Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Introduction

So when they were handing out jobs, I somehow drew "atheist blogger." I said, "What the fuck is this?"
"AA," the woman in the window tersely replied.
"Asian Atheist?" I asked, slightly offended.
"Affirmative Action."
I guess that's good enough for me.

Yes, it's true, I look a little different from my peers in the local freethought groups (which include Backyard Skeptics--yes, that's right, the Orange County group that futzed up the Thomas Jefferson billboard). Thankfully, such groups are made up primarily of mere old white dudes, instead of cranky old white dudes yelling at me to get off their lawns. PZ Myers, speaking of the Freethought Blogs network, explained:
It was my very first demand when Ed Brayton proposed building this network: that we make a special effort to bring in good bloggers who weren’t old white dudes like us.
So here I am, throwing my hat into the blogosphere (it's a fedora). What kind of atheist am I? Well I'm probably shooting myself by saying this but most of you are probably going to consider me a concern troll. Atheists critiquing religion are a dime a dozen. This is not to say that we don't have a good record of critiquing ourselves--we do--I'm simply the type that's harsher on his own team than the other team, and there are many things we can do to improve the efficacy of the movement. More on that later.

I'll close this post with a few tidbits about myself. I'm 29 and I have a BS in molecular biology. I'm currently somewhat of an engineer working in medical devices. Except for some minimal instruction in the Old Testament as a child, I've pretty much always been an atheist, but didn't become an ostensible angry atheist until about 2005, when I followed the proceedings of the Dover trial (where Ken Miller essentially kicked the shit out of Intelligent Design). Today I watch YouTube--pardon the phrase--religiously to get my daily fill of the most recent goings-on, and the occasional dumbasses harming themselves in the most inglorious ways. I do have one video up of myself making some comments about moderate voices in the debate, but in general I hesitate to do such things, primarily because I'm so averse to combing my hair after normal working hours.

Well, that's all for now. Next time we'll talk about American politics and the accidental suppression of the evangelical state. Cheers