I'm Hemminta Metta and I'm Jessica Limke and you're listening to the

podcast for Friendly Atheist.com you can now listen to all of our episodes and see show notes at

friendly atheist podcast.com. By the way we now have a merchandise shop on the

website so if you want your podcast swag and you know you do go to our website

and click on the store tab.

Sarah Hader was born in Pakistan as a practicing Shia Muslim.

She moved to Texas and in her late teens began reading the Quran critically.

So it wasn't long before she became an atheist. In 2013, she co-founded ex-Muslims of North America,

where she advocates for the acceptance of religious dissent

and works to create local support communities for those who have left Islam.

Sarah, thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you for having me.

It's great to be here. Absolutely.

So one of the questions that we wanted to ask right off the bat is I know you've been asked this question before but what did you read in the Quran that made you think all right this is not for me? Was it something you read in there or was it something else that made you become an atheist?

Well I mean I think for for me and probably for many ex-

it wasn't just there wasn't one particular thing that sort of broke the camel's back

there were there were many different cracks that started happening

around the same time so there was one period where I officially began to question

and I said this before many times and I'll say it again because I think it's worth mentioning.

The effect that meeting other atheists

had on me was, I think, I mean I just think that nothing else could have done the same kind

of, could have had the same kind of effect.

...