Can you be Pashtun & be an Atheist?

[DaZahroJaam.]

One is a culture and the other, a religion. They have similarities but they are not the same. To say that a person practices this or that way of living only because they are a Muslim, would leave nothing for pashtunwali to claim at its own influence. That is not true.
Some people choose to live like westerners after losing their faith in Islam because it helps them blend in to the western society. Sometimes because they are genuinely more accepting of people and sometimes because they love giving false confidence to individuals. Now, if an individual was confident in their newfound belief, they wouldn't need that acceptance.
So it's very much possible to be a Pashtun and an atheist at the same time. People who argue otherwise, do so because they want to get rid of having to deal with the misery of not being accepted by the majority and very much judgmental bunch of the Pashtun society.

[Damir9000]

Does anybody know any historical pashtun atheists ?

I know there are pashtuns in afghanistan who simply don't care about Islam.

[Khostai]

Does anybody know any historical pashtun atheists ?

I know there are pashtuns in afghanistan who simply don't care about Islam.

I think the famous were the ones in PDPA party and I think Ansari was an atheist....

[Khostai]

And this question is quite stupid afcourse you can be pashtun and an atheist. One is relligion and the other is your ethnic background. Even if you change your way of life and relligion you are born a Pashtun and will die as Pashtun not matter what they say.

[Damir9000]

I think the famous were the ones in PDPA party and I think Ansari was an atheist....

A lot of my family fought the communist
& some were killed by them.
I also don't agree with Communism. I find that afghan communists were simply power hungry.
Let's forget about them.

I think that Ashraf Ghani is an Atheist. imo
He's from Logar too like me

[Badlun]

I am ethnically ,socially and culturally Pashtun but at the same time secular but believer in a super natural entity which may be called God or khudey or Allah but I dont agree with each word of relugious texts.
Secularism is a middle way between Islamism and atheism.

[Damir9000]

I am ethnically ,socially and culturally Pashtun but at the same time secular but believer in a super natural entity which may be called God or khudey or Allah but I dont agree with each word of relugious texts.
Secularism is a middle way between Islamism and atheism.

Secularism is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries


So you believe in God but not the current religions?

[Damir9000]

[MENTION=1034]Badlun[/MENTION]

In what city, do you live? How do you manage this life?

[Khostai]

A lot of my family fought the communist
& some were killed by them.
I also don't agree with Communism. I find that afghan communists were simply power hungry.
Let's forget about them.

I think that Ashraf Ghani is an Atheist. imo
He's from Logar too like me

You were asking about famous atheists and not nice atheist that you liked. PDPA leaders were mostly atheist. And I meant Ansari the dark elder, not Ashraf Ghani....

[Damir9000]

You were asking about famous atheists not weither people liked them or not. PDPA leaders were mostly atheist. And I meant Ansari the dark elder, not Ashraf Ghani....

Im sorry I wasn't being more specific.
I am well aware they were atrocious atheists.
I am looking for positive people.

When I hear Ashraf Ghani talking in English. He seems to be very progressive. His children aren't religious either.
He seems to be an Atheist in the closet like me.

[Badlun]

Secularism is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries


So you believe in God but not the current religions?

I believe in God as a super vital energy at universal level. This force might have inspired sages, saints,prophets etc who were revealed with books like Bible,Koran and books of Bhuddism,Hinduism etc .
But I dont believe in anti humanity verses of these books like enjoining their followers to kill others or stoning to death or cutting hands.
I just take the moral and spiritual part from religions and not the political or cultural. That is my secularism.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

By "Afghanistan discourages travel"

What I mean't to say was that the harsh climate and very rugged terrain prevents people from being able to freely move around the country.
As a consequence, It was much harder for people to move around in Afghanistan than it is now.
As result, people tend to stay in their home area. This essentially creates bubbles. The tribal areas in Pakistan is a similar case.

Members from my family agree with this.

This is a grotesque leap to suggest it means that Pashtun tribes were isolated, nevermind the fact Pashtuns were documented to have migrated to India, for battles and warfare within a relatively short amount of time considering their lack of modern transport. Couple this with the fact that Pashtuns, as well as other ethnicities had knowledge of the terrain itself, which would shorten travel. Think of how Sher Shah Suri made the grand trunk road, this would have required significant knowledge of terrain from previous data considering they did not have modern land surveying.

You're making faulty associations and extrapolating on them.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

Great Britains is composed of multiple nations.
The English nation conquered the other nations.
Each nation(English, Welsh, Scotts, Irish) occupy different Islands & Corners of Great Britain.
They speak different languages & they ethnically different

Pashtuns are Isolationists. If they weren't, they wouldn't have devided themselves as tribes. AAAAAzai, BBBBBzai, CCCCCzai etc....
There is none of this other countries, where people regularly move around & communicate with the rest of the nation.

Also, Geographically it does make sense. Afghanistan discourages travel.
But things have changed thanks to cars & 4x4.
Not to mention, People in the USA speak with different accents of English depending in what area they live.
And English was already a well established language.

You can't compare England with Pashtuns, because English had different policies regarding their subjects.

Also Afghanistan doesn't "discourage" travel, as stated before, Migration and Travel are abundantly accounted for in the annals of history. Tribes were known migrating from one place to another. For example Yusufzais were prevalent in Kandahar, today barely any are ther.

On top of that, many Pashtun tribes had for a significant time practiced Nomadic Pastoralism as a predominant ecological niche. This required distant travel. Your hypothesis fails to account for existing data about the topic.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

The Scotts, Welsh & Irish are slowly loosing their language to English.
But they aren't the same people.


I guess you do know more about Afghanistan than I do. But all I have said has comes from documentaries by people who done researches about it.
I am not making up these idea up myself.

Right and the gradient for which the Scotts, Welsh and Irish are losing their languages may differ because of policy the English had on their subjects. This analogy wouldn't apply on Afghanistan which never had such policies until Abdur Rahman Khan and different clans/tribes end up becoming absorbed into others and so on and so forth.

I don't know which documentaries or research you've come across, but it seems to me you're extrapolating from some of them incorrectly.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

Anyway, I would like to go back to topic of this thread.
Pashtun & Atheism.

Pashtun is simply an ethnic identity, Pashtunwali is a code of principles and ethics that are regarded as sacrosanct within the culture of the ethnic group.

One can be a Pashtun and hypothetically:

a.) Disavow Pashtunwali
b.) disavow Islam
c.) Adopt a different set of core beliefs or world views

in each case, your ethnic identity does NOT change, HOWEVER, your actions, views or beliefs will be contrary to the accepted norms of Pashtuns and hence you'll be shunned, ostracized or persecuted if you openly disclose it.