It's got a bit dusty around here.. must be something to do with me not being around for a month or so. I wish it were because I had decided to sod off east again, but alas no. I have, for the majority of 2009 thus far, been a 'filthy jobless giro cashing layabout'. However, not so any more, as today I was given that most welcome of news, a job offer. In a nutshell, it's the sort of stuff I want to do, for a decent whack, and not too far away. It's just about as perfect as I could expect given the current economic situation. I consider myself extremely fortunate and not just a little relieved.
I have done some celebrations, such as shouting through the telephone at the poor guy at the other end, jumping about wildly, and spending much of the rest of the day with a big stupid grin on my chops, to the point where my cheek muscles ached. There is also a much-promised curry night in the offing with Ms. Plants, a restriction placed and not lifted until employment successfully regained. Cracking.
So, how was it that this dusty site had not much in the way of updates during all this time? As a vagrant, surely there should be daily updates, ranging from the usual religious bashing and oriental waffle to what my current toilet habits are. Surprisingly, unemployment in a bad economy does that to you, and anyone who thinks otherwise should listen to my story.
The last time I was unemployed was in 2004, and after securing a job at a large multinational (we will call it AccentCorp for the sake of argument) that was about as impersonal, depressing and incompetent a place to work as you could get, I spent a couple of weeks back on the job boards and almost immediately got a handful of interviews, one of which resulted in the far more satisfying employment I enjoyed until recently, when things went a bit wrong and redundancy loomed. Life was much less stressful in 2004, a guy with a good CV had every expectation in a sellers market to be back on the wages run before even a shallow dent was made in the bank account.
Not so now. In the past 6 or so months (I started looking some months before the end because I could see it approaching like an express train with a P45 stuck to the front of it) I have sent out maybe 150 applications, and from that perhaps a dozen first stage interviews have come my way, and of them, only 3 turned into second stage interviews. Every day has been a mixture of waking early, trawling newspapers, job boards, and recruitment agencies for scant pickings, and then the excruciation of selling my increasingly worthless marketable skills before they leak out of my ear, in such a manner so it sounds individual and not cut/pasted, with not a word out of place.
To bring down the morale still further - if you don't have 100% of the skills they list in both the essential and desirable parts of the job spec - forget it. With the market weighed greatly in favour of the employer - there are so many people out there looking - they can afford to hold off a while longer if candidates A to E have 95% of the skills and a willing look on their faces - until someone who is a perfect 100% skills fit (as well as having other desired skills they happen to have on their CV that the employer forgot to mention) comes along - and it won't be long before one does. This not only seriously cuts out a load of potential jobs, but you are also faced with being stuck in a career path that cannot deviate from a narrow skill set, even if you want it to.
And don't get me started about delay tactics. If a company wants to fill a vacancy, they will usually prefer to get an internal candidate to move over from another division - but they are supposed to also offer it to the outside markets; so you end up with certain vacancies, innocently looking like any of the others that you will never get a job for. A first round of interviews, followed by a lot of stalling and ringing around, and climaxing with an impersonal email a month later saying 'sorry, an internal candidate just happened to appear out of thin air and we gave it to them and then forgot to tell you.'
Got a mortgage? That's a massive drain on your dwindling bank account isn't it? Never mind, if you had the presence of mind to take out protection insurance, you're covered aren't you? No worries there? 'fraid not. *if* you have the insurance, the insurers will stall and bicker and send incomprehensible forms out to you, stretching out the time taken to pay you anything for months on end, and infuriatingly, this involves a letter every couple of weeks asking you to fill in another form because the previous one didn't request a particular piece of information that they really really needed. My protection insurance took 3 months to sort out, with the ever looming menace of a rejection if I so much as ticked a box instead of crossing it. And the first month isn't payable. I don't quite understand why, but I think its something to do with them being bastards.
Even when that magical phone call does come, it's not over yet. You have to then cancel your hard-won benefits and insurance payouts, untangle yourself from a thousand job websites, sever ties with a few dozen agency reps, and be prepared for your new boss to evil eye you as yet again you get a job ad from the one agency guy you forgot to include on the notification list.
