Hello!

[Faithless]

I found this forum about a month ago and have been lurking and reading and enjoying.  It has been a pleasant surprise to find such an intelligent, interesting and polite site.  So here I am.

A little bit about myself (I'm sure more will come out as I participate and become more comfortable).  I have always been an atheist.  Even as a child I just couldn't get my mind around some big powerful thing living up in the sky and monitoring us.  I questioned everything.  I'm very lucky that not only was my mother an atheist, but she never tried to indoctrinate me.  She believed it was up to me to decide what I wanted to believe in.  If I asked her something, she always gave me an honest answer.  When I was ten I asked her if there was really a god.  It was years before I truly appreciated her answer.  She said, "There is if you want there to be."  That was, to me, a really profound statement, and fits so much of what I've seen over the years with the extremely fundamentalist side of my father's family.  

To make a long story short, my mother fell in love with my father, who was very charming, and went back to Texas with him.  She stayed there long enough to get pregnant, and ran screaming all the way home after he tried to take away her books, telling her the only book worth reading was the Bible.  It took me a long time to realize the gift she'd given me by making sure I'd never be raised in that environment.  As a young adult I decided to go visit my father since she'd pretty much kept him out of my life.  I stayed in Texas for two years, living in a constant state of shock that people really believed that stuff, and also defending myself from continual attacks on my lack of belief, the fact that I was a sinner and going to hell, and a few attempts to bash my mother.  I drew the line at mother bashing.  I left Texas and returned to my home.  The first thing I did upon arriving was throw my arms around my mother and thank her from the bottom of my heart for keeping me away from that environment.

Both my parents are gone now, but I still stay in touch with my sister, who is an interesting, wonderful person who also happens to be a fundamentalist Baptist.  She is one of the few people I can actually have interesting debates with.  We always end up agreeing to disagree, but I keep hoping that some day she'll see the light.  Of course, she's also hoping that some day I'll see her light!

That's enough for a short introduction.  I look forward to some interesting debates and conversations here.

I don't have a sig yet, but I remain

Happily Faithless

[Asmodean]

Even as a child I just couldn't get my mind around some big powerful thing living up in the sky and monitoring us.

Welcome to the land of the active. Here, have a big, powerful thing up in the sky which is monitoring us  

[McQ]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for that nice introduction. We're glad to have you here and look forward to your participation.

[curiosityandthecat]

Even as a child I just couldn't get my mind around some big powerful thing living up in the sky and monitoring us.

Welcome to the land of the active. Here, have a big, powerful thing up in the sky which is monitoring us  

Welcome aboard, Faithless! Glad to have you.  

[Whitney]

Welcome Faithless, glad to have you around.

[myleviathan]

Hi there, Faithless. Welcome. I come from the Southern Baptist persuasion myself. Although I believed it for a large portion of my life (well, I always questioned it to some extent). Either way, glad to have you.

[rlrose328]

Hi Faithless (do you know the RUSH song of the same name?)... welcome!  You had a very wise and wonderful mom... she gave you such a priceless gift of freethought.  You are very lucky indeed.

[Faithless]

Thanks for the welcome!

Welcome to the land of the active. Here, have a big, powerful thing up in the sky which is monitoring us  

So much for my belief there's nothing out there!  

[MommaSquid]

Welcome to the forum, Faithless.  And thanks for the nice introduction.  I look forward to learning more about you and your point of view.

[afreethinker30]

Your mother sounds like she would have been an amazing woman to grow up with.All children should be taught to go with their thoughts and not forced into a belief system.Welcome to the forum