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My name is Jeff. I'm an engineer, a computer programmer, a father, a husband, a geek, a woodworker, a cyclist and many other things. Among those many other things I also consider myself an atheist and a skeptic. In a perfect world I wouldn't need to distinguish myself as either; they would be the default position; they would be obvious. Sigh...
I haven't always considered myself an atheist or a skeptic. In fact, both are rather recent labels that I apply to myself. I think they've been there all along, but that they required a bit of a kick, a catalyst, to bring them to the foreground.
That kick took the form of a video. A couple years ago the management where I work shared with us "The Secret". The Secret is one of those popular self-help phenomenons where, if you think about something you want really hard, you (or maybe the universal genie) can manifest it in 30-days or less... or some-such nonsense. The thing that struck me was that this was absolutely rubbish and yet the management at our company, whom are intelligent people and for whom I have a great deal of respect, believed this to the point that they wanted to share it with all of us. Not only that but they even went so far as buy us each our own copy of the DVD! It seemed absurd! How could they believe crazy stuff like this?!
That got me thinking. What crazy stuff to I believe?
I started drawing parallels between "The Secret" and Christianity, and I realized that there is a very fine line separating something like The Secret from what, at the time, I considered my religion. Now to be clear, I was not one of those Bible thumping, Jesus pimp'in, Church-a-going Christian types. I was raised in the wishy-washy United Church and for most of my childhood my church experience was limited to Christmas, Easter, and a couple random other Sundays. I had some vague belief in God (usually when I needed something) but otherwise it was pretty much irrelevant to me.
When I was younger I found conversations about religion exceedingly awkward. I think that I knew it was a ridiculous notion and having any sort of discussion on that topic just made me feel a bit foolish. But maybe that's just the hindsight talking... In any case I do not find those conversations awkward any more.
The parallels between religion and The Secret (especially the claims and evidence for each) got me doubting my religion (pillar of faith that I was) so I figured "Hey! Christian's read the Bible. Maybe if I read the Bible it'll sort out all these questions I have." So I tried. And it did. Just not the way I had expected.
It's rather interesting how many deconversion stories prominently feature reading the Bible.
Now I certainly can not claim to have read the whole Bible. I haven't studied it in detail or anything like that. But I gave it a good honest effort. I really did. And the more I read the more I found myself thinking "What the hell?!" It just got stranger and stranger. God started off, not as the loving omniscient father figure, but more like a 3 year old child with some sort of identity crisis. The God of the Old Testament was very angry and spent a great deal of time testing people, killing people, and dictating insane laws. As I read more, the cute sunday-school stories (like Abraham and Isaac, and Noah's Ark, and even Moses) twisted into sick stories of a vengeful God; a God in no way similar to the God I was taught about. I encountered new material like 2 Kings 2:23-25 and the she-bear mauling incident. What kind of sick bastard is God that he sends two bears to maul and kill children because they called someone a name?! Seriously! It finally got to the point that I decided that I didn't believe any of it. It was just too crazy!
2 Kings 2:23-25 (English Standard Version)
He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!" And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.
After that epiphany I bought a copy of Dawkins' God Delusion and devoured that. Unlike Christianity this made sense! I've since been pouring through dozens of books on religion, science and philosophy. I've read essays by the likes of Bertrand Russell, and Robert Ingersol. I listen to a dozen or so good podcasts "religiously". The more I learn the more ridiculous it all seems and yet people I know and respect do believe this stuff. It still astounds me.
Around this time my employer brought in a naturopath to speak to us about health issues and this got me interested in other fields like the alternative medicines and anti-vax movement which brought me into the wider skeptical community.
I've since found a thriving local community for my skepticism both through CFI and Skeptics in the Pub. It's nice to have that community.
Yes.. Yes it is. I'm not. It's my super secret identity. I wanted a sneaky pseudonym for myself so that my atheism would not be immediately obvious when Googling my name. Unfortunately coming up with a good cool pseudonym is hard. Jeff Power? Super Jeff? Jeff ... See?!
So I decided I'd take the word "uninhibited" run it through Babelfish and take the first translation that sounded cool. That was harder than I thought. A good number of the translations included characters I don't even know how to enter on an english keyboard. It turned out that the Danish translation was the only one that was (1) printable, and (2) vaguely pronounceable. WIN!
So there you have it. Ongeremd is not my real name. It's not that I'm particularly shy about people knowing my real name but I want to chose who those people are.
Yes. No. Depends.
My inlaws are very religious. We live very close to them and they are very important to both of us and to our children. As it stands we don't go to Church and they sort of half-heartedly bug us about going to church from time to time. I know that if I/we were to actually come out and say that we don't believe in God it would make for a big mess. My poor wife would be stuck in this horrible position and with the kids involved... It just doesn't seem worth it right now. When the kids are a bit older I don't think it'll be as bad. So we'll wait. If we can...
My bosses at work are also religious. I do still need to earn a living. They rarely bring up their religion so I don't think it appropriate to bring up my lack thereof. I don't hide it but I don't feel the need to broadcast it at work.
Outside of that, however, I am very open about my atheism. I will proudly stand at the front of the commuter train reading my shiny copy of The God Delusion, held high, making sure not to obscure the title with my hands. I will have debates / conversations with anyone who will stand it. I sometimes argue with the street preachers for fun. I have a Darwin fish on magnets that I can put on my car when I'm going for a drive. My atheism is very important to me and I want to share it. Religion is a fascination to me and I love to discuss it but ultimately I think religion is harmful and that's why I am trying to be so outspoken.
And there it stands. I am an out-atheist except where I've decided the consequences are just not worth it.
I have another website where I blog about the rest of my life. Ideally, this site and that one would be one and the same. Unfortunately, my main site is read by both my employers and my religious in-laws. In the interest of not starting some sort of family feud or career-limiting-scenario I've decided to keep this aspect of my life separate. It sucks. I'd rather not but... Oh well.