Hi everyone,

Some of you may have seen a post made by u/GanymedeStation before about our Wikipedia page. Me and u/GanymedeStation worked on it for a while and came up with the following excerpt. We want it to be perfect and have some sources and citations before we lay it out there, and possibly add a few more sections, so if you want to take part in this, your help would be gladly appreciated. Feel free to edit this text as you see fit, add/suggest some other parts you want to see or bring up some relevant sources to the points made here. If you are familiar with Wikipedia's format and would like to move the finished scrap over there, feel free to do so as well.

EDIT: I will edit this post based on your suggestions.

Thank you.

Irreligion in the Coptic Church:

Coptic Atheists and Agnostics are an unrecognised minority within the Coptic Orthodox Community that were formerly practising members of the Coptic Orthodox Christian church but have since denounced their faith in favour of Atheism or Agnosticism for various reasons.

Their presence is mainly limited to internet blogs and groups due to their perceived risk of retaliation from the larger Coptic community and the Egyptian Government - because of this the true number of Apostates within the church is unknown, and any estimates are unreliable.

Reasons for leaving:

Anecdotal reasons for leaving may include various cultural and theological reasons.

Cultural

• Accusations of racism and xenophobia.

• Failure to assimilate with lands of diaspora.

• Cultural role of women.

• Attitudes towards homosexuality.

• Accusations of fundamentalism.

• Attitudes towards sex from a cultural perspective.

• Cultural acceptance of circumcision regardless of ethical standpoints.

• Making children receive various religious tattoos at a very young age.

• Possible corruption in the Coptic churches.

Theological

• Attitudes towards sex from a religious perspective.

• Literal interpretation of the bible (and its conflict with modern ethical views, such as cannibalism and contraception.)

• Violent or unethical bible verses.

• Theological place of women in the church.

• Theological condemnation of homosexuality.

• Evolution theory.

• Improper baptism procedures which may cause injury to the infant's spine.

• The presence of countless religions and denominations all claiming to be "the only right one."

• Seeing parents abandoning their children for religion. (http://www.teachinghelp.org/giving-your-child-to-the-devil/)

• The change in God's demeanour from the old testament to the new testament.

• Theological views on divorce and the difficulty of obtaining one.

Prominent Figures:

Alber Saber

Alber Saber is an Egyptian computer science student and blogger who was arrested on 13 September 2012 on allegations of having shared the YouTube trailer for the anti-Islam film "Innocence of Muslims" on his Facebook page. While he was raised in a Coptic Christian family, he is now an atheist.

Maikel Nabil Sanad

Maikel was born to a Coptic Orthodox family. In May 2007, Maikel wrote a blog post mentioning that he left Christianity, and that three priests had visited him at home, insulted him, and told him not to spread skepticism in religion among his community.[5] Maikel's family never accepted his apostasy from Christianity. His father told Haaretz in Oct 2011 that "he would rather see Maikel die than to call him an atheist.".[6] Later in October 2012, Egypt's General Prosecutor opened an investigation to decide if Maikel should be charged with Blasphemy because of his writings.[7] Despite his atheism, he has delivered several speeches in several churches and synagogues in Germany and the United States about peace and democracy in the Middle East.[8]

The Coptic Church's views on Atheism:

Thoughts From Prominent Figures In Church

The Coptic church's Pope Shenouda III has unfavourable views on Atheism. He regards Atheism as thoughts waged by the devil in an attempt to cause temptation. (https://ukmidcopts.org/resources/articles-library/245-spiritual/398-atheism-and-science)

Thoughts From Copts

On other accounts they view the act of abandoning faith on the basis of scientific contradictions as taking "A Fool's Choice". (https://soundcloud.com/mmguirguis/episode-8-god-vs-science)

Morality

Copts believe the denial of God is evidence of the moral corruption in the Atheists' thinking. (http://www.evangelismcopticorthodox.org/images/Atheism.pdf)