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Welcome to the AAW "Contact an atheist" page.
* I was raised "Presbyterian." My father died when I was 3. All through my childhood I attended church and Sunday school at the Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian church in Cincinnati, Ohio. * When I was 10, my mother remarried and we joined the church my stepfather attended, the Southern Baptist Wyoming Baptist church. * During my early years in High School, I occasionally attended a christian breakfast with friends. It was there I first saw Chick Comics. I then labeled myself as "Christian." I was never emotionally moved as so many christians are -- except by another religion. * I had a falling out with my stepfather during my teenage years, and moved in with my grandparents. When I was a junior in high school, in 1972, I met some Hare Krishna devotees. I eventually became hooked on religion: Fundamentalist Hinduism! * In 1974 I left home to live on a Krishna commune in Moundsville, West Virginia. I was totally devoted to this austere way of life. I lived there about three months until I was kidnapped by my two ex-marine uncles. My grandparents had found out about "deprogramming" and had hired the infamous Ted Patrick to deprogram me. I was the first Hare Krishna to ever be deprogrammed. The outcome was basically trading one form of brainwashing for another. * These early experiences led me to investigate "brainwashing," conversion, religion, and developmental psychology. I discovered that the only difference between a "religion" and a "cult" is how long a group has existed in a particular social context. Both religions and cults use the same techniques of "mind control." * I became closer to my stepfather in the years before his death after I found out he too was skeptical about much of the Bible. I've always felt close to my mother, who is very involved with the church, and to my half-brother. * I am now a "secular humanist." I value science as the highest means to understanding, although I realize that human emotion, biases, and social interactions are difficult to capture in any scientific model. * Unlike many atheists who view religion only as corruption of truth and distortion of reality, I suggest that for most believers, religious beliefs yield a positive outcome by allowing them both to believe that they have more control over the world than they actually have; and allowing them to ignore death and other existential truths. * On the down-side, the "ignoring" caused by religion is clearly related to lower intelligence and achievement. Ignoring leads to ignorance. Like most atheists, I value knowledge and reason over emotional comfort and social well-being yielded by religious "truth." * I joined AAW during my second year in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison. That was 12 years ago. I stayed in Madison and remained a member after receiving my PhD (developmental psychology) in 1996. I live with my wife, Carlia Meehan, and teenage daughter, Aja. * I have offered to be the "contact person" for AAW -- something like those old guys at Walmart who smile and say, "Enjoy the day!" 
aaw@atheistalliance.org Ph. (608) 244-1948 |
