Davidian
Owner, Founder, Author, Web Admin, Producer
I search for truth through evidence, reason and rationality. I’ve learned to put ego and tribe to one side and admit when I am wrong. I welcome any challenge you bring to the table.
Davidian’s history
I grew up going to Christian schools, saying the Lord’s prayer daily, singing hymns, and to start, I never questioned anything. The more I learned about Christianity the more questions it raised that were unanswered. Eventually, I lost my faith in Christianity but as with most theists, rather than embracing atheism, I clung to the ideology there was “something” out there. I explored a number of different religions and found I quite liked the pagan ones.
As I dug into all of these religions I found a distinct lack of evidence to back up any claims, and so many seemed to steal stories from each other and rebrand them.
The lack of evidence, the lack of sense, the errors and contradictions in various holy books all pushed me away from theism till I eventually no longer believed any of it was true.
After investigating religions to quite an extent I felt I was done with it until I met a Young-Earth Creationist in the mid to late naughties. I knew there were people who thought that God made us, but I wasn’t aware there were people that rejected evolution, let alone claimed the world is circa 6000 years old.
I found I quite enjoyed debating with him; it encouraged me to research his claims and the science that would either back up or debunk it. My mind was on fire, I was learning so much. I became addicted and found groups on Facebook I could debate in too, although eventually, I found the debate largely fruitless.
During my time online I was ‘corrected’ by internet atheists on the definition of atheism and for a while regarded myself as an ‘agnostic atheist’, and now ‘atheist’ having realised how nonsensical the term agnostic atheist is. I am not a fan of labels though. I don’t regard atheism as a defining part of my identity, it is just my position on one topic. If anything, I like to think of myself as a Humanist or an Equalist but I also know I am far from perfect.
Even so, I learned about the atrocities that happened around the world in the name of religion. The bigotry and hate that spawned from it. And also learned of other things such as the anti-vaccination movement. I felt compelled to speak out against these things. How people could use a baseless belief or hearsay to do and say terrible things and feel justified mortified me.
The more I have learned both scientifically and philosophically I have come to dislike terms and definitions like “lack of belief in gods“. I believe gods do not exist and am happy to discuss my reasoning.
Davidian’s Personal Goals on Answers in Reason
Primarily I manage the site, our Twitter, Instagram, Admin our Debate group and FB Page, but I do have a few articles too. I used to take great pleasure in debating and learning about different faiths but now most of my attention is on science and philosophy. I do like hearing new claims, researching as best I can and sharing my knowledge. I spend more time speaking to science deniers than those of faith. My hope is that I can at least reason with those who think the earth is flat or vaccinations are bad…
My biggest goal is personal growth, both in knowledge and experience. Any day I don’t learn something is a bit of a failure on my part. I hope to impart my knowledge and help build a better world for all, even if it is just one person’s life I improve then I feel that I have achieved something. I also hope to correct some of the more fundamentalist atheists in their erroneous logic and misunderstandings too.
As such we have started the:
- Fresh AiR Podcast: iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play | Spotify | Podplayer
- SciPhi Broadcast: Youtube (Live + Video) | Twitch (Live + Video)
- Bad Atheist Arguments Series
- Conflated and Misunderstood Terms Series
Suggested Article’s: