This is Reverend Rye Speaking.

[Rev. Rye]

I came on an invite from some people on the CT Valley Atheists forum, which may be on its last legs due to an increasing lack of interesting debate, it being too overrun by spammers who were posting hardcore porn, and having too little mod/admin control to keep all of it in check.


About the name: The title "Rev." is simultaneously ironic and factual, since I am an atheist who tends to look at religion (especially the Abramic religions) with a jaundiced eye, and also a minster in the ULC (I got ordained after learning that all four Beatles did). "Rye" comes from one of my favorite novels, "The Catcher in the Rye".

About me: I come from Chicago, and was raised as a Missourah (sic) Synod Lutheran, though I can never remember ever having truly believed any of it was true, and by now, both my parents have lapsed (partially due to one of the elders turning out to be a pedophile, and still being active in the church's affairs. After some years of school-sanctioned bullying at my Grade school (which ended up being like a Christian Wayside directed by David Lynch), I eventually managed to read several books, ranging from Why I am Not a Christian to the entire Bible and decided that, even if YHVH was in fact God, he deserved no more respect than Freddy Krueger, or some other fictional Serial killer/Spree Killer/Mass Murderer. I also attended a Catholic high school, which was surprisingly bearable, considering all the stereotypes of Catholic schools in the media, and the teachers essentially tolerated my atheism, due at least in part to my intelligence and the contempt for idiocy that I shared with the teachers. I consider myself a cynical Democratic Socialist, and I have Hyperlexia, an Autism Spectrum Disorder. I intend to make a career as a writer.

I hope to be getting into some good discussions, and I hope to repost some of my old stuff from that forum.