Graham Pound
New Member
I'm Graham. I'm a committed atheist and secularist. Not a humanist or an anything-else-ist. I choose my labels 
My mum, her family, the local state-run RC-controlled and church affliated school system, my teachers and the local parist priest (school and parish church right next to each other) all tried to pass on the catholic faith to me from an early age. (My dad was agnostic/not interested and never mentioned or took part in anything religious except xmas). At age 6 I was a pious little so-so, by 12 I was athiest and free from any further obligation from my mum to attend Sunday mass any more. Her thinking was that I was 'going through a phase' as she and her father had done in the past and that, like them, I would "come back to the church" as a responsble grown-up. I didn't. It wasn't a phase, I just started thinking for myself more and more, asking basic questions - what is god? what is at the edge of space? if there is a 'holy presence in church, why can't I detect it? and the layers of religious belief and practise layered on to my young, obedient and respectful shoulders began to slip off. Religion wasn't useful, it didn't reveal any actual facts, it made empty or ridiculous claims, the bible was the world's most naff book, prayer is pointless internal monologue, church was boring. I did have my favourite hymns, but you can enjoy the music without being at all religious. To this day I love the power and majesty of a large organ going full blast. I also still very much enjoy English gothic architecture, which I still strongly associate with religion (up to the Victorian era, most gothic structures were religious - the church had all the money, after all) and there is a particular quality to the atmosphere of a quiet, empty country parish church I can still enjoy. I just saddens me greatly that all this great beauty and effort was wasted on religion...
Anyhoo... wasn't an active atheist till my 20s when, on a forum I frequented, I saw someone state that 'they had found a belief system that fitted them' (as if a personal fit was any standard of truth). This was my first 'red rag' moment, followed soon by their admission that their newfound 'truth' was - you guessed it - dodecatheism!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yup, she now beleived in the pantheon of 12 graeco-roman gods. I and dozens of other incredulous young hounds persuded her relentlessly across the forum, baying for epistemic blood to salve our twiching, outraged minds. Sad to say, this rapacious bloodthirst both inspired me to take up an imagined 'call to arms' to challenge religion outright, and to hound, bully and mistreat religious people all over the internet. That was it, I was a militant and outraged atheist. Add to the mix the growing spread and relevence of fundamentalist islam (at least in my mind, if not just in the news) and it was a full on hunt for great truth and justice. Whatever my imagined motives and feelings, I was an ignorant little idiot with little respect for others. I wanted my pound of juicy red theist meat.
Luckily, this same forum had some very smart (and patient) members, well schooled in these debates, and in science and philosophy, and over time I began to become more educated in these areas (especially philosophy, to a degree anyway) and the quality of my debate began to improve. One of the outcomes of this time was my eventual realisation that the discipline of metaphysics is a bottomless rabbithole of subjectivity which did not and could not produce factual answers or conclusions. Everyone had their metaphysical preferences and, as long as you were happy to tilt and joust on the merry-go-round of metaphysical debate, that was fine. If you wanted to get somewhere, it was of course a waste of time.
I did not start *reading* about atheism till my late twenties when I chanced upon a copy of Ibn Warraq's 'Why I Am Not A Muslim'. I knew the title was a reference to Russell's famous essay and, not really having read anything substantial on islam to that point, I grabbed the book. It was actually brilliant and I would still recommend it to anyone today. After that, I read a couple more of his books, found Hitchen's God Is Not Great, Dawkin's The God Delusion and have continued my reading from there. Now I try to spend time reading the basics of philosophy, if only to prepare for the inevitable philosophical aspects of debate, as well as the occasional book by a christian or theologian. Currently swinging towards focusing on studying the question of whether jesus actually existed or not. I actually don't think there ever was any jesus, a claim sure to upset christians everywhere, but I know I need to do my homework. That's where I'm at.
Oh, I'm a firm secularist - the separation of church and state should be absolute, and all vestiges of religious privilege need to be immediately removed from society. I'm from the UK and our state education system is still over-run with religion. My wife and I had to move to another town to find a school that would not shove religion onto our children. In a country where a clear majority of people are not religious (even if many still identify with a religion for none-religious reasons) I find this an infuriating outrage that there is no provision for non-religious children or families.
