I was raised in a Christian home. My extended family was quite fundamentalist, with my own parents gradually moving away from that particular strain of Christianity. I remained a fairly dedicated evangelical Christian into my late teens. However, university life, particularly exposure to Western philosophy, drove me to strongly question my previously held beliefs. I discovered Darwinism (for the first time ever!) and ended up writing my honours thesis on evolutionary biology and political reciprocity. For awhile, I was an acclaimed atheist, Dawkins, Pinker, Harris et al. were my heroes.
However, I kept learning and kept reading about humanity and religion and politics. I have grown to now distance myself from a purely atheist position. Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle draw on a deeper understanding of humanity than the scientists of modernity. I'm not exactly sure where I stand on the religion question currently, my education and personal reading has driven me so far away from a confessional adherent perspective that there is no going back, but I am also fascinated by the ethical and social dimensions of humanity's relationship with the gods.
It really does not matter whether or not there is a big man in the sky. What matters is humanity and the questions that religion tries to answer for everyone. One thing I've learned is that an atheist is, in essence, no different from a theist in the basic framework of their beliefs.
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