So, that is why this blog is looking a bit dusty of late - it was just too depressing to write about while it was going on - and 'it' was just about wholly consuming my existence. I will give the place a spring clean soon, as I return to the warm predictability of a 9-5 mon-fri drain on my remaining life expectancy. If you are currently in a job, and harbour any malice towards the great unemployed masses forming increasingly long dole queues and living merrily off the state, or thinking that life without a job is as good as a protracted holiday, let me tell you now, that it is not. I would not inflict the last six months of stress, worry and accelerated ageing on my worst enemy. If you get even an inkling about being made redundant, get job searching as soon as you can, and better still, use whatever means at your disposal - money, sex or power, to stay working at your spot, regardless of how bad it is. At least until the recession is through.
Not such a fancy plant no more..
:(
The worst fears realised. My plant decided to flower in one final gasp, and 352 flowers later (yes, I counted them as they fell off) so did the leaves. I will stick the now sorry looking stump somewhere warm and quiet for some time and see what happens, but I think it's made up its mind and won't be coming back again.
Anyone know whats good for a windowsill that gets lots of evening sun?
The worst fears realised. My plant decided to flower in one final gasp, and 352 flowers later (yes, I counted them as they fell off) so did the leaves. I will stick the now sorry looking stump somewhere warm and quiet for some time and see what happens, but I think it's made up its mind and won't be coming back again.
Anyone know whats good for a windowsill that gets lots of evening sun?
My Fancy Plant
Just thought I'd stick this up, although it will be of little interest to anyone not of the green-fingered persuasion. My Christmas Cactus which I got from Tesco some years ago is mental.
How mental? This mental:
Looks good yeah? For those not familiar with these plants, a flowering period is usually once a year, and you might get say 30 flowers each time over the whole plant. I'd estimate in excess of 200 big ones here. I haven't fed it or given it any undue attention, and it's normally sat quietly on a NW facing window with a dash of water every few days. It's usually a sign of a happy plant that its full of flowers (indeed, I've never had a plant that's so completely overtaken with them), so what's the problem?
Last year, once it had finished flowering, the back half of the plant fell off and died, and its not even close to recovering. What remains is not flowering, so much as **FLOWERING**, as if it knew of some approaching Armageddon and wanted to have one last flourish while it could. Each spur has at least one flower, often three or four - that's a lot of energy spent just to make my staircase look pretty.
My guess is that last year the poor plant exhausted itself with its mad flowering spree and just had to jettison the parts that weren't getting so much light.
This begs the question: is it about to happen again?
How mental? This mental:
Looks good yeah? For those not familiar with these plants, a flowering period is usually once a year, and you might get say 30 flowers each time over the whole plant. I'd estimate in excess of 200 big ones here. I haven't fed it or given it any undue attention, and it's normally sat quietly on a NW facing window with a dash of water every few days. It's usually a sign of a happy plant that its full of flowers (indeed, I've never had a plant that's so completely overtaken with them), so what's the problem?
Last year, once it had finished flowering, the back half of the plant fell off and died, and its not even close to recovering. What remains is not flowering, so much as **FLOWERING**, as if it knew of some approaching Armageddon and wanted to have one last flourish while it could. Each spur has at least one flower, often three or four - that's a lot of energy spent just to make my staircase look pretty.
My guess is that last year the poor plant exhausted itself with its mad flowering spree and just had to jettison the parts that weren't getting so much light.
This begs the question: is it about to happen again?
Tales of Obsession
Over at Psychotic Letters from Men - a site dedicated to exposing examples of ex-boyfriends (and less) who just can't accept the relationship (and less) ended because they were the broken tool in the box - comes this particular cracker, and the hugely entertaining but also disturbing aftermath that I recommend as casual reading when you have a spare hour.
Short version: Ben and Loren went out together, Loren got tired of Ben after 2 years of him being too full of himself. Ben became heartbroken and made a video to win her back.
But what a video. In it, we see just what Loren is missing - about 18 stone of self-loving and horribly vain, insecure steroid-packed beefcake who loves to pull skids in his lardarse truck and drive his quadbike into lakes for no apparent reason.
This is the point where it went from a personal quest to an internet meme. Muddying the waters by pitching it as a preview to a film he will star in, as well as submitting himself as the actor for the upcoming Captain America movie, his YouTube videos attracted well over a million hits, and almost as much criticism. So much so that he made several faux user accounts just so he could delude himself that he had an adoring fanbase by posting up fawning praise to himself on a daily basis.
All very funny. But the thing is with YouTube, other users invariably get the urge to take something such as this and do a spoof video of it. One guy who called himself Sanchez did just that, and then things turned a little more sinister.
