Greetings

[omen]

For he is Chad!

Just introducing myself to the board, I've been here a few days and it doesn't appear to be that active but I'll stick around.  I've been an atheist since I was 20 having come from a background of agnosticism/baptist.  I defer to the "weak" definition of atheism as the lack of god belief, but strong atheism when it comes to individual gods ( yaweh, ra, zues, etc. ).

I was born in the bible belt but moved around quite often in my young life.  My mother, although a baptist, exposed me to a variety of people of different races/cultures/religion.  I give her credit, but it was really just living in areas that were so incredibly different from small town texas that this could not be helped.  I do not believe non-belief was her intention, she just conveniently ignores it today.

I was "christian" up till about 13, I dropped it in favor of agnosticism as I moved back to small town texas.  I did give alittle study to the bible in general which lead to this, but not indepth as I would as I grew older.  Living back in small town texas after being exposed to the world was quite an eye opener.  There is a certain amount of hypocracy that is expressed, when confined to this small regional areas that only breeds ignorance.

After I escaped that situation, I had graduated and moved to IL to attend college.  It was nice being among moderately normal people again, people with empathy.  I had a long enlightening talk with an atheist in a foxhole, about atheism and string theory in general.  Afterwhich I returned to study the bible in depth, as well as other religions.  I returned to being an atheist at the age of 20 ( considering your born lacking belief in god(s). )  

I have to profess my own feelings of frustration or simply being tired when discussing such topics as creationism/ID science in general.  There doesn't seem to be a level in which ID pushers will go to forward their religious belief.  They make appeals to the layman who in part bring these ridiculous ideas to us.  It seems attempts to define science correctly, or correct misinformation given to them is steadily discouraging.  They simply do not give a shit beyond their emotional reasons for believing.  So, I simply choose to club them with their lies.  ( hence the dover trial transcripts, which read beautifully )

Chad

[Kestrel]

Howdy. Welcome!

[McQ]

Chad,
Stick around. Welcome. It may be a little quieter in here than some places, but when it does get going....yeehaw!

You've missed some amazing threads in the past. We can only hope for the return of the likes of them.

[Whitney]

Hey Chad, welcome to the forum.  It's not quite as active as some other forums because we've only been around since this past summer...we haven't quite built up the membership necessary to be really active; but I think it's getting there pretty quickly.  Though, I prefer a slow forum to one over-run by fundies.

[ImpaledSkier]

hey Chad, if you check out the archives you'll notice that indeed there are some good threads.

And thanks for the background