Hello, fellow nonbelievers (or as Bill Maher would say, Rationalists). So I just signed up for the Nexus and I'd like to take this time to introduce myself and talk about my background.

I grew up in a small town with a Fundamentalist-Christian family. I was indoctrinated at an early age and I had an unshakeable belief in god throughout my childhood until I reached the age of reason. Yes, that magical time in life when you begin to question things. Rather than take my family's word as truth, I decided to do my own research on religion. Through this research I found that not only is there no decisive evidence to support my old religious beliefs, but the book I had so much faith in also advocated some very immoral things. By the time I was in college, I was a full-fledged atheist and remain one to this day. I am one who does not believe in god, and never will until genuine evidence of a god's existence is demonstrated scientifically.

There have also been events in my past that played a part in my current disbelief. When I was 8, my mother was pregnant and I was looking forward to being a big brother. However this was not to be. My brother died at birth. My family told me he went to heaven and, being a young believer at the time, I accepted this thought. It wasn't until I began to question my beliefs that I realized he would have gone to hell according to the bible since he would have had original sin and did not accept Jesus as his savior (of course he never had the opportunity). This outraged me. If the god of the bible was real, I could no longer worship him if he would let something so terrible happen.

When I was about 18, I discovered that I was a fetishist. I'm not going to go into detail here but it was something I had most of my life but didn't understand. After much research and thought, I realized that it was a natural occurrnce, not a choice. Knowing the church's position on sexuality, I realized that a truly loving god would never hold something like this against me. Of course, the god I was told to believe in was not so loving. This is also something that lead to my current support of gay rights.

Well I felt like I've gone on a rant so I'll stop while I'm ahead. Any welcomes are appreciated. If anyone else has had any similar experiences or stories to tell, please share. I'd love to talk about it.

All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster! :P