1

This seems to be a good place for blogging about reason and all that in English. Although I do have my Chinese language blog on MSN Space, I want to share my point of view and thoughts to a wider audience. I just hope this site does not get blocked by the Great Firewall in the future... lol

If I were to choose a name for my blog, it would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Heaven. I use this name for my Atheist/Humanist bookmark group on my Opera browser. I also use this as the nickname for some forums.

2

I would like to open this blog by quoting Christopher Hitchens for his remarks on Jerry Falwell when the latter died in 2007:

"If you gave Falwell an enema you could bury him in a match box."

Only when I found the meaning of "enema" in a dictionary could I swallow this dark humor in bursting out laughing... and it can't stop... lol

3

I know that every country has its sages as well as well-endowed bigots, thus I am always somewhat irritated when my compatriots accuse me of "idolatry on foreign thoughts". I am not accepting anything based on any kind of artificial, unnecessary and dangerous classifications such as traditional/iconoclastic, domestic/foreign, etc. The only ground I am accepting is the ground of reason.

Unfortunately, in reality, irrational people think that the world around them thinks like them. That's precisely why there are the fool, that's why there are the utterances about "The Fool" in the Bible, because they themselves are the fools and thinks everybody else the same as them. Of course this kind of irrationality does not limit itself to the question of the existence of supernatural beings and the validity of religion. I've seen them in many places.

4

Something about myself: I remember an episode in South Park featuring the so-called "White Trash" yelling "they took our job!" to illegal Future immigrants. Yes, I am one of those "immigrants" (lol)

I am a programmer (and a nerd) who has a decent living and does not care much about finding a girlfriend and/or marrying, so I get much time on my side to dwell into this "field of interest" so to speak. I am from the glorious (and Godless) nation of China. Although most of my friends and relatives are non-religious (I do know a few practicing Buddhists and church-going Christians, but most young people don't believe anything here), people here do not talk about religion or atheism that much because they can be easily related to politics, which is a very sensitive issue for you-know-the-reason.

But I like this topic since I was very little. I remember reading Journey To The West and the (supposedly) Buddhist author treats Taoism and its preachers to be really bad, and I was thrilled at some of the stories in there. In some important days like the Lunar New Year, my parents would bring me to some Buddhist temple and do some worshiping there but I was almost always exempt from entering cos I just hate the smell of the smoke they use. Now I would avoid entering any churches or temples simply because I feel I don't belong there lol. So mostly I am brought up in a non-religious family.

But I really like studying various religions around the world, just like studying various mythologies. It's one of my habits really. And I always try to read them all with an objective mind. It's really sad that the more recent the religions are invented, the more totalitarian they seem to be (Islam -> Mormonism -> Scientology?), and the more "clever" they are in the ways of protecting their captured minds from fleeing.

6

I like playing video games. In fact, I am working in a video game company. But I prefer the games I play having more substance than just shooting or kicking somebody or something. I also like games with religious and mystical themes, like the Shin Megami Tensei series.

I would like to start a group for atheist video game nerds here. I wonder if anyone would join in my discussion of everything weird, though... lol