What are you?

1. What is your religion?

I don't have one.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?

In Cub Scouts I realized something about "doing my duty to god and my country" didn't sit right with me.

In 6th grade I learned in social studies class that we use the word "mythology" to refer to old religions nobody believed in anymore. This knowledge very quickly lead me to realise that Christianity (and every other active religion in the world) was simply a mythology that people still believed in.

In 8th grade during a field trip to Washington DC I had my first opportunity to "claim" that there was no Chrisitan god and that the stories in the Bible were just a bunch of stories like in every other religion in the world. That was about 12 years ago.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.

My beliefs about the nature of religions finally coalesced thanks to the English teacher I had through 3 out 4 years of high school. She introduced me to Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Those two really pulled it all together for me.

4. What do you do for a living?

I'm a contractor on Robins Air Force Base. I'm a software developer.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.

BS in Information Technology.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.

Religions may be false from a factual standpoint, but members of religions can still be good people.

My name is Todd Sayre and I'm an atheist.

1. What is your religion?

I don’t have any. There’s a whole set of fantastic beliefs I don’t hold – superstitions, fantasies, religions, etc. – and they all seem profoundly equivalent on the axis of Wishful Thinking. I joke about being an "antitheist," which means "Not only do I not believe in gods, but I don’t think you should either." In the complete absence of any evidence, and in the presence of a ubiquitous tangle of ooooWEEeeeoooo silliness and con-manitry, I’m convinced that there are no such things as gods, ghosts, psychics, flying saucers, elves, bigfoots, weeping statues of Mary, or the airheaded "energy" that seems to be involved in every field of wishful new-agey nonsense.

The real world is the real world. If you refuse to listen, to watch, to think, and to study, you cheat yourself out of the possibility of learning what’s really there. If you chorus hopeful silliness at it (every religion and superstition ever invented), chanting and praying and tent-revivaling, you drown out the quiet, subtle stuff that’s really there. And you learn little or nothing new.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?

When I was a kid, I was an inveterate journal-er. Somewhere around the age of 13, I wrote "I don’t believe in God" in my journal and my stepfather found and read it. Oooh. Literally years of nastiness followed. So anyway, I STARTED to become an atheist somewhere about that time. But even as early as, oh, six or so, there were things about religion that didn’t make sense.

It took me until I was about 30 to really get the last shreds of religion out of my head, though – to get to the point where I was no longer occasionally thinking things like "What if I’m wrong and He really IS watching me?"

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.

I call it The Ten Thousand Clues. The meme is fairly new, but the way it worked out in my head is old. I know there is no Spiderman, not anywhere, not ever, NOT because I’ve searched every corner of the entire Universe, but because every bit of evidence related to Spiderman – The Ten Thousand Clues – points to a totally fabricated origin: the comic books, the actors who played him talking about their roles, the fact that the guy who created him is still alive and talks about how he came up with him, the basic silliness of the backstory (bitten by a radioactive spider??), the merchandising, and on and on.

Every adult in the West has used The Ten Thousand Clues, without knowing it, to satisfy him- or herself that there is no Santa Claus. Clues include the actions of parents, the movies, the store Santas, the various diverse guys walking around on the streets dressed as Santa, the fact that everything that flies EXCEPT Santa’s reindeer does so by some understandable or visible mechanism, the impossible physics of delivering toys to billions of households in one night, even the simple question most of us started with "But mom, how can Santa come down the chimbley if we don’t HAVE a chimbley?"

We get to the comfortable point where we KNOW that not only is there no such thing as Santa, but that there simply can’t be. The Ten Thousand Clues apply to Batman, and Winnie the Pooh, and the Tooth Fairy, and they apply to all those other mythical/fictional characters – including the ones purported to be gods.

Ain’t no Zeus, never was. Even Christians know it. Christians are Zeus-atheists. But they are also Ganesh-atheists, Allah-atheists, Quetzlcoatl-atheists, Mugugaboo-atheists, etc. I agree with them completely on this, but then go them one better by being a "God"-atheist.

The Big Magic Juju Guy, as I call him in all his many wishful-thinking forms, is simply not there. The Ten Thousand Clues say so.

This is clearly a rationally-defensible philosophical posture. The fact that you can’t get confused, superstitious people (or those who think the core of philosophy is to instantaneously think up juvenile counter-arguments to anything anyone says), does not diminish its impact.

