A reintroduction is always fun (it seemse to get shorter and shorter!)

I'm Hope and from SA. 25 year old happy atheist living with another friend atheist so things are good. I go to SAC full time and work at the Cheesecake Factory full time so I keep busy. I have a group at SAC which I lead called Atheists, Freethinkers & Agnostics and just recently got elected for Treasurer of Student Government.

Because I work nights I tend to chit chat mostly on this forum and my rommate's forum which is Here I am pretty active in atheist matters so I am pretty hard to catch but I try to leave an impression of your neighborhood friendly atheist taking a stand and not letting the religous right puch their weight around. I've gone through enough crap in my life and know when something isn't right in the world. Glad to meet you all ...again!

Just a quick A/S/L for now . . .

Age:
Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old to dote on her for any thing: I have years on my back forty five.

Sex:
So male that it hurts. But let me hasten to add that I've been married to a christian for twenty-six years. Consequently, sex is moot. (In the event you are curious about how we sustain wedlock, when it comes to matters such as religion and politics we remain mute. 'Nuff said.)

Location:
San Antonio since '89. Before that I lived in Austin for six years. Before that, out in the sticks in west central Texas. Let's just say the "big" city was over forty miles from home, and in that "big" city there were more churches than convenience stores.

Et cetera:
Religion bores the hell out of me. I'm hoping to befriend people who have more than just religion on their minds. I want to congregate with people who are serious about having a good time during *this* life.

If you're the sort of person that stands up when the crest of a stadium wave passes over you, I'll bet we get along just fine.

Hello Eveyone,

My name is Rudy. I was born in San Antonio but I've been living outside of SA for about 10 years. First was college, Texas A&M, then Boston with the Air Force, then I came back for a year, then off to Madrid, Spain for business school. I just graduated so I will be back in town for at least a little while.

Religion was not a big part of my life since my mother did not force us to go to church. I went through the typical questioning, joining a religion, seeing the hypocrisy, and finally leaving. As I have grown older my atheism has hardened. So I describe myself as a strong atheist although I am careful when and to who I express my views. Since I lived in pretty liberal places for the last few years (Boston, Madrid) I never really had to hide that I was an atheist. My year in San Antonio before grad school was a real wake up, though!

All of my friends, family know that I'm an atheist and don't have a problem with it. Generally, I don't get along too well with strongly religious people, I mean, what are we going to talk about? This has also caused some problems with my personal relationships, but here again, I'm upfront about my views so there isn't any confusion. It's worked well so far.

So, I'm looking forward to meeting all of you. As others have mentioned, atheists are the last group that can be openly discriminated against or considered unfit for public office. We need to change that! Only by getting together and getting involved can we get our views considered by politicians, the media, and the general public. Perhaps a good start would be a new "label?" The Brights, freethinkers, secular humanists, and the like is probably in the right direction.

See you all soon!

Rudy

Hello everybody!

I believe most of you know me, but a few newbies appear to have come along who might not, so here goes...

The name is Joe E. Holman from good ol' San Antonio. I am a former minister of the Church of Christ who became an atheist after nine years of fundamentalist preaching. My website is www.ministerturnsatheist.org if you want to read more. I am 32 years old, divorced (just about), and enjoy spending my time assisting others in the painful de-conversion process. My board has some newly added forums on aiding those who are undergoing de-conversion, dealing both with personal and family related issues. I mention this for the benefit of those like Chris who might need some extra support.

It may be a tough ordeal to go through, but the news is getting good! I get contacted all the time from people everywhere who are "coming out" of that "other closet." Take heart! The people of the world are starting to think!!!

Anyways, I work nights and weekends so it is hard to get to meet, but I look forward to getting back to it. I enjoy studying the natural sciences, cold weather, hot and spicy foods, a good vodka, and netsurfing, to name a few.

(JH)

Thanks for dropping in Joe, always good to hear from you.

Hi everyone, I'm Susan. I've lived in San Antonio since 1962. I have two children and 3 grandsons. I am very active in meet up and am organizer for two groups in northwest San Antonio.

My father was in the USAF - and born in an Italian Roman Catholic family of 15 children. My mother was born in an Irish Catholic family of 6 children. I come from a family of 6 Chatholic raised children, 4 girls and 2 boys. My family life was very religious, structured and VERY VERY strict. My sisters and I attended Catholic school until we moved to Texas. Because my brothers were born during a turning point for my mother who turned agnostic in 1965, they were fortunate ones because she did not make them attend Catholic school or go to church every week. My father was serving his second tour in Vietnam during that time, so he could not enforce the Catholisism that was waining in the family.

It's not hard to explain why I don't believe in god or jesus, or the bible for that matter. Take the bible, in my own little world, it seems like some guy wrote down some rules for his family to follow and another family got wind of it, then another, then another. Ultimately these family rules ended up getting expanded into a journal of some people who had nothing else to do but sit and write about what was going on around them and how they percevied it. This probably sounds outrageous to some, but that's about the best way my brain can comprehend the bible.

All this book has done over the centuries is give people who cannot function without a leader, a leader. I am not a four legged animal that needs to be led; I am a freethinking individual, a human being, who believes in living in harmony with the earth and universe.

I am happy I found this group.
Susan Willow

I stumbled upon the atheist group while puttering around the meetup.com website. My husband and I moved here last March and I have encountered a lot more religious related references than in New England which made me feel uncomfortable. After reading this group's description, I thought, that is for me.

I graduated from a Catholic high school, but stopped going to church during HS once I could articulate to my mother why I didn't want to go (mostly the churches treatment of women). I have a brother that has been an atheist since he stopped being an alter boy. My sister is "born again"; her kids are bible-study home-schooling kind of school. My mom joined my sister's church soon after my sister. My sister and brother do not talk partly because her children have told my brother that he is going to go to hell. My sister and I have an agreement that we will not talk about our differences. My brother is a bit too radical for my taste. So, I guess, you could say that we are not a tight family.

Currently I do not believe that there is a god or any right or wrong religion. I WORK at respecting whatever others believe as long as they are mutually respectful. My motto is the Golden Rule. I am very focused on respecting the planet (mother earth, if you will). I extend the 'do onto others as you would have done onto you' to the planet as well. This is another difference I have noticed since moving here as well.

Hi, I'm Tim, I found the Meet-up through Matt (we worship sata...play D&D together on weekends). I also grew up in Oregon, I moved to San Antonio in 2004 after graduating from the UO with a degree in economics. I've been an atheist since roughly my freshman year of college, after a time as a fairly fervent believer in high school. I sort of drifted away from church slowly when I no longer had the community support structure of a consistent church environment. After awhile I realized I just didn't believe any of it any more, and I was comfortable with that. The catalyst was really thinking about how messed up the Christian teachings regarding sexuality are, especially thinking about very distinct memories of feeling incredibly guilty for getting to third base with my girlfriend or masturbating in high school. That's completely, well, completely insane right there, feeling immense guilt over a normal mammalian impulse. Couple that with how utterly screwed up the book of Job is and, well, I didn't really want to have a part of what they were selling anymore. A God who'll smite the hell out of you for no reason other than proving a point to the devil? No thanks.

I've openly called myself an atheist since about my junior year of college, it took me a little while after realizing my non-belief to get comfortable with it. Politically I'm a libertarian, in the Mill/Hayek/George Mason sense of the word. I am decidedly not a member of the Libertarian Party, because I think it is run by whack-jobs like Michael "The Income Tax Is Optional" Bednarik and Bob "Dude, I'm So A Libertarian Eventhough I Support The Drug War" Barr. I also don't like to be associated with people who turn themselves blue with collodial silver. In college I worked for and edited a libertarian/conservative student magazine at the University of Oregon, mostly we drank together and sometimes printed a magazine. I'd consider myself fairly politically active, but I don't take politics too seriously because no matter who wins you've still elected a politician.

That's about all of the introductory stuff I can think of at the moment, I hope to be able to make an event or two in the near future.

Name: Joe / Gender: Male / Age: 27

---

I'll start off by saying that I was raised Catholic. Usually, when someone begins any sort of autobiographical narrative with "I was raised Catholic," it means the story you're about to hear is meant to explain why (a.) this someone ended up a serial killer; or (b.) came to reject mainstream religion. In this case, it's the former. Wait. Oh, crap. I meant latter. Latter!! I always get those two confused, damn it.

For me, it was the inconsistencies and contradictions I inadvertently discovered and came incapable of ignoring relating to the concept of prayer--at least as the concept was explained to me by Bible, priest, and parent, alike--that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Without going into any details, my life has been...well...difficult; at least more so, I would imagine, than that of your average twenty-something. I hate painting with too broad a brush stroke, but...well, for now, you'll just have to trust me, even as you're perhaps rolling your eyes and thinking to yourself, "Sure it was. Whatever," or "Welcome to the world, buddy."

Granted, I don't live in a third-world country ravaged by genocide and the like, I have a roof over my head, access to electricity, and running water that's potable (and rich with delicious, bone-strengthening calcium). I'm neither the man with no shoes lamenting his cold toes nor the man with no feet whose purpose is to make the man with no shoes feel like an unappreciative asshole (but an asshole with cold toes, a problem the man with no feet doesn't have to worry about; hmmm...); but the road to here has been an arduous one most of time.

I was always devout in my Catholicism. I became at some point in my young life an altar boy, then was promoted around the age of 17 or so to Eucharistic Minister (or, as wikipedia.org says they're sometimes referred to as, an "Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion," a title which, face it, sounds a lot sexier and more exciting, like the name of a member of a league of superheroes or something). These are the folks who stand at the front of the church during Communion and either put the unleavened wafer into the recipient's outstretched hands, or, in the more unsettling cases, his or her gaping maw. Oh, yeah: and EMCs are also there to provide a sip of transsubstantiated blood with which to wash down the cardboard-tasting morsel if the church-goer pleases. (I've indulged in a sip or two; kinda tastes like wine.) Then, at 18, I received the Sacrament of Confirmation (which, if you don't know, is sort of the theological equivalent to simultaneously being allowed to vote, serve in the military, and be tried in court as an adult.) By this time, though, my faith had been gradually slip-sliding away.

