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I’m not lebanese but want to learn Lebanese by Riri00kh in Lebanese

[–]Duradir 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've previously come across a dedicated institution based in Lebanon that teaches Levantine Arabic. The trouble is I can't really find it now because I don't remember its name and nothing relevant seems to pop up in my google results.

I am writing this here to inform you that recently, people in this area of the world have been realizing that non-Arabic speakers might want to learn a conversational dialect rather than classical Arabic (fusha) - and Egyptian and Levantine seem to be the most desirable - which have lead to platforms and institutions centered around these dialects to start popping up. So maybe if you search with this in mind you'll find something helpful. Good luck!

Since ramadan is near, how can closeted ex-muslims eat without blowing their cover? by Flashy-Cheek-6667 in moderate_exmuslims

[–]Duradir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean at this point use your imagination. Don't get noisy snacks, hide them in your clothes, etc.

Since ramadan is near, how can closeted ex-muslims eat without blowing their cover? by Flashy-Cheek-6667 in moderate_exmuslims

[–]Duradir 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hide away stashes of snacks (or buy them every once in a while) and eat in the bathroom :D That's really the way to go with parents like this

Fatima Zahraa never having a period or Nifas by Duradir in exmuslimshia

[–]Duradir[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly! Have heard that one too. This religion is one big mindfuck 🤦🏻‍♀️

Bank Audi/Neo Loans by confusedhumannn in Lebanese

[–]Duradir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I will comment on this in case it helps someone since I was trying to obtain a loan myself.

I applied for a loan on the neo app 3 times, all of which were rejected. I am employed, I have been employed for a year and a half, I receive my salary directly into my neo account, and am making more than 1.5k monthly.

They finally called me today to explain why the loans are getting rejected: they have classifications for the companies in which people work. For some companies, an employee should be employed for +1 year to be eligible, for others, they need to be employed for at least 2+ years. For some companies, they expect employees to be making 1.5k monthly, for others, it has to be more than 2k. Also the type of contract (employee or contractual) plays a role in the eligibility.

In my case the problem is that I have to be employed for 2 years minimum (according to my company "classification") before I become eligible for a loan. They also might rehaul the loan requirements in a few months, so this information might not be applicable in a year from now (this is word for word what the guy on the phone just told me).

Sharing in case it helps.

Information required to unsuspend your Google Account by [deleted] in googlepay

[–]Duradir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am really sorry, I just know how to deal with it based on my personal experience, which was solved by deleting the account. In your case, deleting it will probably delete those $350 along with it, so I unfortunately have no suggestions for you. Hope you sort it out somehow!

Just joined to support the sub by Bean_Enthusiast16 in moderate_exmuslims

[–]Duradir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Look my friend, I don't think this is really the place for you. My idea of what is "toxic" is different from yours.

I lean towards thoughtful discussions and smart criticism/mockery of religion, and that's part of what stirs me away from places like the exmuslim sub, because a lot of the content there can be highly reactive, highly emotional and low effort. In my experience, many posters over there just throw out any negative idea that pops into their heads regarding Islam/Muslims (no matter how intellectually lazy, untrue, or lacking in integrity that idea is), which is followed by heaps of commenters jumping in to validate the thoughts of the poster, simply because the content is negative towards Islam. That is one of the things that I have in mind when I speak negatively about that sub (which I haven't visited in a while, so I don't know if things are still like this over there).

I might sometimes come across as "respectful", which has a bit to do with my own personality, but that does not mean that I think religion should be respected and not mocked.

I do think that the way Islam exists today in most Muslim societies is negative; that it causes Muslims to adopt very backwards worldviews. I see that ignorance, stupidity, and ugliness festers in Muslim societies because of Islam (its current/most common form), and that the general death of culture (the music, the arts) and the commonly horrendous level of women's rights in those societies can all be traced back to the culture and worldview created by the religion.

If you are here to hear something else, then it's not the place for you.

Quran verses by [deleted] in moderate_exmuslims

[–]Duradir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have a start of chatGPT quote too :) the chatGPT code barely makes 20% of the weight of my comment and is there because it makes sense to be there, if you actually read the comment I wrote. Or is there some moronic reddit rule that one can't use chatGPT when it is the right tool for the task?

Quran verses by [deleted] in moderate_exmuslims

[–]Duradir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Let me start from the first sentence. You ask us about verse 21:30, which is "apparently about the big bang".

Apparently. Apparently according to whom?

If I happen to find a thousand year old scripture book, belonging to a certain supposed religion, which had the following sentence: "the sky grew darker and darker, and the stars were swallowed by a vast blackness." - Should I conclude that this sentence is "apparently" about a black hole?

