Hi fellow atheists, please share your atheist and life story.
I have created this atheist group in sgforum about 10 or more years ago.
For the uninformed, atheists , as far as I have learnt throughout these years,
1) think that god do not exist or think that god as a thing or concept is useless and in fact detrimental to the society.
2) think that we do not exist after we die, hence you only live once.
3) A large percentage of them, though not all, subscribed to evidenced based reasoning, or scientific method , or double blind randomized controlled experiments.
4) Poltically or morally, most are pro LBGT. PAP voters are probably 30%. Non PAP voters are 70% . Based on my small sample size of knowing some atheists before.
At a certain point, I stopped using sgforum. Some memorable atheist nicknames I remember is Herzog and another guy (who has a good atheist blog) who I know who he was on Facebook later on (sgforum existed before Facebook became popular in Singapore) though I never told him that I know he is this guy in this sgforum.
I believe the both of them are not using sgforum already.
Ever since, I have worked in family business for few years, before landing as a job as engineer. I changed job but quited soon after in my 2nd engineering job. Then I went into educational industry for several years and is still in it.
Amongst the midst of work and social life, a few elections have gone by where I voted. There were also all sorts of life experiences I have been through and all sorts of new people and new stories I have collected.
Through other social websites like Facebook, meetup, I have came to learnt about Humanist society or Singapore Atheists or Skeptically minded people.
I have attended some of the Humanist society events before like
1)BBQ
2)Chit Chat at National Library 3) Darwin's Day 4) Meetup with Paul Bloom
I also have attended a skeptical minded group called Science Cafe where scientists give short talks and there is an Q and A sessions after that.
I have since not participated in their activities for a few years already although I do see their activities on Facebook postings.
I also attended other event related to scientists or science like
1) Meeting Lawrence Krauss to listen to his talk and seeing Freeman Dyson in Hwa Chong. 2) NTU tedtalk for 2 or 3 times
Personally, my atheist and pro science stance came primarily from my time reading and seeing all sorts of videos and articles online. There are a ton of information about atheist and their educational outreach of all sorts on the Internet. I shall name a few atheist or science educator or podcast on the top of my mind.
1) Talk Nerdy podcast (Cara Santa Maria) 2) Waking by Podcast (Sam Harris) 3)Neil Degrasse Tyson 4)Christopher Hitchen 5) George Carlin (dead) 6) Ricky Gervais 7)Lawrence Krauss
I am currently in my 30s and like half of of the world, I have family problems. And as a typical atheist, I always have to remind myself that I would die one day and all these shows of my daily encounter will be gone one day as far as I am concerned.
I am also into secular Buddhist mindfulness stuff all these years too, like many scientists or CEO, as it is become popular culture nowadays.
I am also a born and bred Singaporean who is single. My father is Taoist who offered incense to Kwan Gong Daily and before vacation trips. Temple visit also occurred for mother's death anniversay or during ghost month . Otherwise, there is very little religious indoctrination, preaching , brainwashing or advertisments being done on me, which I believe is a factor in my seeing atheist point of view easily.
I have many classmates who became doctors, military or teachers but because they were from Christians or Catholic upbringing, I can see that they still subscribed to thanking God in their facebook from time to time.
Lastly, I would end by saying that I owe a lot of my gratitude to big bang. Without the bang, there is no big happiness that I have experienced in my life so far. Although I am ailed with worry or fear too although I think it is quite dumb to be tied down by negative feelings for too long.