Let me quote/paraphrase from a favorite--albeit long-canceled--television show of mine: a man recently imprisoned (guilty of a crime of negligence that resulted in someone's death, but generally a good person) says to the nun/therapist working within the penitentiary that God no longer listens to him when he prays--when he prays for a respite from the horrific sexual and physical abuse he suffers inside prison, when he prays to be set free, etc--to which she provides the knee-jerk answer all good Christians trot out when similarly approached: that God always listens, but sometimes gives an unexpected or unwanted answer. The former-lawyer-turned-inmate responds with a dead-on assessment, albeit obscured by its tongue-in-cheek delivery: "God almighty, creator of all things, including the loophole."

The crux of the matter is this: how is anyone expected to know the difference between praying to a "God" who's not there and praying to a God whose answer is "no" when the immediate result of any prayer is silence? (Well, except in the case of this fortunate lad, whose story can be found at http://www.theonion.c... .) A lot of Christians will tell you that prayer isn't just for making petitions, but to find "peace within yourself," or to "center yourself," or any number of buzz-phrases that sound to me like euphemisms for nothing more than meditation.

I don't think I've ever felt a connection with any outside, external, paranormal force, never felt as a vessel filled with anything approaching an "otherworldly goodness," despite all efforts made on my part to grow closer and forge a personal relationship with God. Even to this day, the neurotic, never-let-go-of-things kernel of my brain can't help but grapple with the question of whether or not is the result of some failing on my part. So, then, the specter of organized religion follows me still, self-described agnostic or not.

I do have to concede that everything in the universe came from something else before it...every single thing. There are, then, two ways of looking at this. As the old lady attending the scientific lecture stood up and proclaimed in a well-known joke/legend: the Earth rests on the back of a gigantic turtle, and as for that turtle, another turtle, and that turtle atop another, and so forth and so on, and it's turtles "all the way down." Either that or the turtles stop somewhere, presumably atop the back of an unmovable mover from which all things stem but which stems from nothing, itself. Why this one exception? Nobody can know.

Questions concerning the behavior exhibited by this hypothetical mover upon its creations compose entire philosophies of theology and theodicy. If existent, this hypothetical mover's actions often seem inexplicable, indifferent, and even cruel...unless one has a religion that forces to make sense these means to an unknown end. Christianity attempts this with a fervor in indirect relation to its success, as far as I'm concerned. Then there are certain forms of Buddhism that take a much more relaxed approach, answering questions with further questions and stating that peace is found in the elimination of desire. (Yeah, but, isn't this isn't a desire in itself? So how does a Buddhist of this strain not starve to death? And, furthermore...)

We can talk and deliberate all we want, but it all boils down to every true and thoughtful seeker--someone who's realized that their upbringing was the original impetus for their religious belief and for whom it's finally, devastatingly occurred that this alone may be the motive for their mechanical lip-service to a deity--coming to stand at the edge of a chasm where logic ends and a leap of faith is required. I'm jealous of those who have made that leap, because I can't quite do it yet. And I may never.

As a great musician once sang:

Lying in bed tonight
I was thinking and
listening to all the dogs
and the sirens
and the shots
and how a careful man tries to dodge the bullets
while a happy man takes a walk

And it's true. It's just easier said than done.

Name:Jamyson
Gender:Dude
Age:31

I've lived in SA for the majority of my life. I'm an aspiring artist with a day job to pay my bills. I am a single parent with custody of my 1yr old daughter, so I don't get out too often. I enjoy spending a lot of time with her.

I've been an Atheist since I was a child, and learned to question things at a very young age. My father is an atheist and my mother an agnostic leaning towards Native American beliefs, and they let me come to my own conclusions which is what I will do for my daughter as she grows up. I did attend the Roman Catholic church with my grandmother as a child when I would stay with her, but they did little to change my view. Though I do have a fondness for Buddhism, and especially Taoist beliefs, but I view them more as a philosophy, and not a religion.

I've always been very open about my Atheism, and didn't see any reason for me to hide it in my youth. I went through the usual rigamarole in my awkward adolescence of being chastised for my beliefs, and even nicknamed Satan and a devil worshiper which I often found to be very amusing as it showed me the level of their ignorance. As I grew up and went to college I found that there were a lot of others out there like myself, and now have several Atheists that are very close and personal friends. I have a lot of Christian friends as well, but we tend not to talk religion since it has been stated that my views are very anti-theistic.

Many Christians have told me that they are surprised by my good nature and attitude since they usually buy into the stereotype of the dour, angry, ill-tempered atheist who hates God. But I'm just a non-believer by nature, and take great pride in my religious skepticism.

It's not that I hate Jesus, its just that I don't like his fan club.

Oh, and I'm also a Satan Worsh...er D&D'er. But I haven't found a good group to play with in a few years, so I haven't played in awhile.