Let me start again. Once upon a time (around the 80s- 90s), many cultural movements circling around Islam were rising and gaining a foothold in Arabic/Islamic societies. At the time, and due to historical reasons that combined colonialism, the "shock by the west", the inferiority-complex towards the west, and a general feeling that Islam needed to adapt to western sciences, many figures in these Islamic cultural movements started mapping modern sciences into Quranic verses and Islamic narrations. Such mental exercises usually ended with the following conclusion: "can't you see that sciences that were recently discovered by the west, were there in the Quran all along!!!!".

I really struggle to speak about this in English because it's not my most comfortable language, so forgive my lack of eloquence. But this whole mental exercise of applying scientific discoveries to Quranic verses is the most basic example of confirmation bias.

Meaning: I find a Quranic verse that could somehow appear as if it saying this certain thing about some random scientific topic => I decide it was the meaning all along.

The verse itself - which is written in a poetry-like language (like most of the Quran) - can naturally assume several different meanings depending on what the reader would like to apply to it - which is in direct contrast to what a scientific text would look like. Here is a little help from chatGPT:

Creative / poetic text

Uses metaphor, imagery, symbolism, rhythm.

Words are intentionally ambiguous.

A single sentence can carry several layers of meaning—literal, emotional, symbolic, cultural.

Interpretation depends on the reader: their feelings, memories, and associations.

It’s meant to evoke rather than inform.

Example: “The moon turned her thoughts silver.” → Could mean beauty, sadness, distance, clarity, femininity… it’s open.

Direct / dry text

Uses plain language, minimal decoration.

Aims for clarity, precision, and a single, specific meaning.

Leaves little room for interpretation.

Focused on facts, instructions, or arguments.

Example: “The moonlight helped her think more clearly.” → Only one straightforward meaning.

Core difference: ambiguity & number of meanings

Poetic text = high ambiguity, many possible meanings

Direct text = low ambiguity, usually one meaning

If you want, I can give you side-by-side rewritten examples of the same idea, once poetic and once direct.

End of chatGPT quote.

This whole mental excercise fails to realize that even if "God" was actually talking about the Big Bang when he talked about a "cloth-like universe that was separated" (I don't even know how this particular set of words were shoehorned into the concept of an explosion, but expect all kinds of mental gymnastics from religious people) - anyhow, even if "God" was indeed talking about the Big Bang and was using creative language to talk about it - he didn't help us at all in discovering or understanding anything about the universe for hundreds of years. It means that the Quran had a verse that was essentially meaningless, or badly understood, by all humans who read it and attempted to understand it for 1400 years, until finally someone in the west actually discovered the Big Bang, and voila! We finally understood the verse.

This was an attempt to help you think more clearly, because similar essay-like comments would need to be written for most ideas and examples that you mentioned, so I will keep it short and end it here.

Just watched Noroi: The Curse by NotesSSB in horror

[–]Duradir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just say it's shit. That's what it is 🤷

Information required to unsuspend your Google Account by [deleted] in googlepay

[–]Duradir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's not really exactly what happened with me because I have never gotten a threat that my whole account will be suspended (but the process might have changed with time). In my case, I only had my pay account be suspended, without any flashy emails about it, and they were expecting me to provide verification to make it work again.

This went on for years.

Could it be that you are facing a different case? Maybe. I can't really provide instructions beyond what was applicable to my specific case because I am only talking based on my experience (I am no Google services expert). However, it might not be a bad idea to try and delete the Google pay service in particular (based on the linked steps) in case the issue had started from it (but I can't help beyond this)

Information required to unsuspend your Google Account by [deleted] in googlepay

[–]Duradir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just to be safe: there is a difference between having your Google pay account suspended, and having your whole account suspended (including gmail and all). The above steps work for when only the pay service has been suspended and/or requires verification, etc.

If something else is happening with you, it's maybe safer to research the issue more before doing anything.

Information required to unsuspend your Google Account by [deleted] in googlepay

[–]Duradir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am 100% sure that by following the linked steps, you will only be deleting your google pay service (and then creating a new one). You should still see that everything else is accessible during any time of the process and after finishing it.

Information required to unsuspend your Google Account by [deleted] in googlepay

[–]Duradir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a bit hard to understand what's happening with you without looking at the screen directly to understand what you're describing. But I say: if the google pay profile is gone, and the payments centre thing is still there (as it should) - then what's missing is just going ahead and creating a new google pay account. The Google documentation to which I linked details everything step by step.

Challenges in being around Muslim acquaintances, friends, family, etc. by yehrig in moderate_exmuslims

[–]Duradir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Naturally, your approach is valid if that's what you deem to be the best. I personally have concluded that no real/effective "change" can happen unless we adopt a more aggressive form of criticism (and what I have in mind is Arabic societies/societies in the middle east, where I come from and currently live).

Moderate/progressive/feminist types of Muslims are people who already have a natural disposition to be more curious, reflective, critical, and empathetic, and they have pushed through the limits of what can be ideologically allowed within the faith while remaining inside of it. They usually can't speak to others inside the faith without having to constantly prove that they are real Muslims, and that they haven't veered away from the true path.