This post on Cracked.com follows what happened next, with the desperate torrent of abuse, badly worded (and absurd) legal challenges and claims of prosecution from 'America's Homeland Security' division reproduced for all to see. If you want to see an example of how a person's over-patriotism and racial/religious intolerance can bubble to the surface (yes, Ben is that unfortunate mix of 'good old American boy' and a devout Christian, although we dont get to see that can of worms open itself for an attack or two) and show its ugliness, scoot on over to page 5, where it really starts to get bad.
Short version: Ben and Loren went out together, Loren got tired of Ben after 2 years of him being too full of himself. Ben became heartbroken and made a video to win her back.
But what a video. In it, we see just what Loren is missing - about 18 stone of self-loving and horribly vain, insecure steroid-packed beefcake who loves to pull skids in his lardarse truck and drive his quadbike into lakes for no apparent reason.
This is the point where it went from a personal quest to an internet meme. Muddying the waters by pitching it as a preview to a film he will star in, as well as submitting himself as the actor for the upcoming Captain America movie, his YouTube videos attracted well over a million hits, and almost as much criticism. So much so that he made several faux user accounts just so he could delude himself that he had an adoring fanbase by posting up fawning praise to himself on a daily basis.
All very funny. But the thing is with YouTube, other users invariably get the urge to take something such as this and do a spoof video of it. One guy who called himself Sanchez did just that, and then things turned a little more sinister.
This post on Cracked.com follows what happened next, with the desperate torrent of abuse, badly worded (and absurd) legal challenges and claims of prosecution from 'America's Homeland Security' division reproduced for all to see. If you want to see an example of how a person's over-patriotism and racial/religious intolerance can bubble to the surface (yes, Ben is that unfortunate mix of 'good old American boy' and a devout Christian, although we dont get to see that can of worms open itself for an attack or two) and show its ugliness, scoot on over to page 5, where it really starts to get bad.
Festival Time Again!
I nearly forgot that it's nearly time for the 63rd Edinburgh International Film Festival 2009 which takes place on 17-28 June. The festival brochure is now out (you can download a copy from here) and the festival takes place at the time of year that Cambridge used to before 2008 (Cambridge and Leeds fests are now frustratingly close together). Given my continued abstinence from work-related activities, it seems like the right thing to do to get myself up over the border for a week and see what's on offer, with a bit of Edinburgh sightseeing thrown in.
After going through the blurb, some films that caught my eye included Wide Open Spaces (a film about Celtic eccentricity from Father Ted co-creator Arthur Matthews), A BLOOMING BUSINESS (a documentary following Kenya's flower industry and the working conditions therein), The Maiden Heist (Three aging museum security guards steal treasures to stop them being transferred to another museum), Boogie Woogie (satirical comedy with an all-star cast set in the decadent corners of the art world), Isolation (a documentary about an ex-soldier turned photographer following the lives of injured soldiers let down by their country) and Tiny Joys (finding happiness in the classified ads).
You know I'll be seeing much more than that :)
Problem is I need to be in Leeds on the 21st June for the Jane Tomlinson 10k, my third year attending. This means I'll miss some other potential crackers such as Big River Man (one man's journey swimming up the Amazon) and Little Soldier (a female soldier questions her latest role - ferrying call-girls for her pimp father), unless I get lucky and they are picked as part of the 'Best of the Fest' lineup on the last day. My plan as it stands is to do the run, go home and then drive straight up to Scotland and maybe even catch one of the evening shows, then stay up there to the end.
As usual I'll be sticking up here whatever it is that I do end up seeing, so keep checking back.
After going through the blurb, some films that caught my eye included Wide Open Spaces (a film about Celtic eccentricity from Father Ted co-creator Arthur Matthews), A BLOOMING BUSINESS (a documentary following Kenya's flower industry and the working conditions therein), The Maiden Heist (Three aging museum security guards steal treasures to stop them being transferred to another museum), Boogie Woogie (satirical comedy with an all-star cast set in the decadent corners of the art world), Isolation (a documentary about an ex-soldier turned photographer following the lives of injured soldiers let down by their country) and Tiny Joys (finding happiness in the classified ads).
You know I'll be seeing much more than that :)
Problem is I need to be in Leeds on the 21st June for the Jane Tomlinson 10k, my third year attending. This means I'll miss some other potential crackers such as Big River Man (one man's journey swimming up the Amazon) and Little Soldier (a female soldier questions her latest role - ferrying call-girls for her pimp father), unless I get lucky and they are picked as part of the 'Best of the Fest' lineup on the last day. My plan as it stands is to do the run, go home and then drive straight up to Scotland and maybe even catch one of the evening shows, then stay up there to the end.