4. What do you do for a living?

Currently, I’m a copyeditor for a big-city newspaper, but I’ve had more than 50 different jobs in more than a dozen different professions (including two entrepreneurial businesses): magazine editor, pastry chef, property manager, truck driver, meat-cutter, roofer, carpenter, porn star, asphalt plant technician, cowboy, draft horse driver, photographer, freelance writer, graphic designer, print broker, sign-maker. (Okay, I lied about the porn star part.)

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.

Some college. And a high-mileage Life Odometer.

6. Anything else relevant to the conversation that you think might be important.

Religion is the single greatest horror ever to parasitize human minds. I understand how it came about – we grew into intelligence without the benefit of parents, so it was natural we’d be feral, and have silly superstitious ideas – but that doesn’t lessen my disturbance at the severe damage it’s done and is doing to us.

Those of us walking around today think THIS is civilization, and the things we all do are advanced and modern. For me, though, I often think this is an extraordinarily dark age, and that our descendants will look back on it and see us as those kids stranded on the island in Lord of the Flies. On the yardstick of what we COULD be, we’re only a half-inch further from zero than screaming savages capering over fresh carrion a hundred thousand years ago in equatorial Africa. And religion is the vicious, selfish witch-doctor who keeps us – entirely for his own benefit – frightened, and stupid, and blind, and HERE.

One of the worst poisons of religion, seems to me, is the idea that nothing can be good except that it has some of "My Religion" mixed in it. Thus, many people believe that you can’t have compassion, or kind acts, or morality, or justice, or even honesty, without their religion – and they’re so confused about it that if you do something they consider especially compassionate or kind or honest, they might even insist that you must be a member of their faith WITHOUT KNOWING IT. (This has happened to me more than once.)

To me, the Islamic extremists who flew planes into the World Trade Center are different only in degree, not in kind, from the Christian wackos who think evolution is some kind of evil plot, the teaching of which should be outlawed.

And if I follow the spectrum of religiosity from those points of extremity to progressively more benign levels of it, there is no point where I can confidently say "THIS amount of religion, right here, is totally harmless."

...

(Forgive me for this shameless blog-whore bit: If you've read this far, I have some essays on some of this stuff, and some of my other philosophical/religious convictions on my www.HankFox.com website.)

1. What is/was your religion?
My family was nominally Methodist Christian. My parents tried to have us attend regularly when we children were young, but it was clear their hearts weren't in it. I'm a strong atheist now, having been agnostic or searching for a long time. My sister wound up converting to Judaism.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
I've been questioning belief for as long as I can remember.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
One of my earliest memories is, as a small child, telling my mother - while refusing to get out of bed - that going to church was "boring" and "a waste of time." I didn't go that day and, other than a brief period in high school when I was trying to impress a girl, haven't been back since.

I was always very analytical, and religion didn't fit. As I grew older and became more socially and politically aware, the particular branch of Christianity my family practiced conflicted with what reality showed me.

I've explored the spectrum of faith, from different Christian sects to Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. In the end, atheism was the only "faith" I could genuinely profess.

4. What do you do for a living?
I am a full-time law student, planning to practice criminal law.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing?
BA, English and Politics. JD forthcoming.

6. Anything else relevant to the conversation that you think might be important?

My politics is a mix of traditional liberalism, sensible social policies, and libertarian on most economic issues.

I started out extremely liberal, and I'm still mostly there. My early education was strongly science-oriented, particularly environmental science. I truly believed the world was dying and we had to save it. I still worry about these issues, but from a more informed perspective.

I'm becoming increasingly small-L libertarian, both on issues of personal liberty and economics. I believe in the power of the free market to be a force for good. If you can harness the power of capitalism to provide for everyone, you don't need to institute top-down government-run programs. But some things are better run by government, and these things government should do.

Atheism isn't an easy row to hoe. Beyond the bias of society and communities to your beliefs, your morality is entirely a result of your own sense of right and wrong. Ultimately, you are responsible to yourself alone. This is a high burden to carry, but there is no other way I would want to live.

My atheism is definitely linked to my politics. The origin of my consciousness in both is the same. My sense that each person is responsible for himself and that we should respect ourselves by doing what is right leads me to atheism in the spiritual/religious sense and liberalism and libertarianism in the political sense.