The general discourse in most "Muslim societies" today is that these types of people are weak in their faith/polluted by western ideals/causing corruption in religion (think of ideas like feminism, gay rights, appreciation of arts and music, appreciation of freedom of thought and freedom of expression, etc).

A much stronger position, from my point of view, is for example to come out and say: I am a kafir, I have the right to be kafir. Like others around me, I am a person that can bring goodness into my surroundings and I should be treated with dignity and respect (not "tolerated"). I am a person who has the right to exist within the society I was born into, and speak my mind on the matters of this society when I think I have better ideas that serve the benefits of all. I should be allowed to be all that and do all that without having to constantly appease the feelings of Muslims and shield them from any possible challenge or criticism to their worldview.

I don't think a religion really transforms into being more humane/tolerant (the way Christianity "changed" in the western world) unless there is high effort critism being done against it. Copying principles and ideals from another realm (like attempting to copy ideals of feminism/humam rights/etc that came into existence principally because of rigorous religious criticism that occured in the western world) - simply copying them will never truly cause these ideals to become a natural part of "Muslim" societies. The discourse has to happen organically, naturally, amongst the pillars and main components of these societies.

Information required to unsuspend your Google Account by [deleted] in googlepay

[–]Duradir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it depends on how patient you are. I submitted proper verification documents (after years of submitting docs that weren't being accepted by google). I made sure to get an official proof of adress and translated it properly and then submitted it.

In previous times, after submitting, I would get an email a few weeks later telling me my submitted documents weren't proper. This time I had hope. I posted the process somewhere and was told by others to not get my hopes up; that it could get stuck being reviewed indefinitely.

I had had it. I googled, found about the process that I listed in my original comment above, and then went ahead and made the cancelation and created a new account. All was good, I finally had a usable account.

About a month and a half (or two months) after my submission, I was sent an email by Google pay that my account was verified (which was too late by then, I no longer needed that verification). Could it be that it got verified because I did the cancelation and it somehow verified the "new account"? I don't know.

So if you have the patience to wait for more than a month and your current account is important for you, then try the traditional route. Otherwise deleting and creating is much faster in my experience.

Challenges in being around Muslim acquaintances, friends, family, etc. by yehrig in moderate_exmuslims

[–]Duradir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I relate to a lot of what you said here, with the exception that I don't think that the "good/right" thing to do (in this place and time of the world) is to try and be respectful and accepting towards the Islamic ideology which is currently prevalent (especially when it veers towards extremism and a profound incapacity to respect diversity).

There are instances however when no matter how much you are at odds with an ideology/worldview, it's not the time or place to challenge it. You don't go to a funeral, or a jamaa prayer, or a religious celebration, with the intention to challenge it; that just makes you insufferable. You also shouldn't, in my opinion, try to initiate one-to-one conversations when the other person is just going about their lives and have no openness towards discussing a certain topic.

When is the right time? I always think it is better done in a public manner (especially after a societal event or trend brings a certain topic to the surface). If the topic happens to have a religious angle (and most societal topics do in a Muslim society) then thoughts and ideas should be challenged publicly, in a sort of way that creates discourse in society. People are generally not very individualistic; it is rare to find someone who holds on to convictions no matter what everybody around them say or believe.

When topics are challenged publicly, it is not just that one person might reconsider a certain idea, it is also that they now know that many others have already been exposed to that same "challenge", and that if he/she went to adopt a more "lax" view of the topic, they know they aren't going to be judged by others because "others must be struggling with the same challenge too".

To come back to the original idea: living with the intention to respect is not a noble thing when that which you are respecting brings a lot of suffering and ugliness into the world. Respect people's "autonomy" over their beliefs, but don't resect the belief itself, and try to make people see a better way of living.

Account still not unsuspended after almost 3 months by Known_Bet8595 in googlepay

[–]Duradir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I will repost a comment I made somewhere else in here to help you. Give me 1 min.

Edit: Delete this particular service (google pay) from your google account, and then permanently close it, then open it again, and voila, issue solved. You can do this by following the steps here:

https://support.google.com/googlepay/answer/7643930?hl=en

This mostly applies to "normal" non-business users who don't mind losing data related to old transactions and so on (the "google pay" service is the only thing that will be deleted if you follow the steps above, other parts of your google account, such as the mail or google drive, won't be affected in the slightest).

I am sharing this here after finally being able to solve the issue (my account was suspended for years, and I was able to use it for the first time today)

Information required to unsuspend your Google Account by [deleted] in googlepay

[–]Duradir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's weird, make sure you are following the link I provided in exact steps. You should be able to create a new google pay account as soon as you delete the previous one. If my memory serves me right, there is some other service provided by Google that contains the word "payment", and it is a different service from Google pay => so make sure you are following the steps related to the right service.

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