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| Yes, friends, it is time for me to let this site slip out of my grasp. Rather than neglect it, like I have been doing, I have decided to include it in the three websites that I am abandoning. Whether or not this is permanent, I do not know. I simply don’t have the time needed to keep everything I’ve been doing up and running. I may move some of my favorite things from this site to one of the others (such as the Encounters page), but I’m not sure if I can find a place to find a way to fit it into any of them. Well, I do have one that talks about religion and politics—though it isn’t atheistic—and I may be able to work it into that site. If do include it, I’ll come back to this site and make one last update directing users to the other website. It does sadden me that I’m saying goodbye. I hate doing it, but I have other responsibilities that must come before my hobbies. Thank you to all of the kind people I have befriended through this site, and thank you to those of you who have shared details of your lives and experiences with me, whether you be an atheist or a theist. Many of you have touched my life and helped me develop my own thoughts and beliefs more than I can ever tell. Thank you to everyone who contacted me and shared their arguments or reasoning behind believing in a particular deity, religion, or afterlife structure. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t stumped or bewildered by many of the things introduced to me through this site, and I am thankful that I have had the experience of hearing your side of the story. Life is short, and it is the only one we have—even if you believe in an afterlife and/or reincarnation, this is the one that matters now—and it is too precious a thing to waste trying to force our own personal beliefs onto others. This is the cry of the atheist and many theists alike in the political arena: freedom of and freedom from religion. Atheists and theists can get along very well together. We do it every day, that is, until someone mentions religion. That someone does not believe in your god is not an attack on you. Because someone voices his reasoning as to why he or she does not believe in your god, too, is not an attack on you—and vice versa. I hope that someday in the not-so-far future, humanity will enjoy a time when religion is not used as a tool go manipulate government and politics; a time when a minority group does not have to beg for protection from a religious majority, as we are having to do in courts right here in the United States; and a time when the believer is not offended by someone else’s lack of belief, and the unbeliever is not offended by or compelled to feel intellectually superior to those who do believe. It has been good journeying with you, and I hope to return in the future. Signing off, s.w. |