Introduction

Hi to all and thanks for taking a look at this blog.

I'm going to use this blog to talk about who I am, what I do, and why I'm blogging!

My name's Dave and I live in London, UK. I'm married, have no kids (yet) and work as assistant manager for a large pub company.

Well, that's who I am and what I do (lol), now for the longer bit about why I'm blogging.

I've used the internet passively a lot - browsing, reading what other people think about things - but have never before bothered to take a more proactive stance and write stuff, save for the occasional comment on a forum (e.g. www.richarddawkins.net).

I have been an atheist for a long time - effectively since my teens. Prior to this I had never given religion any thought and merely accepted without question what I had learned as a matter of course in my C of E primary school. These things will be familar to those who had the same schooling: - there is a God who created everything, giving man special privelege over all other creatures; he sent his son, who is also himself, down to Earth to redeem the past and future sins of all men, be they long dead or yet to be born; God loves you whatever you do, and watches your every move and thought. He listens to your prayers and will answer them if He sees fit; God judges you at the time of your death and decides whether your life has been lived well by his standards - he may allow you into heaven, where you may enjoy his love forever, or send you to hell, where you will be apart from God and will suffer torment for ever.

Similar standards apply for the other two Abrahamic religions, of course with the subtraction of Him sending His son to redeem us. To the Jews, Jesus is just a heretic iconoclast - they are still waiting for their Messiah; to the Muslims Jesus was just a prophet, of similar importance to the old testament prophets and certainly not the son of God.

Great, you all say, so what? We all know this much already!

Well I'll let you know in due course what I think and why I'm an atheist - suffice to say for now that I have arrived at atheism after thinking about religion, Life, the Universe and Everything a great deal.

None of the contradictory and mutually exclusive holy texts or creation myths produced by any of the world's cultures can satisfactorily explain the existence of the Universe, this planet, and life upon it. All of them can be shown to be false by the overwhelming quantities of scientific evidence amassed through centuries of painstaking research and experiment.

I will speak more of this, but this is only intended as an introduction for now.

I welcome comment, debate and criticism. Please remember that if you're only way to respond is by being angry and abusive, you have effectively admitted that you have no argument.

Debate me by all means - try to change my mind if you think you can, but insult me and you admit defeat.