POST # 2: WHO IS ANTHONY REAL?

First off, he isn't really "real".  'Anthony Real' is a pseudonym I have developed  in order to freely write  my thoughts on religious nonsense (and other associated political or social nonsense).  I have decided to keep my identity a secret, for now, like Batman.

So who am I, really?  I am a 40-something male, raised in the Baptist tradition in the rural American South.  I have lived and worked in several states on the U.S. Atlantic coast for nearly two decades, after a brief stint working overseas.  I was blessed with enough of a brain to be able to attend one of America's finest undergraduate institutions, and to follow that with an MBA from a respected  university in the Northeast.  I am divorced once and remarried, with an adopted child.  While I have been non-religious my entire adult life (despite occasional church attendance with family), I have only identified as an Atheist since December 2012.  That means I missed entirely the life of the late, great Christopher Hitchens, whom I admire as much as any human being currently living or deceased.

My less-cerebral interests include college sports, especially football and basketball, but also lacrosse and baseball.  My more-cerebral interests include European history, Eastern European cultures and languages, current events, issues of gender equality and reproductive rights.  And of course, I am very interested in bolstering and maintaining the separation of church and state, as well as diminishing the destructive impacts of religion on the lives of real, actual human beings.  Hence this blog.

I am an Atheist, as I have no belief in any gods.  I am Agnostic, in that I believe we cannot truly KNOW whether or not there is a god - though I am thoroughly convinced that if any deity DOES exist, it looks nothing like those described in the "holy" texts of the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, etc., etc.  I am a Humanist, as I have a firm belief in things that are real - Humans actually exist on this planet and we all must learn to live together.  I am a Freethinker and a Rationalist - I believe that the application of science and reason is the most efficient path to solving problems and living better lives.  And I am a Secularist, in that the one thing for which I would fight and die is the separation of church and state - life without that necessary precondition is truly not worth living (just ask an Iranian or Afghan woman - if her male "handlers" will let her speak with you, that is).

Therefore, I am also an Anti-Theist, as I intend to spend the rest of my life speaking out against the evils of the fraudulent cults referred to deferentially as "religions."