As usual I'll be sticking up here whatever it is that I do end up seeing, so keep checking back.
A little bit of Fuse Leeds 09
As well as for films, those festival-heads at Leeds have also found time to turn their heads to music. The Fuse Leeds 09 festival has just finished and although I didn't go quite as mental as I did at LIFF 2008 (and will probably do again this year) I did manage to accompany Ms. Plants to the closing night showing at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 2 May. After what we saw, I regret not making more time to see some of the other stuff.As with Film Festival, Fuse is intended to allow up and coming artists from the local area and around the world to show off what they can do, rather than the established, popular bands. Often, this will result in a more rough and ready experience, but also this allows for a more personal experience, as the audiences are smaller and the acts are not hidden behind a barrier of flashing lights, burly bodyguards and restraining fences. It definitely makes you feel like you're looking at something genuine rather than the super-polished choreographed and slightly detached routines you might see by a multi-million dollar platinum band.
On our gig, the main theatre was about half full, which equated to perhaps a couple hundred people getting comfortable to see the three acts of the evening. The seating spread from the circular stage up a steep slope, creating a Roman amphitheatre shape. This is what we saw:
Nancy Elizabeth (site)
A home-grown Indie talent, Nancy Elizabeth came on very quietly with no introduction and sat down at her piano, and treated us to (I believe) Sense, her first song of the night. Her voice is vaguely reminiscent of Dido, although with a saxon/medieval bent, and very delicate, able to hold soft notes on the edge of being heard without breaking up. Nancy was joined thereafter by two other women, one of which played the harp, the other general percussion, with both helping out on backing vocals.
Nancy moved between instruments seamlessly, from piano to guitar to harp with ease. Hugely rhythmic songs flowed from the stage, some highlights included I'm Like the Paper and Coriander, and especially Feet of Courage, on which she used a shaker, a chair and a drumstick and her tapping foot to hold three separate rhythms, as well as singing the words. Definitely a superb talent, the works were slow and deliberate, soothing and inventive. 7.5/10
The Acorn (site)
All the way from Canada, The Acorn formed a six-piece band, missing their only female member Keiko Devaux for reasons unknown. Two drummers and three guitarists, plus one guy on an absurdly small keyboard makes for a large sound blasting from the amps, but the music was perfectly executed, an indie-flavoured folk sound with clear inspiration from the Canadian and American heartlands. The double drum set meant that each one of their several songs had a strong clear beat, balanced by a mixture of electric and acoustic guitar arrangements. It was a lot of noise in a relatively small theatre, but well done, distinctive music with inventive lyrical wording. Highlights included Crooked Legs and Dents, the latter of which showed off the perfect and meticulous synchronization between the band members. 8/10
A Hawk and a Hacksaw (site)
New Mexico as a home town and a slight cough picked up by accordion master Jeremy Barnes allowed a certain amount of humorous swine flu ice-breaking smalltalk at the beginning before the band set about assaulting the senses with a series of tunes reflecting hometown influences mixed with flavours of Romania, the Czech Republic, France and England. Without lyrics, the four-piece band used accordion, violin, trumpet and lute/clarinet to create their folk music, which consisted of pieces you would expect to be played at large social events in South America. The music was often very fast-paced, and often made provision for each of the band members in turn to have a little of the limelight, which was particularly impressive in the case of violinist Heather Trost, whose mastery of the instrument was the main focus of the event. Though it wasn't particularly my cup of tea, it was an enjoyable peek into the genre, and was made more personable by the encore, which involved all four members abandoning their amps, and playing right next to the front row, before walking up through the crowd and pausing to sit for a while in spare seats, playing all the time. You could hear them playing long after they had left the auditorium (through the audience exits!). 7/10
A really enjoyable night. Looking forward to next year, when we'll definitely look closer at what's on offer.
On Deconversion
Over on the Daylight Atheism boards, (which I thoroughly recommend as a place for anyone regardless of faith to give their opinions on religion a healthy dose of scrutiny) Ebon has put up an open post asking for peoples' stories about their 'deconversion' - i.e. how they came to not believe. Though my particular path did not include some of the struggles with society, family or friends exhibited by some of the other posters, I added my voice to the crowd, and have reproduced it here.
My story is pretty tame, although this topic is one that has encouraged me to look back on an aspect of my past life that I had forgotten about.
