I love to write.
This isn’t something I grew up loving or something I just knew was for me, it just sort of happened.
In college I could write-up a paper in record time (typically the night before it was due… Ok… Typically a few hours before it was due) and I didn’t do it because I like the thrill of it, I did it because I was a huge procrastinator in college, I enjoyed drinking and I thought I HATED writing papers. Until I discovered I sort of liked it. And that sort-of-like grew into a preference. I prefered having a writing assignment over anything else.
This transition came when I realized that I was good at it. I had a professor who was a very hard grader and loved to give writing assignments because they showed him our understanding of the material more thoroughly than busy-work assignments and tests. For our mid-term exam he gave us a 15 page research paper which I, of course, completed the night before. When he handed back our graded papers a few weeks later, he mentioned his disappointment in some of us because he could “clearly tell” who had taken the alloted 3 weeks to complete the assignment, and who had “thrown it together” the night before. He said our grades would reflect accordingly and that there would be no extra credit assignment provided to make up for our laziness. I slunk down into my chair and tried to avoid eye contact as he handed my paper to me. As I looked anxiously at the top of my paper I noticed, in dark red pen, the grade, ‘A-‘ written on top. My first feeling was relief and my second feeling was more of a, “Ha! Ha! Yeah, my ASS you can tell who waited until the last minute!”
From that moment on I took much more pride in the things I wrote and put out there with my name on it. I began to care and I began to seek out more writing opportunities. I ended up becoming the lead political opinion writer for my school newspaper which demanded that I write a clever, insightful article on a current-event topic of my choice once a week before my deadline. I loved the freedom, but it also made it more difficult as it put a lot of pressure on me to pick relevant topics that students would actually want to read about.
After college, I didn’t write much anymore. It wasn’t until about 4 years after I graduated that I created this blog and began to write again. I write mostly about religion as I am legitimately fascinated by religions of all kind and I enjoy learning about them, meeting past or present followers and using them and their experiences to grow more assurance in myself and my atheism. Occasionally I will throw in some politics (when I can’t resist) as well — I was a Political Science major after all!
Thoughts and comments are always welcome, whether you agree or disagree with me. I enjoy a lively debate and I am genuinely interested in hearing opinions from all different perspectives. So, don’t be afraid to speak up!
I truly hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoy writing it.
Common Sense 
Great writing, i have been having same reflections since God told Abe to kill me a son, listening with my dad in a Presbyterian church. Apparently same story exists in the Koran, anyway thanks for your Common Sense. And will look forward to all of your writing.
Hi, I’m not an Adventist but I go to a church that came out of the same movement that SDA originated from. We keep the Sabbath but differ in a lot of other points. I read through most of your statement of what you believe. You are an atheist and wonder why Christians have to always judge you and act like you don’t have a right to not believe in God or Jesus. You are right that we shouldn’t try to cram our religion down your throat or do anything to harm you in any way. Any Christian who would resort to violence or coercion to make a convert isn’t following the lead of the founder of our religion. Jesus did the opposite .He chose to die on a cross to save those that where putting Him there. As for trying to convince you that you are wrong, there is nothing wrong with a person trying to help another person see that they are
blindly heading for a calamity. I hope that you would do the same if you had it in your power to stop me from walking off a cliff that I didn’t know was there. You mentioned something about letting people be gay if they chose to. I cant stop a person from choosing the gay lifestyle but is it right to use the power of the state , through the education establishment, to take young innocent lives and basically trick them into questioning their gender?Is it right to use the power of the media,through programs that are aimed at the youth, to make it look appealing and normal to be gay. As a Christian I have to stand against any movement that in the end is leading to self destruction which the gay agenda is doing. If you are gay I’m sure you would say that I am being hateful and that you have the right to love whoever you please. I suppose that is true just like God gives us the freedom to choose His ways or do as we please. The problem is that we have to deal with the consequences of our choices. That is in this life, but
Jesus chose to die in our place to pay the price for our sins so we dont have to pay eternally.
I’m sure that is old hat to you. You where probably raised on that kind of talk and it just sounds silly since you have throne off all that superstition. I happen to believe that in everyone there
is a still small voice that cries out to be heard that says that God is real and death without Him
is a terrible thing to face. I hope that someday you listen to that voice. God Bless, Jim
This site is GARBAGE!
Why do you say that? What’s your logic? Evidence? Reasoning?
I grew up Seventh Day Adventists, my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, all SDA’s . . . at 23 I was sitting in church one Saturday morning at Pacific Union College being bored to death by the sermon (again) asking myself, Why am I here? I don’t believe any of this anymore, I never really did, I’ve been trying to but it doesn’t work, I’m lying, pretending to be one of “them” but I’m not . . . that day I walked out of the church and never looked back . . . it was the best thing I’ve ever done . . . freedom from religion!
It took decades to fully liberate myself from my first 23 years of religious brainwashing, I don’t know if I’ll ever be 100% liberated, but I’m still at it . . . so much nonsense, what a waste of time,
I think if I were God, infinite in every way, eternal (infinite in time), omnipotent (infinite in power), omniscient (infinite in knowledge), omnipresent (infinite in space) I would see religion – worshiping me – as a complete absurdity. What for?
Who wants to be worshiped? Insecure narcissists. Is God Almighty an insecure narcissists? – I doubt it. God Almighty must be the most secure of all possible beings, and therefore the least narcissistic of all possible beings, narcissism is a psychological defense against insecurity, feeling of inadequacy, God cannot possibly feel inadequate.
Here are these humans, smaller than flees on a dog (from my God’s eye perspective) gathering together on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, to talk about me, pray to me, sing songs to me . . . I am so far beyond anything they can even begin to comprehend . . . in my infinite infinity . . . that nothing they CAN think about me can be within a billion light years of the real reality of the Infinite One (or three, or whatever).
That absurdity of religion is proven by the 2,500+ gods and goddesses that people have worshiped over the last few millennia . . . see THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GODS at Amazon . . . .
And if God is Love? – then why doesn’t He just say, “Let there be no more arthritis! Let there be no more cancer! Let there be no more Covid 19!” No skin off him, he do anything, right? He can speak universes into existence, why can’t he speak cancer out of existence?
If there is a God (I doubt it) then he must be 100% indifferent to the pain and suffering of humans, so why should we worship him? Or maybe he’s a psychopath, he revels in watching the endless pains and sufferings, wars and crimes, desperation, poverty, misery, of us humans, it’s his Cosmic Reality Show, its entertaining . . .
This is why Jesus had to be crucified . . . he was telling the people “You don’t need religion! You don’t need the priests! Just go in your closet and pray to God in private! You don’t need to make a show of it!”
Jesus had to be crucified because his teachings were threatening to destroy religion . . . the idea of religion . . . doctrines . . . dogmas . . . Articles of Faith . . . official church teachings . . . theologies . . .
Matthew 25
Feed the hungry, care for the sick, shelter the homeless, whatever you do for these, you do for me . . .
Go to hell! Go into the fire prepared for Satan and his demons! For I was hungry and you did not feed me! I was sick and you did not care for me! I was homeless, or a stranger, and you did not take me in!
That’s not “salvation by faith,” that’s salvation by being a good person, by treating others as you would want to be treated if you walked in their shoes, that’s “salvation by works,” I wrote an article on this that got published (about 15 years ago) and I got an AVALANCHE of hate mail from “Christians” including a bunch of pastors dumping on me for teaching “false doctrines” . . . and all I had done was quote the words of Jesus in Matthew 25.
These people are wazzo. Most of them are nice people, but still wazzo.