exploring new atheism

so this place is mostly a place to write out things i think about from here on out that are concerned with a list of things (roughly) that follows:

• how i am dealing with this paradigm shift


• thoughts on how interacting with people changes


• ideas of raising children in this manner that provides them with the positive aspects of my life as raised in a churh


• basic ethical, moral, or philosophical questions


• no doubt many more things

i'm sure tons of other people are coming from some background of faith have created similar blogs (the first blog url i wanted was taken, which is in no way surprising) and i see the potential for a blog with such a line of thought to eventually peter out. as the novelty of the change wears off and the questions slowly get answered, i can see the chance of running out of stuff to talk about is pretty high.

in theory i intend for this to be somewhat interactive. when i have more time than less, i will try to form questions here and provide a link in some place that would attract responses (i assume there are atheism forums?). we'll see how that goes. the real point of this i guess is for me to ask the questions to myself. for me to actually Think, instead of just accepting the thoughts i've already had.



i'll say this now, to no one in particular, that i am not a writer, theologian, philosopher, doctor of any kind, ethicist, any sort of perceived moral expert (nor novice), parent, husband, etc etc.

i've wound up where i am and i want to figure out where to go from here.


i'm feeling pretty good.



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as late i've been working my way through the god delusion (itunes link) to sort of see the obvious things that have been said already. i figure if i am a late twenties non-professional-thinker, every question i can come up with has surely been asked...i just have to figure out where. i haven't given it a lot of dedication, mostly out of time constraints, but i'm sure ill get there. i'm mostly listening to see how they have talked through basic ideas already, or to discover baaaad logical fallacies hiding in plain sight, or other such things.

i did manage to listen to the audiobook of julia sweeney's "letting go of god" and except for the being a female and the whole catholic angle, i really connected with the experiences she seems to have had. exiting a faith has a lot of shit that comes with it, it seems.


at some point i want to mention atheist-experience.com

and i'll note that i had a Really good dialog with a long lost friend last night in the wee hours via facebook. this is what the world has come to! more on that later. i'll say this: he is a science teacher and has worked through, to some degree, a lot of the same questions i have in my head. its nice to have someone i used to be close with still be in sync with where i am, and also be a little bit ahead of me so i can cheat. sucker!