Andrew is a senior in social studies education at USU, and has worked with SHAFT as an officer in the Religious Studies Club and USU Pagan Alliance. His personal blog can be found at A Ticin’ Viking.
I was inspired to become a skeptic by the writings of Eliezer Yudkowsky, who’s wonderful fan fiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality pointed out to me that my beliefs aren’t that far from many positions commonly held by atheists. I believe in science, and that logic is a good thing. I basically only disagree on one point. That was the value of religion. As I kept reading the SHAFT blog and the blogs I was introduced to through it the reasons for these differences in opinion became less and less important. I was finding that I held two different perspectives that most would call incompatible; a Pagan one and An Atheistic/Rational one. Add to that my increasing certainty that I would never be certain about the nature of magic and the gods, and I’m left with an interesting muddle of views. To add confusion to that I happen to be ethnically Mormon, and don’t want to leave that behind while I leave the Church behind. This adds Mormon to the Pagan and Atheist, making things more confusing for me.
So to begin with, I am an atheist. Specifically I am a strong Atheist concerning the claims of the biblical god. There is no All-powerful, All-knowing, All-good paternal figure who created the universe. In that claim I join most SHAFT member’s. It has taken me almost 5 years since leaving Mormonism to become willing to openly make that statement of belief, and to admit that I still has belief in belief of “God”. Even as a practicing pagan, I never really said, “you’re wrong,” just, “I don’t agree, and we should agree to disagree.” Having made the most difficult move for most post-Mormons; a serious and open break with the church. I was quite hesitant to take a further step and call the church wrong.