I grew up in England, which was/is much more secular than the US, and so I was fortunate to be raised by parents/grandparents who were mostly non-believers themselves, though didn't label themselves as such, (they had some religious artefacts remaining - my mother would say 'don't take the Lord's name in vain' whenever I would say 'oh god' or something, almost as a knee-jerk reaction). By and large, faith played little part in my early formative years.
What little I did have, was found at school and Friday/weekend cub-scouts and reached a peak just before my teens. Prayers and hymns in morning assembly, going to church most Sundays around the age of 10-12 as part of a community gathering, and so on. One cold winters' day, as I was stood outside church waiting to go in, I looked around. I saw the cars on the nearby road driving past without their passengers giving so much as a glance towards the church in respect, and at the rows of terraced houses flanking the perimeter of the church grounds, many with their lights on and snapshot views of their owners keeping warm inside, watching telly instead of coming out to worship.
I initially thought that they were in the wrong, choosing their selfish comfort over what was becoming a weekly pilgrimage of sorts for me; something that was just done. In the days after, my thoughts focused a little more on the subject. I hadn't really separated out the religious aspects of my life from the other things going on, and realised that I was just going to church, and praying and singing hymns at my school without really taking the time to think about what it was people were telling me and getting me to accept without question.
So in private moments I would try to make sense of the situation, and one day just stood in that same place outside church, and asked God to give me a sign that he existed. If a sign of unmistakable clarity showed itself, I would continue with my faith and attempt to strengthen it. If one didn't, I would assume for the moment that God did not exist and I would remain of that mind until I saw evidence for myself to the contrary. Five minutes passed, and I dared myself a little further: I said in a quiet but determined voice to the sky: 'God, I don't think you exist. Prove me wrong and show me that you do.'
And that was the basis for my non-belief. No answer or revelation (or lightening bolt) came, and that gave me the clarity to start dealing with life in a less complicated manner. I began miming to the hymns instead of singing them, I went to church but looked at the people there as receiving emotional comfort from within, not spiritual guidance from without. As I got older and more aware that different religions and faiths and cults existed, I found that looking at them from a psychological viewpoint was far more enlightening - mixtures of traditional habits not easily shaken, a human desire to align oneself with a group for comfort, a need to feel 'in the right' and all the peer pressure that glued it together was more believable for me than any notion of a 'Loving God', especially when you bring into the equation all the ugliness in the world that he supposedly produced, together with all that smiting he likes so much to do.
For several years, this was how it was: generally not believing but not thinking about it too much, until about four years ago when I moved to a neighbouring town that were a little more serious when it came to conviction. As I spent my non-working days getting my new house together (it needed a lot of work) I would have my front door approached by Creationists, Jehovas' Witnesses and Alpha people. Each would start with some general question about the evils in the world to get you onside, followed by various unsubstantiated claims about how a life of faith would sort it all out. I wanted to say 'you're wrong, because...' but I didn't have any argumentative knowledge to back it up.
So I started to look deeper. I wanted to make sure that I was objective in my search; after all, I had based my non-belief so far on a snotty question fired into the air on a cold winter day many years previous. I found sites online, both faith-based and atheist/humanist, and slowly got myself a more proper understanding of what it meant to be a Christian, Muslim, Creationist, Atheist, Humanist, etc. Wherever I looked, the religious side of things seemed to be propped up on assumptions and half-truths, and while I can't say I understood the minutiae of the the opposite arguments, being often waist deep in scientific understanding, they definitely made a lot more sense and helped solidify my view. They certainly struck me as more plausible than the religious sorts, who would often turn back to the bible or some other holy book whenever they were posed a question they had no answer for.
And this is how it is now for me. There was no evangelical bullying or peer-pressure (for which I consider myself extremely fortunate), no coercion to rebel against, just a slow realisation, often from a spectators point of view on other countries and cultures, that faith is a human invention. The term 'Man made God in his own image' rang truest of all the things I have seen and heard.
I consider myself an atheist-agnostic - I am comfortable with my disbelief, but there are still things that have a big question mark for them - such as what triggered the big bang, what caused the first spark of life, and what exists outside the boundaries of the universe, but in the absence of an answer, I just stick a large question mark in its place (it could be the work of some being that may fill the description of 'God' but I will assume the default option that it isn't for now). I hope that some day in my lifetime, we can learn enough to perhaps replace some of those question marks with answers.
Related Posts:
My story is pretty tame, although this topic is one that has encouraged me to look back on an aspect of my past life that I had forgotten about.
