Hi, I'm AxisofJared
Hey all, my name is Jared. I'm 25, I work at home, I play guitar in 2 bands, and my atheist story is pretty typical (I think). I seriously think I'm a combination of a rebel, inherited, and awakened atheist!
During those rare times we actually attended church, my dad always fell asleep. My mom found herself to be regularly disgusted by the (Mormon) church's strict patriarchy. Plus, after we left the church I found out that she'd always been a sort of hippie-ish maternal spirit kind of deist. Neither of them cared to teach the religion to us kids outside church, they weren't friends with anyone in the Mormon community, we cordially "tolerated" the missionaries and we owned no Bibles or Book'o'Momos. I was in a sort of listless limbo when it came to theism. I probably didn't inherit a total atheistic outlook, but it was definitely an apathy that couldn't be surmounted.
I can't remember exactly where the rebellious atheism came in, but it definitely wasn't in response to my parents. Although I hadn't picked sides one way or another, I found quite a joyful experience in bashing the fundies. I'm from Idaho, IMO the reddest state in the union, so I suppose I was rebelling against my surroundings.
Eventually the awakening creeped in. In order to collect more ammo against the kookier religious nuts, I started reading more and more websites dedicated to atheism this being one of the first ones The more I read, the more I had thoughts like "Sh*t yeah, this guy's right!" and "OMG that's so true!"
Awakened atheist - that's me. I've just had the fortune of going through a couple of other stages first. I do still like bashing the fundies though...I mean, seriously, who doesn't?
The name "AxisofJared" is a play off of Axis of Justice, an organization started by Tom Morello and Serj Tankian whose website's forums I used to frequent. I dare say I fended off the fundies pretty much single-handedly at that website. When that forum closed down, I eventually started my own blog, linked down below. Nowadays you can find me patrolling the website of my local newspaper, just waiting for a fundie to spout nonsense in an opinion letter or reader comment. There's a great debate going on right now sprouting from an opinion letter entitled: "How is Religion More Believable Than Science?"
Hope you enjoy my work!
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Welcome aboard!
-HCG
Welcome to the forums Jared!!
Welcome!
I remember my 'atheist awakening'.
You read an atheists rant and it just vindicates all the things you ever suspected at the back of your mind but didn't find the words to express or justify.
Welcome aboard!
Welcome aboard! I'm sure you'll love it here!
Welcome, AxisofJared.
You'll fit right in here on the forums.
We're glad to have you here!
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Welcome! Cool name, BTW!
Strafio, that is totally what it was like! I came across Austin Cline's About Atheism site one day (don't remember how) and thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual thrashing he gave a fundy in one of his mailbag posts. So I kept coming back just to read those thrashings, but soon found myself reading his other articles. I would actually start laughing at how true or simple it was or how much I agreed with it. Has that ever happened to you? You find out something so simple and obvious that you agree with and always have that you just can't help but laugh?
Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!
My Blog - AxisofJared
Welcome to our forums!
I'm sure you'll find lots of things here to read, think and debate about.
http://atheismisrational.blogspot.com/