Hello,

let me start with my background as a freethinker. Never done that before elaborately really. To go all the way I should first set the scene by stressing I'm dutch. Holland, though a protestant monarchy with strong Catholic roots as well and currently the home of many Muslims too, is one of the world's most secular countries. I was born in 1970.
My folks (post-WW2 kids) were raised Catholic but the indoctrination ultimately didn't take, so my older sister and me got a non-religious upbringing. Perhaps it would a bit too much of a stretch to call my folks rationalists. Compulsive nitpickers yes, so they did help sharpen my wit and grow accustomed to having my words challenged, and they are hooked on knowledge quizzes on TV, which contributed to an interrest in a broad array of subjects. But dad has a bit of a consiracy theorist in him, and some superstitious beliefs in e.s.p. links among siblings or some shit like that. My sister takes after him in this respect I fear.

In school my exposure to religion was virtually nonexistant. My earliest memory is this strange lady (who I afterwards luckily never saw again) in kindergarden when I was four or five, who tried to get the little ones praying with her. She called me to the front of the class, and ultimately I just mimicked what she appearantly insisted me to do. It of course did not give me the idea I was talking to someone. That was the only direct theistic indoctrination I've ever had to endure. Apart from that, during my years at a R.C. highschool, experiencing the oddity of some teachers praying out loud before devouring their sandwiches at lunchbreak about sums it up.

As a result I was an implicit atheist for the largest part of my life. It wasn't untill I engaged in more phillosophical selfexploration at a later age, that I became more aware of how contrary theism is to my views and vice versa. (those explorations were kind of a proto-stage of the work I describe in my MySpace blog) It was with the initial desire to get feedback on my explorations that I wound up on Internet Infidels, by that time my atheism was of an explicit nature. It was at the AN that I was first introduced to Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection kit, and logical fallacies in general. Why on earth isn't this stuff in the dutch curriculum?? (no don't tell... it's not something on earth... sigh) but some unfortunate friction made me leave there in favor of IG forum. (When personalities clash, getting out of each others face, for at least the time being, is sometimes the wisest thing, no hard feelings.) Infidelguy Forums has been my regular freethought hangout for a couple of years now, and recently I joined it's moderator staff.

A major project of mine, currently in hybernation due to other obligations, is a book I'm working on, featuring (a written image of) me stuck in my own fantasyworld dominated by a memic-badguy/alledged supreme being, who I have to deal with in order to escape my trap. It's my intention to make this story a strong pro-rationality meme, and I think the story having a memic badguy will play an important part in that. Bigotry will be a big theme also. Workingtitle: the questionmark shaped hole.

That about sums it up.