1. Strong atheist. Confirmed as a congregationalist; a relaxed liberal Christian sect.

2. Since late teens.

3. I was always very interested in understanding the world in general. I've long been interested in all the various sciences. As I grew up, I increasingly noticed how little God seemed to contribute to any understanding of the world, as well as discovering that many people I respected rejected God belief completely. When I got to college, I started studying philosophy, and discovered some powerful arguments for atheism (I read Hume's _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_ in my first philosophy class) and some really apallingly bad arguments for theism.

4. Teach philosophy.

5. B.A., M.A. philosophy, hopefully nearly done with my Ph.D. thesis.

6. Since people are putting their politics in 6, I might as well do so as well. I am socially extremely liberal. I also have some libertarian leanings; I believe that markets can be extremely powerful and it's important to use that power for good rather than suppress it, and I have some suspicion of any central authority. I'm definitely a follower of Adam Smith. However, I used to be much more libertarian. These days, I guess I'm more impressed than I used to be at the ways in which the wealthy can exert extremely pernicious control over others, and inclined to think that there are more cases than I used to believe where it's best to control resources democratically rather than leave them under the control of whoever happens to be in possession of them at the moment (not that I don't realize there are serious problems with democratic control. I've just changed my mind in several cases about which option has the most severe problems.) I suppose my philosophy affects this. I reject the fairly extreme political libertarianism of Bob Nozick because I reject his philosophical libertarianism (his belief in incompatibilist free will). I suspect many people who accept incompatibilist free will do so because it's the only way the free will defense against the atheist argument from evil can even get started (this is not true of all philosophical libertarians, of course; Nozick, for example, was an atheist). Perhaps I accept utilitarianism rather than any deontological theory because I can't see where any absolute moral rules could come from, while equating happiness to good seems so obvious to me I can't see why anyone would need to have it justified. My political views certainly come from my utilitarianism, so if I reject deontology partly because I reject God (though, of course, we know from Plato that even if there were a God that wouldn't give us a good source of moral rules), then my political views are influenced by my atheism.

1. What is/was your religion?
Raised Catholic. Strong Athiest now.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
Weak atheist from about middle school. Strong in the past 4-5 years.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
It just didn't make sense. Reality conflicted with beliefs professed by religion.

4. What do you do for a living?
Management Consultant/Business Owner.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
BS, MS Nuclear Engineering.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important. Economically Conservative, Socially Liberal. Environmentally Conscious.

Rationalizing at A Rational Being

1. Agnostic
2. I have never at any time believed in any God, gods, or other superstitious forces. At one time I attended UU church services with my family, and I identified as an atheist for a short while, but my beliefs have never actually changed.
3. I have always lacked superstitious beliefs, if that's what you mean. However, since I do not belong to any "organized" belief system, my various personal values and morals have developed as I have developed. I cannot pinpoint how or when I developed "my beliefs," since they each have come about through difference processes and at different times.
4. I am employed as a graduate student at an American university.
5. I am studying for my PhD at this time. I hold three bachelor's degrees.
6. I believe that a person's religious beliefs are a reflection of the morals that they have chosen to hold, not the other way around.

1. Raised in a Catholic family, strong atheist now
2. Consciously atheist by at least twelve years of age
3. Tenets of religion violated Scientific Method, personal observations of world, didn't make sense from any perspective, didn't jibe with experiences in life
4. Astronomy educator, planetarian, musician
5. Extensive college
6. Socially liberal and libertarian in practically absolute sense, politically somewhat conservative (small government that defends country, handles civic projects, cares for citizens' physical and economic well-being)

1. Weak atheism now, Christian before
2. Openly: 10 months, but over a year ago
3. Lots of reading, thinking, soul searching
4. Chemistry grad student
5. Finishing 2nd year of PhD program
6. Used to be a minister, drug addict. Was kept in faith by fear of hell and fear of relapse.

Alon, I do not consider myself an Objectivist, but I support the idea of Capitalism and limited government, so that makes me a conservative in most books. I am also strongly in favor of individual freedoms, rather than governmental powers, so that makes me liberal in some views (eg abortion, state-church separation). I find the terms con/lib are unsettling and difficult to apply to thinking persons. I make no real correlation between my lack of faith in God and my lack of faith in government.

