Introduction

Hi, everyone, and welcome to ATHEOLIBCON. I'm no stranger to Blogger, but I had to cancel my previous blog due to complications. Now I'm back, new and improved. If you would like to know about me personally, feel free to check out my profile, but right now, I am going to cut to the chase. I'm 18-years-old and I'm from Seattle, Washington (though I don't currently live there). I love studying subjects such as politics, economics, science, religion, philosophy, history, etc. and though I will post on said subjects, the big topics will pertain to politics and religion.

My interest in politics long preceded my interest in theology. I was raised by my mother and my step-father, both of them conservative Republicans. I have been into politics and social studies since I was a little kid. I remember carefully monitoring the 2000 presidential election when I was eleven-years-old. I was raised me Republican and for a long time, that's what I was and what I still am to varying degrees. In the 2004 election year, through political research I found out about the political philosophy of Libertarianism. As I read the descriptions, I was surprised at how accurately it described my own beliefs. My folks were present at that time and I remember proudly declaring that I was a libertarian--someone who believed in the equal and maximum importance of both economic liberty as well as social/personal liberty--and I was hooked.

The Democrats believed in more social liberty but less economic freedom, the Republicans believed in more economic freedom but less social liberty. Both of those ideologies are morally wrong. However, I am not entirely libertarian. I am what one would refer to as a right-leaning libertarian or a libertarian-conservative.

Although I am more of a libertarian than anything else, I am still right-wing in that I support the death penalty (purely from a moral perspective; some people simply deserve to die), tighter border security (in this age of terrorism and illegal immigration, that's a no-brainer), and the war against Al-Qaeda (they attacked us and payback's a bitch). Also, though I support gay marriage rights, I oppose adoption by gay couples and that's an issue I will touch on at a later date. I plan on posting my political positions in detail sometime next week.

As for my history regarding religion, my step-father was raised with the Living Church of God while my mother is non-denominational Christian. Currently, they could both be classified as non-practicing Christians. They only pray on special occasions and attend church even less. Not that there is a problem with that. They have better things to do than waste their time on superstitious rituals. To their credit, they did not give my two sisters and I a religious upbringing.

They took me to church occasionally when I was younger and though I believed in God, I never was religious. In fact, I never really considered myself a Christian. I was a-religious, which means I was not religious primarily due to apathy. When I was younger I was just like any other boy at that age. Instead of pondering cosmic, metaphysical questions and possibilities about life, I was far more interested in instigating armed conflict with my plastic army men and simulating disastrous pile-ups with my Matchbox cars.

My theological interests were first aroused when my mother bought me the first five novels of the Left Behind: The Kids series. I think she thought I'd be interested because it had an end-of-the-world theme, but neither she nor I realized at the time just how much that simple gift of entertainment literature would change me... from a period of Bible-reading and increasing fascination, to a phase of near-zealous religiosity, to the point of unequivocal, secular skepticism that was only reinforced through perpetual learning and research.

Over the late winter and spring of 2005, I was feeling severely depressed and had low self-esteem. I sought a crutch, a figurative shoulder to lean on. In a state of mental chaos and confusion, I turned to drugs. Willful submission to an incorporeal pestilence is something that, to this day, I consider one of my greatest moral failures.

I became a religious fanatic.

I wanted to be a "servant of God" and a "warrior for Christ." I believed in miracles; I believed that an unproven god would help me through hardship. I sacrificed individual responsibility to the will of a nonexistent deity. I am ashamed of what I did. Religious belief did not help me one bit and I soon started studying things other than the Bible. To make a long story short, I grew more and more skeptical and doubtful of my irrational, superstitious faith. My quest eventually led me to reject religion in favor of atheism.

Now, there are fundamental types of atheism. There is "strong" or "positive" or "explicit" atheism in which one would say, "There is no god, period. No ifs, ands, or buts." Then there is "weak" or "implicit" atheism, which instead of declaring outright that no deities exist, implicit atheists would say that there is no reason to believe deities exist.

I am an "implicit" atheist.

I believe that one doesn't need religion or supernatural belief to lead a truly happy, fulfilled, and moral life. In fact, devout religion can inhibit such goals.

As I have showed, I am a much different person than I was several years ago. Over those years I have had debates both online and in real life. Multiple times my views have caused conflict between my parents and I and although we may not always agree, they are good people and they raised me to be a moral human being with good values (despite some of their stubborn, big-government, socially conservative tendencies). As I grew up and matured and expanded my intellect, I came to embrace moral objectivism, which I know will come in handy when figuring out how to give my future children a strong moral foundation. Moral objectivism is basically about seeing what works and doing what works, what truly works... not just taking the easy way out in many instances. Therefore, many of the values my parents taught me I have kept while others I have discarded.

So here I am today, my friends. I am quite opinionated when it comes to theology, politics, and many other subjects and I wish to share my views with humanity. I love discussions and debates. I am also a writer and I am currently working on many different kinds of literature, both fiction and nonfiction. I'll occasionally post bits and pieces on this blog for your viewing pleasure. So to those who may, in the future, come to love me or hate me and everyone in between: What up, all! It's me!

Friends call me Adam, but you will know me as the Atheolibcon.

I am here... and I have something to say.