Technetium

Yes, I'm far too lazy to venture that far. I love your name, by the way, "Cogito", it's awesome. I was thinking of naming my kid that (future kid... way future kid... if there will ever be one...) but I'd fear for there life on the elementary school playground... great username though, like I said.

You can tell that I’m a child though, can’t you? That’s a bit embarrassing.

I don't believe in paragraphs... just kidding... sorry about that, I actually just forgot about paragraphs, I didn't realize how long it was... you'll also notice that I do this: "..." a lot... sorry about that too.

I skipped over a lot of the posts but I read the first page and most of the third page so... I apologize in advance for the length of this post... I am 15. Both of my parents were Atheists (Well, I’m not really sure what my mom was, she says that she doesn’t know if there was a God in the past, but there isn’t one now. My dad is a true atheist.) and both my parents believed in the teachings of Ayn Rand (My dad more than my mom). They never really talked much about religion or philosophy at all when I was little. I heard children at school talk about God every so often at school and forced myself to believe that the impression I got of God from what they were talking about wasn’t actually believed in by my peers. From heresy I put together that “God” was a giant man who would zap you if you did anything bad or if you didn’t believe in him. It seemed ridiculous and as far as I could tell a fairy tale. My parents never talked about it so I assume it was false. I was a very creative child, so when I heard others talking about this “God” I would make up my own story of what I believed, which usually consisted of goblins and some variation of the evil Goddess Medusa (I was six and knew nothing about Medusa besides that she was an evil goddess who had snake hair and the skin tone of the Statue of Liberty) and they usually believed me. This was still in first grade, I think, when I got fed up with being left out in the dark when it came to “God” and “Jesus” so one day I asked my parents the question “Is God a giant?” knowing that I would know all I needed to know about God just by seeing their reaction, which was: “No, he isn’t. We don’t believe in God,” they said this in laughter, and I was satisfied. I went through a phase of believing in ghosts and my ability to speak to them when I was in fifth grade, but I got over it… I think I was just making it all up because I was bored. I started being home schooled in sixth grade where one of the first things my dad had me do was read “Anthem”. From that point on “Anthem” was my favorite book (And pretty much the only book that I really liked besides Steven King’s “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon”) until this recent summer when I read “Atlas Shrugged”. I read it because my dad said he thought I was ready to read it. He didn’t “tell” me to read it; he just plopped it down on the couch next to me and said that I was ready to read it. My parents never told me what to believe, they only told me what they believed, and only when I asked, or simply when they thought it necessary. I am now an Atheist and an Objectivist. Nothing else seems logical. All of my friends tell me to think less while they have all of this crap going on in their lives because they don’t think enough. I’m very happy that my parents raised me like they did. I like knowing that I am smarter than most of the kids that surround me and that I chose to be this way without having it forced into my head. At least, as far as I know I’m smarter than they are… when the only people who seem rational are the people who think the same way you think one must assume that you are rational. I babble a lot… tehe… anyway… I’m perfect so if you want your children to turn out well raise them like my parents raised me just kidding… mostly… I’m going to stop typing now…