Being an Atheist in Malaysia

This is not to preach, debate or de-convert anyone. It is merely a documentation of the experience of one single atheist.


I am an agnostic atheist. What that means can be summarized by this simple statement: I don't know if there is a creator god but I don't believe there is - a liberating worldview as some of my fellow heathens would say. The world made more sense when there isn't any supreme beings in sky governing it and I no longer have to worry or be afraid of the supernatural. There isn't an exact date or is there any ritual to do when someone turns tail from the god concept. Although, I have heard of a de-baptism ceremony involving a blow dryer but I digress. It was a gradual process that took a couple of years. Looking back at it, all I can say for sure is that it was a period during my early 20s - before the new atheist movement began.

By current estimate, the population in Malaysia is at 31.7 million with an ethnic composition as follows: 68.6% Malays, 23.4% Chinese, 7.0% Indians and Others at 1.0%. This was from the Department of Statistics Malaysia, Current Population Estimates, Malaysia, 2014 - 2016. As for the breakdown for religion, it was not mentioned in this publication. However, in the 2010 report, where the population was estimated at 28.3 million, those who professed themselves as practitioners of Islam were at 61.3%, Buddhism at 19.8%, Christianity at 9.2%, Hinduism (6.3%), and others. Those who have no religion? 0.7% - this put the estimated number to be close to 200 thousand; this number is actually surprising for me as well. Personally, I have only made the switch, in the official records, from Buddhism to Tiada Agama (no religion) 2 or 3 years back.

So, depending on what background that one was born into, the experience would be quite different. I was raised with a mix bag of Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese religion. In any official forms or records, I was told to just put Buddhist. I did not really questioned, learned or talked about other religions until certain militant individuals came along - Christians. They were aiming to convert university students - quite active around my campus I would say. They would invite me to their church to join in their social activities. It was odd, they sang songs about this one guy and they capitalized the word "him" or "he" in mid-sentence of their lyrics. It was so annoying; My English teacher would so mad when I do something like that - still annoyed now. They asked difficult questions, questions that I have never really thought about. Questions like what do you believe in? How did the birds and the bees come into existence? What if you are wrong?

I didn't have the answers to them but I certainly couldn't accept answers like "the truth is all written in this book" or "you must have faith". Hence, in this period of endless questioning, I was beginning to be gradually more inclined towards disbelieving religious claims. I only learned that there was a word to address people who do not believe in gods from a movie named Hot Fuzz. It is a really awesome action comedy by the way - highly recommended. No, this movie did not de-convert me. I was already an atheist. Those Christian sketches and movies didn't convert me either. Please don't ban movies because they bring up issues that you don't like. I went too far off course here.

Anyway, it has not been a social suicide, for me at least. It is not a secret but then again I am not explicit about my "atheism" either. It is not the first thing that I would tell about myself whenever I meet someone. Friends of whom I have known for long time are still friends. Even after gaining this piece of information about me. Maybe there are those who had secretly unfriended me but I have no knowledge of that. No acquaintances had come up to me and said, "You're an atheist?! I want to unfriend you". I have not lost my job and in fact, I was once asked about why am I an atheist in a job interview and I got the job offer (certainly not because I am an atheist). I do have this one colleague, however, who is more than eager to point out that, "Mike is an atheist! Mike is an atheist!" whenever the topic of religion comes up with a new colleague.

As I traverse on life with this worldview and being a slave to the human condition, I have seek out those who are like minded and my story is mild compared to my other blasphemous friends who are an ex-Christian or an ex-Muslim. Letting the cat out of the bag is near impossible as a Muslim. You could be faced with passive-aggressive family members who thinks that you will go to hell. You could receive death threats from anonymous extremist online and offline. You could be wondering when the religious police will come after you. I know of a few who have exiled themselves from the country due to this. I wish that the environment here could be friendlier towards atheists but as of now, they are better off elsewhere.

Will I ever see a day where someone I know is killed just because he or she no longer subscribes to religion? I hope not. We are not that different. We still go to classes to learn of the world. We still go to work to earn a living. We still love. We still get heart broken. We still hang out friends to talk about the day before and the days ahead. There are many gods that you (the theist) disbelieve in, we just disbelieve in one more. Even though our opinions may differ, but it does not mean that we cannot be friends.