Why I Blog.

With some new folks coming by, I thought I’d make a few notes regarding why I do this. 

I am a pretty ordinary guy.  Just turned sixty, married, three kids now out on their own (yay!), house, car, dog, cat.  Federal worker (IT work) with the FDA for 38 years.

What isn’t ordinary is that I am an atheist.  I have been for over five years now (at least I’ve been aware of it for that long or more), and I am active in a local secular group, the Washington Area Secular Humanists, or WASH for short.  The blog Secular Perspectives is the WASH blog, which I occasionally cross-post to.  Photography, some gardening, travel and especially Apple computer equipment are among my interests.

Atheism is one of the reasons I started, but in the end, the reason why I do is simple.

I believe that it is important for people to do what they can to get their views into the national or even the world-wide conversation about, well, anything.  I want to add to that conversation, and if, by coming by here and reading my musings, it gets you thinking, then, well, I’ve done my job for the day.

If you then discuss what you’ve seen here with another person or persons, even better, and if you then link back to this blog in order to get others talking too, well, then I can be no less than delighted.

And it doesn't matter whether you agree, disagree or just want to pick a few nits.  If it gets you talking and discussing the topic, I’m happy.  I want to be informative, interesting and sometimes, even funny.  Simply amusing is ok too, and you’ll see the occasional serious rant.  I won’t always talk about atheism, because that doesn’t define me.  There are a lot of things that do, and each one defines merely a facet of my personality and what makes me tick.

I try to do my best in writing, but it won’t always be formal, college level writing.  Sometimes it’ll be colloquial, informal and/or simply profane if I get riled up enough.

I just hope you enjoy reading, even if what I write is something you disagree with or even hate that makes you angry.  Either way, I have done a decent job as a blogger.

Please feel free to comment, either with your real name or anonymously.  There’s nothing wrong with conversation, and I tolerate disagreement fairly well, although I’ll warn you, if we do disagree, I won’t hesitate to engage you in a discussion, and I have no trouble with a bit of raucousness in an argument!

Just don’t start quoting religious texts to me, as I do not consider them to be actual proof of anything.  Using a quote of one as a reference is ok, but a mere quote as “proof” won’t fly.

If you see me saying something you know is false, please don’t just say so, please link to another website where I can see exactly what I have said wrong and what the right thing is.  Citations are better then mere assertions, you know!

But above all, please enjoy.  I get a lot of satisfaction and pleasure out of this, and if I can spread that around, then life is good!