Hi Undecided! Have a very happy birthday.

Happy Birthday to YOU!

no, thank you for accepting the add!!!

"Keep Austin Weird", ha ha ha, I like the sound of that
Austin sounds like the kind of place I would like. I should visit it some day. Especially if it has such a vibrant music scene.

What exactly are you still undecided about? Whether to call yourself atheist or agnostic, or just everything? I wasn't exactly sure from your bio

I'm glad to hear your reading it, "The Singularity is Near" is such a fascinating book. I really enjoyed it, it's so optimistic, kind of in a too good to be true kinda way and as devoted as I am to being a skeptic I find myself getting caught in it's grasp occasionally. I think it would help to have another rational person to discuss it with in an objective manner. I agree that its difficult to find good info on the topic, should you have any suggestions I would love to hear them, I will send you anything I find on the subject as well if you would like.

On another note are you interested in philosophy at all? If so I would highly recommend Daniel Dennet, he is my favorite living philosopher, he examines things from a scientific viewpoint and looks at religion and the mind a great deal.

Here are a few links you might find interesting:

http://dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_014.htm - A web comic with a transhumanist bent

http://www.ted.com/ - This is a website with video's from the Technology Entertainment and Design conference, all sort's of great stuff, my personal recommendations are Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, Martin Rees(Astronomer Royal of England) and Juan Enriquez.

Thanks for joining Transhumanists of Atheist Nexus, Undecided.

I figured anyone interested in astronomy would appreciate Tyson, he's written several books that were bestsellers, unfortunately I haven't yet read them, although my best friend has his book, "Death by Black Hole" and said it was excellent.

I think it's really great to find a place where other like minded people can introduce new concepts to each other, it's an interesting contrast to the general public where most people have no clue what your talking about when it comes to science, even on a college campus. It seems like there are precious few people interested in intellectual topics. On that note I see you joined a transhumanist group, I have always liked the idea of improving yourself beyond what innate biology allows, do you read Kurtzweil? I would love to hear you thoughts on the matter.

Haha, yeah, I guess Japanese and math is a pretty weird combo. I didn't really have any plans with it; I just wanted to study math because I find it so fascinating, and I wanted to study Japanese, because I find it so exotic and exciting. I'll try to find out later how I can incorporate both into a career :P

I must confess though that I'm woefully ignorant about Texas - most of what we hear about it here in Iceland is that it's the place where George W Bush, as governor, gave more people the death sentence than any other in US history, and that it is in many respects the most conservative US state. But then we also hear a bit about Austin and how liberal it is. Is it that great a contrast, between Austin and the rest of Texas, or is it just stereotyping?

Astronomy Cast features Frasier Cain of Universe Today and the astronomer Dr. Pamela Gay, and in each episode they take on some subject in astronomy, and try to explain what we know about it and how we know what we know about it. They're up to episode 80 or something by now, but the episodes that really got me interested in it were those on the special and general relativity theory. They were very comprehensible and succinct.

Hi, always nice to meet another like minded individual in Austin, I couldn't help but notice the Astronomy bit and wonder if you are a fan Neil deGrasse Tyson, he's the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York and is also a noted atheist. At any rate, drop me a line anytime, I'm always in the mood for good conversation.