Thanks for inviting me to make post on your blog and I will try not to disappoint you. I haven't really ever told anyone out here that much about myself and figure I should probably do that in this posting.
I tend to avoid being very open about myself even to people I know. I am a 46 yr old male who until just a little over a year ago finally started to get involved in fighting against the negative influence of religion. I knew at a fairly early age I wasn't like most of the others around my age when it came to religion. Me and one of my brothers was always getting into trouble for playing tic-tac-toe during the church services and we even got called out by the preacher once. I never bought into that 6000 year old earth belief and I think that when I asked my dad about how could the dinosaurs have lived millions of years ago, it was the only time I saw anger in his eyes at a question like this. I never got a straight answer from him but I knew not to ask it again. I know I was under 14 when I asked this and I don't think I have ever asked him another religious question. I guess I had already decided at that time I believed in something other then creationism but at the time I didn't know what it was. I can't say religion was an important part of my life at anytime and it was in vacation bible school that I knew for sure I was different then others. I was 13 or 14 and the next year I wouldn't be attending vacation bible school but would be there to help out in instructing the younger kids if I went. One of the other guys there was just to excited about how he was going to pass on the words of the lord next year. I felt embarrassed for him and it was shortly after that that I quit attending church.
I don't see myself as an atheist but I know that I am not a theist. I don't believe there is a being or force anything like what people here on earth claim there is. I don't think I ever saw myself as a christian so I have no conversion story.
I enjoy studying history for the most part and I think that is one of the key factors in deciding that religion is full of crap. I see religion not as a major factor in the evils of man but the guiding force which has caused man to make the same stupid mistakes over and over. Religion has for thew most part held mankind back until the last few hundred years. Yes they did have educational institutes but they weren't for all people but a select few. How many people who could have helped to advance mankind were denied the education they needed by religion? Even now religion keeps people who could help mankind advance from following their dreams when they were young. I have no stats on the number of people who want to go into advanced sciences or other fields but because these fields conflict with their religious views they abandon those dreams. I have a niece who could have gone into most any field she wanted but because of her religion she abandon those so she could remain blind to the facts. She isn't the only one I know that hid from facts because of their brainwashing as a child. I live in a fairly rural area that puts religion about all else and have seen many leave for college just to return when they were forced to admit that their beliefs weren't universal. Instead of facing these other views they ran back to their group of like believers.