I grew up in England, which was/is much more secular than the US, and so I was fortunate to be raised by parents/grandparents who were mostly non-believers themselves, though didn't label themselves as such, (they had some religious artefacts remaining - my mother would say 'don't take the Lord's name in vain' whenever I would say 'oh god' or something, almost as a knee-jerk reaction). By and large, faith played little part in my early formative years.
What little I did have, was found at school and Friday/weekend cub-scouts and reached a peak just before my teens. Prayers and hymns in morning assembly, going to church most Sundays around the age of 10-12 as part of a community gathering, and so on. One cold winters' day, as I was stood outside church waiting to go in, I looked around. I saw the cars on the nearby road driving past without their passengers giving so much as a glance towards the church in respect, and at the rows of terraced houses flanking the perimeter of the church grounds, many with their lights on and snapshot views of their owners keeping warm inside, watching telly instead of coming out to worship.
I initially thought that they were in the wrong, choosing their selfish comfort over what was becoming a weekly pilgrimage of sorts for me; something that was just done. In the days after, my thoughts focused a little more on the subject. I hadn't really separated out the religious aspects of my life from the other things going on, and realised that I was just going to church, and praying and singing hymns at my school without really taking the time to think about what it was people were telling me and getting me to accept without question.
So in private moments I would try to make sense of the situation, and one day just stood in that same place outside church, and asked God to give me a sign that he existed. If a sign of unmistakable clarity showed itself, I would continue with my faith and attempt to strengthen it. If one didn't, I would assume for the moment that God did not exist and I would remain of that mind until I saw evidence for myself to the contrary. Five minutes passed, and I dared myself a little further: I said in a quiet but determined voice to the sky: 'God, I don't think you exist. Prove me wrong and show me that you do.'
And that was the basis for my non-belief. No answer or revelation (or lightening bolt) came, and that gave me the clarity to start dealing with life in a less complicated manner. I began miming to the hymns instead of singing them, I went to church but looked at the people there as receiving emotional comfort from within, not spiritual guidance from without. As I got older and more aware that different religions and faiths and cults existed, I found that looking at them from a psychological viewpoint was far more enlightening - mixtures of traditional habits not easily shaken, a human desire to align oneself with a group for comfort, a need to feel 'in the right' and all the peer pressure that glued it together was more believable for me than any notion of a 'Loving God', especially when you bring into the equation all the ugliness in the world that he supposedly produced, together with all that smiting he likes so much to do.
For several years, this was how it was: generally not believing but not thinking about it too much, until about four years ago when I moved to a neighbouring town that were a little more serious when it came to conviction. As I spent my non-working days getting my new house together (it needed a lot of work) I would have my front door approached by Creationists, Jehovas' Witnesses and Alpha people. Each would start with some general question about the evils in the world to get you onside, followed by various unsubstantiated claims about how a life of faith would sort it all out. I wanted to say 'you're wrong, because...' but I didn't have any argumentative knowledge to back it up.
So I started to look deeper. I wanted to make sure that I was objective in my search; after all, I had based my non-belief so far on a snotty question fired into the air on a cold winter day many years previous. I found sites online, both faith-based and atheist/humanist, and slowly got myself a more proper understanding of what it meant to be a Christian, Muslim, Creationist, Atheist, Humanist, etc. Wherever I looked, the religious side of things seemed to be propped up on assumptions and half-truths, and while I can't say I understood the minutiae of the the opposite arguments, being often waist deep in scientific understanding, they definitely made a lot more sense and helped solidify my view. They certainly struck me as more plausible than the religious sorts, who would often turn back to the bible or some other holy book whenever they were posed a question they had no answer for.
And this is how it is now for me. There was no evangelical bullying or peer-pressure (for which I consider myself extremely fortunate), no coercion to rebel against, just a slow realisation, often from a spectators point of view on other countries and cultures, that faith is a human invention. The term 'Man made God in his own image' rang truest of all the things I have seen and heard.
I consider myself an atheist-agnostic - I am comfortable with my disbelief, but there are still things that have a big question mark for them - such as what triggered the big bang, what caused the first spark of life, and what exists outside the boundaries of the universe, but in the absence of an answer, I just stick a large question mark in its place (it could be the work of some being that may fill the description of 'God' but I will assume the default option that it isn't for now). I hope that some day in my lifetime, we can learn enough to perhaps replace some of those question marks with answers.
Related Posts:
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