About James C Rocks
I am an author, a socialist and an atheist. I have been debating fundamentalists and theists of various stripes for nearly thirty years.
I was brought up a Catholic and began to question the existence of "God" around the age of thirteen in parallel with a new found "addiction" to science fiction. I am 62 now (actually 62 today, at time of writing), so I've been questioning such beliefs for around forty-nine years even if I have only formally realised, I was atheist for the last thirty or so. Science Fiction (despite the sneering condescension I have had from some) taught me the basics of science so much so that ultimately studied for and gained an honours degree in Applied Biology moving into science and then science computing and it was there that I was exposed to creationism.
Everyone takes The Net (The Internet) for granted today but I am old enough to remember its birth, at least for normal UK citizens. I was in computing and, like those around me, I took to it like a fish to water. I had already met some creationists pre-internet but my best friend introduced me to a forum of wingnuts that, he said, were really funny. We soon realised that they weren't, that they were part of something bigger, that fundamentalist religion was well-organised, well-funded and as slick as a snakeskin salesman. Science had not only taken its eye off the ball; creationists were clearly a well-funded and organised group determined subvert science. Like many others, I took up the fight to defend science building communities and supporting websites with my greatest success being a government response to the "Science, Just Science" campaign assuring us that creationism could not be taught as science in any state-run UK science classroom. In my fight against them, I created a large database of effective answers against their standard claims. After a break from online debate I returned to it finding, on Facebook and other similar social media, that their claims and criticisms had changed not one iota whilst science, of course, had moved on by leaps and bounds.
People have always wanted me to play nice with religious people, they believe we should be tolerant but I find it hard to be tolerant of stupidity (by which I mean wilful ignorance) and fail to see why I should be. In my view, there is absolutely nothing wrong with bias as long as you can rationally justify that bias and I am biased against stupid belief systems fully aware I can justify such a stance.
In my private life, I'm a happily married Brit with two daughters living in the south of England. I am a retired IT professional who worked with Windows desktop and server systems, I retired early partly because a couple of my pensions were old style, "final salary" ones but mainly because, at my age, it is surprisingly difficult to get a job. I am also a massive science fiction freak and (even now) a proud geek ... I am also a published author, with my own website at JamesCRocks, having published my first science fiction book last year and working on its sequel and another book.
I was brought up a Catholic and began to question the existence of "God" around the age of thirteen in parallel with a new found "addiction" to science fiction. I am 62 now (actually 62 today, at time of writing), so I've been questioning such beliefs for around forty-nine years even if I have only formally realised, I was atheist for the last thirty or so. Science Fiction (despite the sneering condescension I have had from some) taught me the basics of science so much so that ultimately studied for and gained an honours degree in Applied Biology moving into science and then science computing and it was there that I was exposed to creationism.
Everyone takes The Net (The Internet) for granted today but I am old enough to remember its birth, at least for normal UK citizens. I was in computing and, like those around me, I took to it like a fish to water. I had already met some creationists pre-internet but my best friend introduced me to a forum of wingnuts that, he said, were really funny. We soon realised that they weren't, that they were part of something bigger, that fundamentalist religion was well-organised, well-funded and as slick as a snakeskin salesman. Science had not only taken its eye off the ball; creationists were clearly a well-funded and organised group determined subvert science. Like many others, I took up the fight to defend science building communities and supporting websites with my greatest success being a government response to the "Science, Just Science" campaign assuring us that creationism could not be taught as science in any state-run UK science classroom. In my fight against them, I created a large database of effective answers against their standard claims. After a break from online debate I returned to it finding, on Facebook and other similar social media, that their claims and criticisms had changed not one iota whilst science, of course, had moved on by leaps and bounds.
People have always wanted me to play nice with religious people, they believe we should be tolerant but I find it hard to be tolerant of stupidity (by which I mean wilful ignorance) and fail to see why I should be. In my view, there is absolutely nothing wrong with bias as long as you can rationally justify that bias and I am biased against stupid belief systems fully aware I can justify such a stance.
In my private life, I'm a happily married Brit with two daughters living in the south of England. I am a retired IT professional who worked with Windows desktop and server systems, I retired early partly because a couple of my pensions were old style, "final salary" ones but mainly because, at my age, it is surprisingly difficult to get a job. I am also a massive science fiction freak and (even now) a proud geek ... I am also a published author, with my own website at JamesCRocks, having published my first science fiction book last year and working on its sequel and another book.