If you have not yet read my “From Cult to Freedom” story, you may want to do so before reading this “About the Site” page.
What is the Goal?
The goal of this website and continuing blog conversation is to further promote the theories and experiences of living life as a Humanist. To tap into the built-in code of ethics that each of us has inside to help us all to be better human beings. Better fathers and mothers. Better mates. Better friends. Better employees. Better members of community and society, even when we don’t think we’re affecting anyone. Be a part of the solutions that will forever affect our future as a species on this big beautiful floating planet of life. There will indeed be individuals that will always need the crutch of religion, even if its for nothing more than to feel as if they belong to something, a group of people that share the same beliefs that give them a needed sense of community. I do not wish to be the person that takes this away from anyone. I want to simply encourage all of us to question everything about our lives and the decisions we make. If your religion or your way of life is truly the best way that you should be living, then it should without a doubt be able to stand up against questioning, examination, and critical thinking. It’s the least we can do as a display of appreciation for being given the chance to be a part of the most amazing time in the history of our universe.
What the Site is and What it is Not
At this point we would be kidding ourselves if we were to assume that stating the previous goal was going to be enough to keep the heated biblical arguments with religious fanatics at bay, especially considering the whole point of what the site is promoting. Discussions and debates on subjects of a biblical nature I welcome. I even encourage us all to venture down those roads of taking on deep subject matters. However, what the site is not and what it will never be is a platform for unreasonable and emotionally angry religious promoters to use for their selfish gain of attempting to sway me or any of our followers. This is to be used as a place of reason. A place for open-minded critical thinking. A place where anything and everything is up for debate and questioning. It is true and I’ll be the first to admit that it is literally impossible for anyone on this Earth to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God does not exist, just the same as it is equally impossible for anyone to prove that God does exist. We will never figure out all the answers…but that is not at all the point of life. The point is to continue with unrelenting questioning until we achieve a measure of relative peace and harmony in a life where we are not killing each other, hating each other, judging each other, or shunning each other simply because of how we perceive some words in a book of stories. We have evolved past that and we should be ashamed of how some of us are still acting.
So to reiterate, this site is not about negativity. It is not about arguing just for the sake of arguing without attempting to come to somewhat of a reasonable conclusion. It is not about relying solely on thoughts and prayers to help others. It is not about how we should do good things so that we gain a promised reward, or that we should avoid doing bad so that an imaginary evil entity does not torture us for all of eternity in a pit of fire. It is not about living our lives with the belief that there is no way out for us other than the inevitable demise and destruction of everyone on the planet that doesn’t believe the same way that we believe.
This site is about learning, research, science, logical reasoning, healthy debate, optimism and evolving from within. It is about accepting accountability for ourselves instead of blaming an invisible bad guy. It is about not accepting “he works in mysterious ways” as an answer, and relentlessly asking why as many times over until a reasonable conclusion is reached. It is about actively helping instead of simply offering prayers. It is about being a human being and taking pride in your own identity, instead of feeling that we have to belong to a group to have an identity. It is about believing that our success or failure as a species and the inhabitants of this beautiful planet is completely and totally up to us. Life is wonderful and we should wake up every day being thankful that we have gotten here, that we have come from nothing into something. We get to breathe. We get to create life. We get to choose. We get to make music. We get to love!
What to Expect From The Conversation
You may have noticed that when I refer to the Blog I use the phrase “the conversation.” This is what I’m shooting for and how I see this working. This isn’t just the thoughts in my head. True, I am the mediator of the conversation and the one who started it, but I see it as an ongoing global conversation between all of us. Therefore, I encourage everyone to take part in sharing your thoughts and opinions, even sharing our conversation with others or blogging about it yourself. There will be times when I will also have guest writers. As mentioned before there will be much content that is based in atheism. I will be writing a multi-part series about my personal story, my journey through years of religion, being an active minister and then my escape and awakening from a severely strong mind-controlling cult. Here is Part 1. We will be discussing in depth many ways that we can continually improve ourselves. One ambition I have had since I successfully pulled myself free from a cult is to serve others the best that I can to do the same. I do not have an education as a counselor but what I do have is the invaluable lessons I learned from my own fight. I have also had the privilege of helping many others to escape the dangerous and poisoning clutches of mind control as well. I sincerely love people and want very much to offer any assistance I can to anyone that wants or needs it.