I came to this forum after a friend of mine, Nicholi, mentioned it to me. He had been hoping a mutual acquaintence - Jonathan Blocher - might have a debate here. Sadly Jonathan felt he wouldn't have enough friends to support him so that never happened. A pity, but I thought this might be an interesting place. So here I am =)
My mum, her family, the local state-run RC-controlled and church affliated school system, my teachers and the local parist priest (school and parish church right next to each other) all tried to pass on the catholic faith to me from an early age. (My dad was agnostic/not interested and never mentioned or took part in anything religious except xmas). At age 6 I was a pious little so-so, by 12 I was athiest and free from any further obligation from my mum to attend Sunday mass any more. Her thinking was that I was 'going through a phase' as she and her father had done in the past and that, like them, I would "come back to the church" as a responsble grown-up. I didn't. It wasn't a phase, I just started thinking for myself more and more, asking basic questions - what is god? what is at the edge of space? if there is a 'holy presence in church, why can't I detect it? and the layers of religious belief and practise layered on to my young, obedient and respectful shoulders began to slip off. Religion wasn't useful, it didn't reveal any actual facts, it made empty or ridiculous claims, the bible was the world's most naff book, prayer is pointless internal monologue, church was boring. I did have my favourite hymns, but you can enjoy the music without being at all religious. To this day I love the power and majesty of a large organ going full blast. I also still very much enjoy English gothic architecture, which I still strongly associate with religion (up to the Victorian era, most gothic structures were religious - the church had all the money, after all) and there is a particular quality to the atmosphere of a quiet, empty country parish church I can still enjoy. I just saddens me greatly that all this great beauty and effort was wasted on religion...Anyhoo... wasn't an active atheist till my 20s when, on a forum I frequented, I saw someone state that 'they had found a belief system that fitted them' (as if a personal fit was any standard of truth). This was my first 'red rag' moment, followed soon by their admission that their newfound 'truth' was - you guessed it - dodecatheism!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yup, she now beleived in the pantheon of 12 graeco-roman gods. I and dozens of other incredulous young hounds persuded her relentlessly across the forum, baying for epistemic blood to salve our twiching, outraged minds. Sad to say, this rapacious bloodthirst both inspired me to take up an imagined 'call to arms' to challenge religion outright, and to hound, bully and mistreat religious people all over the internet. That was it, I was a militant and outraged atheist. Add to the mix the growing spread and relevence of fundamentalist islam (at least in my mind, if not just in the news) and it was a full on hunt for great truth and justice. Whatever my imagined motives and feelings, I was an ignorant little idiot with little respect for others. I wanted my pound of juicy red theist meat.
Luckily, this same forum had some very smart (and patient) members, well schooled in these debates, and in science and philosophy, and over time I began to become more educated in these areas (especially philosophy, to a degree anyway) and the quality of my debate began to improve. One of the outcomes of this time was my eventual realisation that the discipline of metaphysics is a bottomless rabbithole of subjectivity which did not and could not produce factual answers or conclusions. Everyone had their metaphysical preferences and, as long as you were happy to tilt and joust on the merry-go-round of metaphysical debate, that was fine. If you wanted to get somewhere, it was of course a waste of time.
I did not start *reading* about atheism till my late twenties when I chanced upon a copy of Ibn Warraq's 'Why I Am Not A Muslim'. I knew the title was a reference to Russell's famous essay and, not really having read anything substantial on islam to that point, I grabbed the book. It was actually brilliant and I would still recommend it to anyone today. After that, I read a couple more of his books, found Hitchen's God Is Not Great, Dawkin's The God Delusion and have continued my reading from there. Now I try to spend time reading the basics of philosophy, if only to prepare for the inevitable philosophical aspects of debate, as well as the occasional book by a christian or theologian. Currently swinging towards focusing on studying the question of whether jesus actually existed or not. I actually don't think there ever was any jesus, a claim sure to upset christians everywhere, but I know I need to do my homework. That's where I'm at.
Oh, I'm a firm secularist - the separation of church and state should be absolute, and all vestiges of religious privilege need to be immediately removed from society. I'm from the UK and our state education system is still over-run with religion. My wife and I had to move to another town to find a school that would not shove religion onto our children. In a country where a clear majority of people are not religious (even if many still identify with a religion for none-religious reasons) I find this an infuriating outrage that there is no provision for non-religious children or families.
I came to this forum after a friend of mine, Nicholi, mentioned it to me. He had been hoping a mutual acquaintence - Jonathan Blocher - might have a debate here. Sadly Jonathan felt he wouldn't have enough friends to support him so that never happened. A pity, but I thought this might be an interesting place. So here I am =)