A good starting point...

No time like the present to start something, right? Right now I'm enjoying my last year as a 20-something while living with my significant other whom I'll rename Joshua. We often sit in our fixer-upper of a home and have wildly exuberant debates about politics, religion, and history. Josh has a couple degrees, one of them in history, so he has lots of great insights into some aspects of the past that we seem to keep repeating. I am working on my doctorate in Philosophy and want to study genetic links to spirituality so I get the most heated in religious debates.

I am a straight-out atheist - no god, no spirits, no supernatural existences whatsoever. Joshua believes in an "essence," as he calls it. It's hard for me to define (even for myself) what this actually means to him. Sometimes it seems like an intelligent god and sometimes it seems like "The Force" from Star Wars. LOL We were both raised Catholic and have struggled a lot with concepts of god and an afterlife. Josh lost a parent at a young age, and I suspect that a lot of his belief comes from a desire to think that they can still watch over him or have some contact with him after death. This makes the existence of god an EXCRUCIATING ordeal for me at times. By no means do I want to hurt this person I love by saying, "Give up this fantasy! You are smarter than that!" Really, though, that's what I think a lot of the time. Occasionally he sounds like an agnostic, and he is always anti-organized religion. Maybe that's how we get along.

The relationships that are affected by religious beliefs are not restricted to only romantic ones. I work with two different teams of people throughout my day, and the first is kind of a crazy bunch in a high-pressure environment. One of the team members I need to work with most is a Christian who does the whole Bible Study and church events circuit. He once told me (a few weeks after he was hired) that he told his Bible Study group that he had to work with an atheist now, and apparently they all feel that this must be like working with a hostile alien who is in cahoots with the devil and is always threatening coworkers with her death ray of reason. The second team is a wonderful gem of a group. They are handpicked by myself and another coworker who happens to be a super-rational agnostic. 5 of the workers are absolutely brilliant, rational, excellent workers, and even enjoy a little happy hour discussion about what's actually happening in the world. The 6th worker was hired by someone else, and besides not being a good worker, she is an emotional nutcase. But 5 outta six ain't bad. :) I'll name the crazy woman Wanda - and I'll have plenty of stories about her incomprehensible religious views.

My best female friend, Dixie, is an amazing mom who believes deeply in Jesus. We are very close, and I watch her kids often. (She raises her kids well, and I respect that, so we have an understanding that I will keep my mouth shut all together about religion with them for now.) The oldest of her two beautiful children, a 7-year-old boy, Jonah, just confided to me a few days ago that the tooth fairy doesn't make a whole lot of sense... "like the easter bunny and god too." Kids are so amazing!!

You know, atheists really get a bad rap a lot of the time. Theists sometimes believe that we are angry people, or mad at god, or generally miserable. Actually, I LOVE life! Many of the atheists I know are adventurous, love to learn, and just the friendliest people I've ever known. I hope that even with all of my ranting and raving it becomes evident that that life without religion is liberating and exciting and valued so much more.

So, anyway, nice to meet you!

S.A.M.

Hello Internet!

In all my years of searching the world wide web, I have come across MANY websites about some values close to my heart: atheism, objectivism, and love. However, I have yet to find a place to discuss relationships in any depth in terms of atheism and objectivism, and there is just so much to talk about!

While I plan to stay anonymous, I'll share many of my own experiences (changing names to protect the guilty!) and hopefully create a forum for others to discuss their experiences. After all, most people that I know with these values have at least at some point been in a mixed (theological or philosophical) relationship that creates some pretty interesting situations.

So, as you get to know me, and hopefully at least get a kick out of my personal experiences, feel free to send me yours! I can't wait to get to know who's out there.

Yours truly,
S.A.M.