Every so often I have an attack of the metaphysical, and claim to be a Nth Day Agnostic. N varies according to the weather.

So here are my comments:

I was raised an atheist - my father was strident about it. But I never had much interest. At 16 I converted to evangelical Christianity, studied theology and eventually had a crisis of faith that involved a girl, the prohibitiva (sins that cannot be forgiven) and some philosophy. Unable to rebuild my faith, I also realised I was unable to construct any good argument for atheism either, and decided that the question was unanswerable. A question that cannot be answered is only the form of a question, and so I decided not to believe anything at all in this respect.

I turned to philosophy as a subject, while working as a graphic artist. 25 years later I had a PhD in philosophy of science, and got a postdoc (at 49!) So now I research in the philosophy of science. I no longer do graphic art, thank the fates; I was so bored.

For what it's worth...

1. I am an atheist.

2. Only for about 3-4 years. But I have been all my life, just much too frightened to admit it.

3. My grandparents, who lived with us, were devout Jehovah's Witnesses. My father is agnostic and my mother a lapsed Catholic. Religion has never been a major part of my life. I've attended many churches, was "born again" and even flirted with Neo-Pagan movements. As I got older, I couldn't deny that I had no belief in any spirtual movement, found religion to be very silly and was tired of pretending I believed in any kind of supernatural nonsense. I didn't have any tragic event that pushed from religion or anything like that. I simply have never believed.

4. I work in retail. I hate it and am doing something about it.

5. Finally going back to school to finish my bacheleor's degree.

1. What is your religion?
Strong but quiet atheist.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
All my life.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
My family is very non-religious (we celebrated Christmas and Easter but in a very commercial way). I clearly remember a couple of things: saying to my sister when I was around 8 "god is all around us" (musta picked that up in school) and thinking that we BREATHED god (translation: god is air); and refusing to say the words "under god" during the pledge around age 9. Anyway, I was raised so non-religious that when people who know that I don't believe in a "higher being" ask me how I can NOT believe, I try to explain to them that the concept of a higher being is learned and I never learned it, so religion as a whole comes under the heading "totally unclear on the concept" for me. It's as foreign as the dark side of the moon.

4. What do you do for a living?
Currently a first year high school biology teacher. Was a research scientist (neuroscience); may go back. Public education is ****ed up.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
PhD, 5 years postdoc.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.
I think there's generally a connection between religion and politics. Most religious friends I have tend to be conservative, republican, and most non-religious friends I have are liberal, democrat. And most of my friends are scientists, so this relationship holds despite huge amounts of education (which occasionally scares the daylights out of me...)

1. None. Strong atheist, with some weird obscure reservations involving cosmology.

2. Avowed since I was about 18, but probably had no belief in god for quite a while before that. (I'm 49 now.)

3. I honestly don't remember how my atheism formed, though the clincher was when a college roommate convinced me to let him pray for my salvation in my presence. His prayer seemed so ridiculous to me that that's when I realized I thought it was all nonsense.

4. Software engineer.

5. BSc in mathematics.

6. It distresses me that exactly one belief is represented in these nearly-30 comments. Do you have no readers who aren't atheists? This isn't much of a "conversation", if so.

1. What is your religion?
Athiest, very vocal atheist. Raised in a very religous home, with a minster as a father and a mother with a degree in spiritual and religious development. Although I've been out of their grasp for about 3 years now, I still go home for Christmas, but only because thats when I get a long enough break from school to actually visit them all.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
6 years ago I was as christian as they come, then read some things, went from daydreamer to a more logical girl. Then for some reason I had a fall back into christianity for about 8 months a year later...ever did a missionary thing for aboriginal kids in Winnipeg, but then got away from it again and I've been very athiest ever since.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
My brother was very athiest, and he started writing essays to our parents as to why he shouldn't have to attend church, and about the things within christianity that he didn't believe, and why he didn't. He wasn't much of a writer, so he would make outlines, and I would write the actual essays. After reading all of his ideas, being sick of having religions pushed on me constantly, reading some books and finally getting online and reading all the logistics behind athiesm, I dropped christianity myself. Later my philosophy class with topics such as good and evil, existensialism and such...confirmed my doubts and findings.

