I REALLY HEAVILY considered becoming Muslim (born and raised Catholic in USA) after I learned about a bunch of atrocities in the Middle East and being at a horrible point in my life AND admittedly wanting to LARP as a different kind of Cis-het White Guy in the USA. I wanted something different but I’ve ultimately become an atheist with heavy sympathies towards Catholics and Muslims. Call it basic, but I’ve come to terms with it. A lot better than when I was a little kid and had a vague view of Muslims as weird or bad because everyone on TV said Muslims were Osama Bin Laden. I can’t express enough how much I regret these feelings but I’d be outright lying if I said I wasn’t born out of Islamophobic beliefs as someone born in the early 2000s