Hi there,

My name is Matt Oxley and I am a former devoted Christian. About a year ago a lightbulb went off in my head after about 2 years of really struggling with my faith and the rationality of Theism. I went through stages of trying to reconcile the character of YHVH (my own understanding of God) as I feel that I knew him (loving, kind, caring, saving, healing) with the God of the Bible- for me the two seemed rather incompatible so I forced myself to continue believing whilst trying to reconcile those character flaws with things like Gnosticsm and Universalism. It didn't take me very long to snap out of that stage though, for some reason...suddenly God's lack of evidence for himself for those that so ardently sought him was all that I needed to deny him all together.

I live in a small town in Middle Georgia...where Atheists are ....well...I don't know because as far as I know I'm the only one...or at least the only one that is proud of it. I think my background in religious studies leads me to discuss religion often and openly...i guess that makes me an Evangelical Atheist..maybe.

Because of all the gossip and junk in my small town, inane rumors about me being a Satanist (lol) and things like that, I decided to start blogging publicly about my Beliefs (or lack thereof) at my website ragingrev.com (cheesy name yes yes i know). It seems to have helped th

e rumor mill to shut down, but caused a bit of further controversy for friends and family...worth it in the long run so far though!

I am ashamed to say that I haven't heard the RRS radio show yet, although I promise to download some episodes this afternoon and give them a listen, I did see members of RRS debate Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, which got me interested in this site. I thought the two RRS members (and forgive me for forgetting their names) did well considering that the moderator seemed to interrupt them constantly and leaned the debate in Ray's favor...and the Crock-o-duck made me want to punch Kirk in the face...badly.

One thing I personally can't stand is Trolling...on both sides of any issue. I really get sick of seeing both Athiests and Christians (or anything else) go to opposing blogs/forums/boards/yahoo-answers etc and just wasting valuable time and space on the internets...I just don't get the thrill of it and I think it makes everyone involved look like a box of giant douchebags. Look at Ray Comforts' blog and all the comments there...Ray may be an asshat...but dialog is not had by trolling... /rant

Anyway, i look forward to talking with everyone here...respectfully