4. What do you do for a living?
Sit around pretending to put effort into my University Education.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
Just finished my first year of University.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.
Im extremely liberal, and extreme environmentalist. I used to think I had conservative tendencies, but I don't. At all. :\ Also tres nerdy.
Just as a note - my parents seem to think the atheism is just a phase, that i'll get through eventually. Yet I think it's because of them that I will always remember how hypocritically unfair, and illogical the majority of christians I met were. My mother used to be very nice to my gay best friend to his face, but asked me several times not to have him in the house - it's not natural apparently.

I am an atheist, but I am sorry to say I have not been one long. I've been to every church there is (I grew up in Southern California) because it's what poor kids do instead of going to the movies. I haven't been inside a church since the assasination of JFK when I went to mass.

I came to atheism by way of feminism in the seventies. It struck me than that there wasn't a religion extant that any woman should do other than piss on. I am "retired" which means I do pretty much everything I did before, but my husband shares the grunt work.

I was, well, am a writer. I never earned my living any other way, though what I did was humble enough. I worked for a natural history museum, I wrote advertising and other forms of fiction, did some TV, a lot of radio, and edited newsletters for scientific organizations. My degree was in media, with a minor in science.

I am a liberal, a humanist, and a certified tree-hugger. I love Christmas and celebrate it full bore. It's about the return of the sun and celebrates the oldest love we know as human beings, the love between mother and child. The holiday is a lot older than Christianity.

1. i was raised sort of half hearted catholic, mom (dad when he was around never went, step dad isn't very relgious either though i think he believes) dragged us to church till i was about 12 though she isn't very religious i think its how she grew up and thought it was how we should be brought up too.
strong atheism these days. course thats not a religion but i'm not going to split hairs for the purpose of this questionaire

2. i don't know that i ever really believed in god just like i never really believed in santa or the tooth fairy. i'd say about 14-15 was when i changed from apathy to atheism and just recently when i got to college was about when i was comfortable telling people god doesn't exist instead of just evading the question or saying things like "i was raised catholic"

3. common sense, tempered with science. the brainwashing and oppression and bigotry of churches didn't help keep me in the fold either.
i remember in a catechism class as a child of about 5 maybe 6 i asked who made god. under the logic that if god made everything then there was nothing to make god so he shouldn't exist. the lady told me that god had always exist and that he didn't need to be created, I disagreed. that was probably the first time i really saw religion as bullshit. and it just increased from there as i got older and wiser.

4. full time undergrad student with a part time job doing data reduction for a JPL satallite, well this school year anyway.

5. 3rd year ish in a four year program for a bachlors of science in astrophysics

6. politically im extremely socially liberal with fairly moderate views economically, big fan of the concept of public education.
i'd like a more efficient less aristocratic government that respects my privacy/rights while providing social services like welfare, schooling, parks, roads and at least basic help in the medical care area. at either the local, state or national level. just to be a bit more specific than a nebulous small/large government.
um equality, privacy and freedom of expression are probably my biggest guiding "ideals"
bit of peacenik tree hugging hippy too
um other things:
big fan of freedom of information
something of a feminist i suppose though i don't like the term because it sort of denotes a preference over males.
giant computer/comic/scifi/science nerd
very pragmatic when push comes to shove.

most importantly to the subject of religion and culture i am very very anti ignorance
and i tend to see religion as willfully remaining ignorant.

1. I'm also an atheist coming from a Jewish background (as is my husband). Our practice at home was somewhat religious, but not overly so. These days, my husband and I celebrate most major Jewish holidays (and a few less major), but we try to find secular purposes in them. We choose to do these things because we think rituals are good for people, even without a deity involved. (And Judaism is good for finding secular reasons, I think. Sukkot celebrates the harvest and survival. Pesach celebrates freedom. Etc. and so on.)

2. I've been an atheist since early college, so about 15 or 16 years.

3. I gradually realized that believing in a deity just didn't make *sense*. I'm very much a practical person, not a philosophical one, and I couldn't understand how I was supposed to believe in a deity that never made itself known to me. Extraordinary claims require proof and all that.

