The Turning Point

by Robert Acton added Sept 21 /2007

I wonder how many other people have been seen Richard Dawkins as the turning point to their road to secular humanism.   Checking the file creation date on my PC, I downloaded The God Delusion as an audio book on Dec. 15 2006.
I recall, I had been looking for some new reading material and was thrilled to see someone had posted The God Delusion.
That week, there had been nothing posted but a flood of Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins crap as well as some Harry Potter reposts.  I smiled after having read some of the dozen thank you’s the poster of the God delusion received for posting "something worth listening to" I thought to myself "there must be a lot of atheists on the internet."
I give The Dawkin's book credit as the turning point but what brought me to his book?
 Youtube Clips of Borat, Jesus Camp, Ted Haggard and Kathy Griffin's Emmy acceptance speech doesn't ever seem to fizz on the faithful.

This is where I am today. After my enlightenment,  For the first time in about 20 plus years of first BBS's then the internet I become involved in forums, loving the fact that I am part of a global movement. Through the internet I discovered Toronto had a clubhouse for atheists. I read on their forum about the controversy over reciting the lords’ prayer at the Durham Regional council and then completely on my own, registered myself to address council.
I joined the Humanist Association of Toronto and as much as I benefited from the opportunity to share ideas with other like minded people on the internet, attending the Sunday morning meetings in Toronto gave me a real sense of community.
On a global map created for the Richard Dawkins Forum I discovered there was an atheist in Bowmanville. After an email exchange Mark Robinson and I met at Tim Horton's and have been meeting ever since.
We have only a small group but I can't help myself think that maybe this is the seed for something really great.
 Over the last 9 months I have listened to every Podcast new and archived from the Center of Inquiry along with Richard Dawkins(of course), Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and easily a dozen other books. As a Humanist I still have a lot of room to grow.
 I find it upsetting when a potential premier for this province talks about "teaching the controversy" (Where have I heard that one before?) Here we go again!
Having to work to make this happen will make seeing it happen wonderful.
 There are a lot of issues in this crazy mixed up world like war, greed, poverty, environmental concerns, human rights and animal rights, but by helping to build a world based on science and reason will is our best chance for a peace and unity in the future.

Robert Acton Sept 21 /2007