We received a message from Thom Landon. He said: "Your words, ideas and philosophy confirm what I have begun to understand. Thanks for putting up this site and I hope this note lets you know that in this difficult process of unlearning, your perspective is welcome and appreciated. When I found the words your write and speak, it was like my thoughts spoken aloud. It's good to know that the logical framework of reason can be seen and understood outside of the self." Here's the full message...
Marquez,
I read your works and listened to the youtube presentation and realized that I had gone through a process almost identical. I reject athiesm as a response to theism.
Your words, ideas and philosophy confirm what I have begun to understand. Reason is enough. All the rest is a game to be played or entertainment. The really great stuff that's happening now, the amazing discoveries aren't made with dogma, they are made through the tool of reason.
I am also not a scientist, but I know enough about science to realize that it offers the best and most reasoned explanation for all of the really important questions. Recently, I've started reading Sam Harris and Dan Ariely and the picture of the mind and why we act irrationally suddenly begins to make sense. The future philosophy of thought integrates the new ideas on how and why we process new information and why we act irrationally (individually) and how we can eliminate harm (collectively).
Thanks for putting up this site and I hope this note lets you know that in this difficult process of unlearning, your perspective is welcome and appreciated. When I found the words your write and speak, it was like my thoughts spoken aloud. It's good to know that the logical framework of reason can be seen and understood outside of the self.
Best,
Thom
Hello Thom,
I appreciate your time sending your thoughts through. It helps me when I know that there are people out there who are hearing me and who are sharing the same thoughts, feelings and experiences with me. It spurs me to do more.
Thanks,
//Marquez
The Global Atheist Convention was held in Melbourne last month. I'm glad to see that the Convention has grown a lot bigger since the last one in 2010. During the three-day event, I met one of the organisers of the Philippine Atheist and Agnostics Society ( PATAS), Marissa Torres Langseth. She is based in New York and she was organising an Atheist conference in Manila the week after. She told me the conference was going to be the very first Atheist Convention in South East Asia.
In writing this book, I imagined five groups of readers:
Every one of these readers will have different needs and reasons for wanting to read this book.
I sought to tell the story of humanity from the beginning to the present. I structured this book so you can read it like a story book, where the earlier chapters are the foundations of later chapters. The following is a quick preview of what we will be discussing.
One of my biggest worries in writing this book was the breadth of topics I had to cover. At times, I wondered whether I was doing the right thing in casting as wide a net as I did. I chose to proceed because, to understand the true nature of religion, we cannot limit our discussions to religious texts. Instead, we need to take a larger, macroscopic view. We need to see how it relates to human nature and to our society. We need to consult our sciences and corroborate our analysis with our history.
In our struggle to broaden our outlook, we need to start from the very beginning. From there, we work progressively. We will learn about cosmology, abiogenesis, genetics, evolution, language, memes, history, current affairs and so on.