4. I'm a part-time freelance editor and a full-time mom.

5. I have a master's degree in applied anthropology. Studying anthropology is an excellent way to either make students atheists or pagans ;)

6. For many years, I've wanted to conduct a survey of Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative Jews to see if my theory that about 50% are actually agnostic or atheist is correct. I think that Judaism (other than Orthodox) is a fairly comfortable place for atheists, because nobody really cares what you *believe*, only what you *do*.

1. What is your religion?
None. I'm also an atheist.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
All my life.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
Religious beliefs always seemed like nonsense to me.

4. What do you do for a living?
Systems Engineer for a voice and data communications manufacturer.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
Dropped out of high school. Self-educated from there.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.
I'm apolitical as well.

1. What is your religion?

None. Was raised Catholic.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?

I gradually became an atheist over the course of my teens. That, as the saying goes, is neither today nor yesterday. Let's just call it a few decades ago.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.

The stuff I was brainwashed with as a child just never made sense, and the older I grew, the more I realized that religion is just a tool to control people.

4. What do you do for a living?

Software engineer, currently unemployed.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.

PhD in Applied Math, not that I ever used it since then.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.

People seem to be interpreting this as a question about their political views. I call myself a liberal, and I believe liberalism simply means "government of the people, by the people, for the people" as opposed to autocratic rule by a privileged elite. I don't conform to any of the right-wing strawmen about libs loving racial quotas, astronomical taxes, bloated bureaucracy etc. I think liberalism is about maximizing the greatest good of the greatest number, not being bound by obsolete conventions and dogma, and hence is quite compatible with atheism (and to some extent with libertarianism.)

- No More Mr. Nice Guy!

1. What is your religion?
None - I'm strongly atheist - in fact, Hank Fox brought up a great term - anti-theist :) Brought up Hindu, attended grades 4-12 at a school run by Christian missionaries, lived in east Africa before that (attended school run by the Indian High Commission).

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs??
Openly for the past 2 decades, quietly, internally since about 4th-5th grade.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.?
Moved to India just in time to start 4th grade - could compare and contrast for myself the religion I was being indoctrinated in at home (Hinduism) and the religion that the missionaries running my school tried to indoctrinate me in (some flavor of Protestant Christianity, don't know which). Lo and behold - there really wasn't much of a contrast, and everything I observed of the life around me strongly contradicted both religions. A voracious reading habit also contributed, since I read mystery/science fiction to encyclopedias and everything in between, and exposed myself to a huge range of ideas and thought.

4. What do you do for a living?
Software Consultant, currently on assignment at the great software Satan :)

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, more than 3 decades of life experience.

1. What is your religion?

Intolerant atheist mostly at peace with my religiously observant family. Raised in rather drab mainline Protestant churches.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?

Something stank early on, when the "one nation under God" thing just didn't seem necessary or useful. It kind of built from there.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.

I'd like to say it was merely evidence, but it was more that my dislike and distrust for a given person tended to track with their level of overt religiosity. Also, see above.

4. What do you do for a living?

I'm a federal employee. Yes, yes. Make your jokes now. I have excellent benefits. :p

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.

Working on a second MA (policy analysis), after an AB in Russian & an MA in applied linguistics. Have considered going back to school in botany, but am too mired in student loan debt already.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.

Nothing at this time, but I reserve the right to chime in whenever it occurs to me.

1. I have no need for religion, as i do not believe there is a god. I was brainwashed catholic for the 1st 18 years of life.
2. I've been godless for about 15 years now.
3. It was a process of about 5 years where too many things didn't make sense. I spent a lot of time asking questions that didn't have satisfactory answers in religion. The more I researched, the less I believed. Then at some point I just knew it was all bullshit. I'm still kind of pissed at my folks, but I realize that they were brainwashed too. They just never questioned it all.
4. HS math teacher in a public school.
5. BS Mathematics
6. I strongly believe in life long learning. Always question and look for logical answers to anything you dont understand. Trust only emperical evidence.

1. What is your religion?
Non-theist. I try to acquire both wisdom and compassion, but I'm not a Buddhist or even a meditator. I believe I have a obligation to make life better for my fellow humans.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
About a decade.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
Raised Catholic by a devout mother and an easygoing Lutheran father in a very liberal church. Started questioning dogma in high school, but got derailed by depression that didn't get treated until mid-30's (being depressed makes it really hard to think critically about god and religion). Lost the last bit of theism after the antidepressants cleared my head. Along the way, did a lot of reading about feminist problems with Christianity and non-theist religious traditions like Buddhism. These helped me reject theism as well.

