Friends, old and new, and  of course those affectionate  trolls who send me hate mail, welcome to Freethought Blogs! The brainchild of my two blogfathers, Ed Brayton and PZ Myers. You see, ‘lo these many cyber years ago — around 2003 on the civilian calender — Ed came into a chat room we both used to frequent and announced he was starting something called a blog. Shortly after that he told me about a science site he thought I’d like. It was called Pharyngula. 

I don’t know if Ed or PZ had any idea what their respective enterprises would grow into.  I remember PZ once wondering aloud if his ‘laveal’ site would ever grow into an adult. But grow they both did, like weeds on steroids. Their success somehow spilled over to me. Still not sure how that happened. But my buddy Brent Rasmussen indulged me on his old site Unscrwewing the Inscrutable. One thing led to another, and the next thing I know I was contributing to a powerhouse progressive site called Daily Kos. and helping a nascent organization that would soon be known as Netroots Nation.

So, a little bit about me, and where I’m coming from. Like every person on earth I was born an atheist. Unlike most of them I stayed that way. There was never a time when I thought the religious stories proffered by my peers were literally true. In fact, I was about 10 or 11 years-old when it really sunk in that a lot of people truly believed in an immortal super being that was somehow centralized in a humanoid shape, and yet also somehow invisibly distributed everywhere in tall of space and time.

The upshot of that arc is I never went through a period of bitterness. I never felt betrayed by pastors or friends or the Bible; I never bought into their various brands of mythology in the first place. And that’s a good place to be. Because, in my rapidly approaching olden and golden years , I’ve met many men and women whom I greatly respect, and who seem to find great comfort in those beliefs.

I’ll have more later. Lots more. But for now, please follow me at@ SAndrewDKos on Twiter, and I’ll follow you right back! Oh, and if some of you would care to test out our comment registration system, I’d love to know a little bit about you and what you’d like to see here on this corner of FreeThoughtBlogs.