Cis-gender male, born (early 1960’s) and raised in NW Montana. Managed to extricate myself from that conservative sewer in my mid 20’s, and spent about 25 years in Phoenix, where I was fortunate to meet and get to know people from all over the world. (I was employed in hi-tech industries for a decade or so.)

I went through an evangelical phase in my mid-30’s. The floor dropped out of my theistic belief due to seeing all the spectacular hypocrisy and willful ignorance in religious believers up close. (I do miss the choral music at the holidays, though.)

It took me another 10 years or so of seeking and reading to finally realize that I was truly an atheist. The initial phases included reading a lot of Dawkins, a bit of Sagan and some of Jared Diamond’s work. Sam Harris’ “End of Faith” was a key part of the final step, for me.

I started out my atheism as very anti-theist, due to issues with harsh treatment at a very cushy career-position type job, when I first “came out”. After a few years, I intentionally mellowed my anti-theist stance, but I am becoming more and more anti-theist daily, or so it seems. I find it difficult to not have very anti-theist views, now, and every day, it seems like I have more reason for anti-theism.

I am a socially progressive, critically-thinking atheist living in a very very red, bible-beater area, so I am very much a fish out of water.