4. What do you do for a living?
Used to be a software engineer. Now I'm a full-time student.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
BS in electrical engineering. Working on an MS in an earth science field.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.
My sense of obligation to others, and my desire to cultivate compassion, was instilled by parents and teachers (I went to Catholic schools until college) under the umbrella of religious upbringing. I've rejected the theism, but embraced the obligation. I find this intriguing.

what did you major in? The classes you say you took certainly paint you as a person with a very broad education, at any rate.

I majored in Print Journalism and minored in English. However, when it came to electives, I took all the science I could. As I said, biology and anthropology were at the top of my list. With respect to philosophy, I jumped at the chance to take Philosophy of Evolution, as well as a broad philosophy class offered by the Honors College. For politics, I took a broad class that covered all the basics, as well as a more advanced course in International Relations.

Also, when you put scare-quotes around "liberal," do you mean that you'd be characterized as a liberal Christian but reject the label because you're not politically liberal, or that your denomination wasn't really (socially) liberal?

I guess because I personally would be considered a liberal Christian, despite the fact that the Catholic denomination is very conservative. For example, even when I was a Catholic, I was pro-abortion and pro-gay. Indeed, back then, I even was pro-death penalty, which I strongly oppose now.

1. What is your religion?
Atheist.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
About 3 years. Before that, I was a "liberal" Christian of the Catholic persuasion.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
Education at college. I took classes in biology, evolution, anthropology and philosophy. I came to realize my "religious knowledge" wasn't knowledge at all, since it conflicted with established science and history.

4. What do you do for a living?
Write for/edit a magazine.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
College graduate, summa cum laude.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.
Nothing really. Just that nature's laws cannot be "turned off" when discussing The Resurrection or something similarly impossible. If an alleged event violates nature's laws, it didn't happen.

1. What is your religion?
Parents made a weak attempt to raise us as Catholics. Mom professed a belief, but that didn't really manifest in her life--she didn't attend church at all regularly, dad refused to participate in religious activities. But somehow they BElIEVED that it would be important for us to be raised "in the church".
I am now a complete, open, avowed atheist.

2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
About the time I was eleven, I noticed two things. First of all, for all the things I was being told about this "God", I could not see or feel him/it around me, in my life or in my "soul". Why would such an all-powerful being hide from the likes of me? Second, in school and catachism, I learned about other religions. They had different Gods, different books and different rules and taboos. And it bothered me a lot that each and every one of them KNEW they were absolutely correct about the nature of this "God" just as they KNEW that the others were wrong. It just couldn't be real, it made no sense, and there was nothing approaching consensus. I decided it was so much hooey, just science fiction. While I have refined my beliefs in what religion is, what purpose it serves and how it came to be over the years, I have never looked back from my epiphany that it was all just silly bunk.

3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
Oops, got ahead of myself. Se above.

4. What do you do for a living?
Marketing geek, copywriter, web, cd, video, interactive media.

5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
Finished High School. No college. Lots of travel (US, not international, unfortunately), drugs, jobs, fights, loves, bars, books, people. I guess I have a degree in being.

6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.
I'm not sure how relevent politics are, but for the record I'm about as far left as you can get, and I get a little farther all the time. My friends say eventually I'll get so far to the left I'll meet the far right and be a fascist. I will say this. I have noticed in the last couple years with the blogs, both my own and others, like UTI, I have become a lot more open and outspoken about my atheism, and what I perceive as the evils and dangers of relions in general and theocratic zealots in particular. Then I read Sam Harris' "The End of Faith" and I have become more of a "Crusader", (ok, that was a poor choice of words) than ever before. I and saddened, angered and made afraid of what is happening in my country. There IS a war--oh, not against christianity, thats just stupid self-vicitmization to advance a specific agenda. There is a war being waged against the REAL america, the judiciary, the legislative, local, regional and national. They want to criminalize behaviors of which they do not approve, they want to take away basic freedoms, they want to live in some imaginary little walled enclave that keeps out people that are not like them. They hate the Separation of Church and State, they hate the Establishment clause, and in many cases they are dangerous, brutal and bigotted. They are the real enemy of true americans.

mikey