Greetings, RRS!

I want to help you in your activism.

I have been an atheist since I was a teenager.  Now I've got over a decade under my belt of living without God, and I've never felt better.  All along though, I had drawn up a non-aggression pact with friends and family who believed in the supernatural.  I stated my position calmly, and allowed them to have their position, and we essentially agreed to disagree.  While this social arrangement worked fine (and continues to) in my close relations, I have ceased to feel that it is sufficient in the public sphere.

As I get a bit older, and I make a little more money, and I have a few more responsibilities, I am beginning to take a very serious interest in cultivating a public life.  When I saw Richard Dawkins' "God Delusion" documentary on television about 3 months ago, it struck a chord with me.  I realized that the non-agression pact I had with my family was, in fact, an impossibility in the public sphere.  Religion was explicitly public.  I became more curious.

I pride myself on never taking any of my beliefs absolutely for granted so I began to read.  I picked up Dawkins' book.  Then I read Hitchens'.  Then Harris'.  I'm working on Dennett's now.  I have watch countless hours of debates and presentations by these gentlemen on YouTube and Google video.  I have watched the exploits of atheists in America.  I have watched some of the RRS material and found it to be both amusing and important (funny how that works!).

My opinion has been changed by engaging this material.  While I'm not going to go after that annoying co-worker in the elevator, or my family at Thanksgiving dinner, I would like to cultivate a network of likeminded individuals, and begin to shift the balance of power in the public debate into the camp of rationalism.

I hope that I can find the beginnings of that network here.  I look forward to interracting with you all.