Hello Everyone!

[Driggs]

My name is Mike or Driggs. I am from Casper, Wyoming, although I grew up mostly in southwest Florida. My family is all from either Alabama or Georgia, so the whole atheist/agnostic thing is usually avoided at gatherings (which are rare thankfully). My immediate family (on the other hand) is light years away from those baptists and pentacostals. I was raised by my mother and grandmother. My mother is an excommunicated ex-mormon (for having me outside wedlock), and my grandmother is a militant atheist. My mother became a mormon as a teenager, much to my grandmother's chagrin; especially when she went to BYU (although I suspect that was as much about football as it was religion, I can imagine my grandmother driving through Provo UT screaming "Joseph Smith was a liar! Roll tide".) I personally don't think I ever believed in god. I am now thirty years old; I did go to an ELCA Lutheran church for a few years in my teens, but I only went because my friend's dad was the pastor, they had a pool table, and I got to go on the Sunday school trips for free. I know that makes me seem like a freeloader, but I was fifteen or younger and I just wanted to hang out with my friends. I was always up front with the Pastor on my beliefs. I have always been fascinated by religion, the rituals, the mythologies, the rules, the hierarchies of both the gods and the clergy, and the influences of climate, culture, and other religious traditions have had on different religions. (Note: when i say religion I include Greek mythology, christianity, islam, hinduism, all belief systems to be the same, I will use religion to refer to the whole culture surrounding the belief system, and mythology to refer to the deities and stories.) I think religion is one of the most dangerous things we have to deal with in society. I say it fascinates me, it does, but so do nuclear weapons. It frightens the hell out of me that we may use nukes because of religion! I'm not the militant atheist my grandmother is, I instead try to pass on logic and common sense. Sadly her way may be more effective. I can't remember who said that "the beginning of faith is the end of logic", but he was correct. I currently live back in my hometown. I look forward to intelligent dialogue (and some frustrated name-calling) and hope I can offer something as well.