Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Hello Blogosphere

OK, so I'm finally starting my own blog.  I wonder if anyone is going to read it, but I guess it doesn't really matter.  The purpose of this blog is mainly to give me a place to vent and rant.  I'm going to write mostly about contemporary issues relating to the rise of religious fundamentalism in the United States, the assault on reason, and the grotesque incompetence of the current administration in the White House.  Maybe along with the zillion other blogs out there on the net, this will be of use to some future historian who is trying to make sense of the early part of the Twenty-First Century.

So, about me:  I'm a 45-year old American male.  I'm divorced and have two young children.  I have an undergraduate degree in Geology from a well-known university in California and a Master's degree in computer geekery from an old Ivy League college in New England. I've worked as a software developer for the past twenty years primarily in the aerospace field.  I like to think that I'm well-read and well-informed about politics, history, science, and life in general. Others may disagree with me on this.

I'm an atheist.  I'm an atheist because I find no credible evidence that any god or supernatural entity exists or ever has existed and I find very solid and convincing evidence that God is entirely a human invention.  No, I can't prove that God doesn't exist and I can't be 100% sure that He does not exist, but I can say the same thing about unicorns and the Tooth Fairy.  Yes, being an atheist puts me in one of the most (unfairly) distrusted minority groups in the United States, but the evidence is what it is.

So I'm going to write about how destructive I believe that religion is to society.  I don't believe that religion is the cause of all of the World's problems, but I do believe that the World would be a much more peaceful, humane, and compassionate place if all theistic religions were to suddenly vanish.