say “atheist beliefs”, it’s an oxymoron. Atheism has no beliefs, it’s a lack of them. I was an atheist without caring what others believed for many years, and there are many atheists who don’t care now. The only thing all atheists have in common is a lack of belief.

Christianity on the other hand can contain beliefs with motive content. You’ve read one, “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”, and that’s why Christianity can lead to action. That’s a part of Christianity’s history, belief that the Bible is the word of God, belief that other people speak for God, may not always lead to witch-hunts but they make witch-hunts likely. Some “Christians” disagree with my definition, but that’s a semantics game.

Robert,

Then you are not really communicating with us, as that is what we mean when we say we are atheists. If you refuse to agree to a definition then there no point responding to each other. If you respond to our posts using different definitions than the ones we are using then you are trolling us, you’re not interested in discussion.

Clearly belief that there is no god is different to not believing there is a god. You don’t accept that we can hold no opinion on the existence of something? I can assure you that I do not hold a definitive opinion on the existence on your god, and no opinion on many others. With this lack of belief, any action I perform is with the complete absence of consideration about any gods.

This is the semantics game I was referring to. There is one true Christianity, and it’s the one you believe. That’s not what I mean by Christianity. I don’t even know what your version of “Christianity” is, or particularly care. When I refer to Christianity, I’m not referring to the set of beliefs you hold, I am referring to the religion that spawned from the middle east and spread through Europe, and its history.

On Stalin:

All I can say is “yeah? So?”

Even if he did do everything he did *because* of his Atheism, the great thing about Atheism is that it really was *his* Atheism. We don’t have holy scriptures, we don’t have a ready-made ideology handed to us. The only thing that binds us together is a lack of belief in gods. That’s a pretty flimsey connection, if you ask me.

So Stalin was an Atheist. He was also a totalitarian. Is there any wonder that his Atheism would therefore take on the colours of totalitarianism? I share my Atheism with him (I assume, who knows what he privately believed), but not the totalitarianism. Quite the opposite, I believe that we should all have the freedom to choose our own paths and hold our own beliefs. So long as our State is secular (meaning that it serves the earthly needs of all its citizens), I couldn’t care less what those citizens believe or say.

In other words, it’s very difficult to judge all Atheists based on the beliefs and actions of one Atheist. Atheism is simply a negative position – “I do not believe in gods.” Some of us are totalitarian, some of us are Humanists, some of us are Secularists, some of us are Communists, some of us are even “naturists” who believe in nature spirits and astral projection. Our positive beliefs come in a very wide variety.

Religion, on the other hand, is a positive belief. Most religions bind their adherents together through common scripture or culture. Therefore, it becomes legitimate to decry the religion as a whole (regardless of individual expressions, since people are very good at ignoring their own religious doctrines when these conflict with their internal sensibilities) based on that religions scriptures and/or dominant expression.

So when I read the Quran and see that it provides instructions on how to beat one’s wife, I am legitimate in saying that Islam is a sexist religion. When I read in the Quran that God hates all non-Muslims and will punish them (or keep them alive and prosperous so that they have the opportunity to accumulate more sins so that God can take even more pleasure in torturing them after death, as the case may be), I am legitimate in saying that Islam is intolerant.

But if you read something you don’t like in a book written by Richard Dawkins, all you can legitimately say is that you disagree with Richard Dawkins (as do many Atheists).

Pete,

If i changed the sentence to read- I believe that there is no God based upon the evidence or lack of evidence is the same as I don’t believe there is a God based upon the lack of evidence, it would be the same.

I am not saying that belief in God or the belief that Gos doesn’t exist aren’t both based upon evidence. It is not my position that belief in God is a blind faith.

Unless you know for absolute certain that there is no God, then you are relying on a belief that there is no God. You can say it is based upon a lack of evidence that you accept as evidence, but unless you are 100% certain, it is still a belief. I would say a belief in the negative.

Marlow- i don’t disagree with most of what you have said. However I would say that selecting select scriptures and using that to decry the entire religion is not legitimate. For example you might find certain aspects of Christianity sexist if taken out of context or not in light of the entire scripture or religion. But in my opinion true Christianity is far from sexist.

Pete,

I of course would disagree that there is an equal amount of evidence that talking donkeys exist as there is that God exists. I of course do contend that there is plenty of evidence that God exists.

I would argue that it takes more of a blind faith to say that God doesn’t exist. It does come down to a translation of the evidence I see but based upon the evidence, but in my opinion it is far more rational to believe in God then not.

In the end, when we both look at the evidence, we decide and choose what we will believe based upon the evidence we see. Or as you put it, as we translate it.

Good morning Pete,

Your test is purely a test of evidence based upon our physical senses. The evidence for God goes beyond the physical senses.

It is an illogical argument to test the evidence for snakes and donkeys and then to say that because the evidence for God is not the same, then God doesn’t exist. That would be like saying, let me show this donkey, now prove to me that your car is a mammal.

Our evidence for snakes and donkeys is based upon what we see, touch, and maybe smell or hear. If you touch a animal without legs that has a forked tongue,and crawls on its belly you might say its a snake. But you can only say its a snake when you look at what others have called it and defined it as a snake. It is still a translation of the evidence before you. Your translation of that evidence could be wrong. For example, alot of people call a tomato a vegetable, when in reality it is a fruit. Its the same evidence , but a different conclusion. One is wrong and one is correct.

From the evidence I have, which is not just based upon my physical senses of seeing, touching, smelling or hearing, I translate that evidence that there is a God. Atheists look at the same evidence and conclude that it isn’t enough and therefore there isn’t a God.

When I see a snake or a donkey, I see evidence of creation which to me is some evidence of God. Atheists don’t see that evidence the same way. But the evidence of God is not just our physical senses.

Why do i say that it is more rational to look at the evidence and conclude that there is a God? Let me give you an example. An atheist must believe that since there is no God, that despite unbelievable odds and despite the fact that everything had to be unbelievably accurate with no tolerance for error, that the universe randomly put all of these atoms together in just the correct way to form itself and ultimately to us. And they must believe that knowing there was a starting point for the universe, that something came from nothing, which goes against all the laws of science as we know them. Believing in unfathomable odds and something starting from nothing despite it defying the laws of science you hold as true is not rational in my opinion. If you think so, then I would ask if you play the lottery and if not, is it because you think the odds are against you?

Now if you believe that it is rational for you to conclude that despite the lack of evidence that can be answered now, you hold to the belief that the universe was created on its own without God, then you are believing that based upon faith. Faith that science has accurately explained everything up to this point and faith that with further study more evidence will come.

In my opinion, the ultimate test for truth is this- can the idea stand without being fallible by its own definition and can the affirmative be undeniable. If so then you have truth. In my opinion, God and ultimately Christianity meets this test and atheism does not.

If you are willing to explore the evidence of God that goes beyond just our physical senses then i am happy to engage in that discussion.

“The 1997 Constitution of the Maldives designates Islam as the official state religion. The Government interprets this provision to impose a requirement that all citizens must be Muslims. Freedom of religion is restricted significantly. The law prohibits the practice by Maldivian citizens of any religion other than Islam, and the Constitution precludes non-Muslims from voting, obtaining citizenship, and holding public positions. The president, who is required to be a Sunni Muslim, is the ‘supreme authority to propagate the tenets of Islam.'”

That was, admittedly, from Wikipedia, but yes, Maldives is a Muslim country.
Second of all, he never said Mohamed Nazim died; he said Ismail Mohamed Didi died.