POST # 5: FACEPALM

So, I decided to see what would happen if I Google'd this blog, to see if I could actually "find" myself out there among the interwebs.  I plugged "Reality Based Life Form" into Google, hit enter, and saw that yes indeed, this blog shows up out there - the miracle of the Inter-connected Networks!

(Didn't you always wonder where the word "Internet" came from?)

However, also listed by the Lords of Google were a couple other, un-related entries.  It appears there is (was) another Blogger site floating around out there with a similar name, called "Reality-Based Lifeform" - note that this other title is hyphenated (mine is not) and that it is a singular 'Lifeform' (mine is plural). The beauty part is that this blog appears to be inactive - its last post was in 2005, so I doubt much traffic is going there these days that might be confused by my existence here under an unfortunately similar name.

If that isn't bad enough, however, there is also an older (2003) predecessor of the blog above, entitled "Reality-Based Lifeform" on the Angelfire platform.  

Do you think it woulda been smart for me to do this BEFORE I named my new blog?

FACEPALM.... <------shakes head.

Total rookie blogger mistake.  I will apologize right now for anyone who WANTED to go here who ends up there (and even more so for those who wanted to go THERE but landed HERE instead).  Apologies also to the creator(s) of those other blogs for stepping on their toes with my clumsy name choice.

The author of the Blogger site above is listed as "The Reality Based Lifeform", but I cannot see a more detailed profile of that user while in Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.  However, on the mobile version of the Blogger site the author is listed (also unhelpfully) as "RBLF" - which is, of course, the abbreviation I use in my blog's URL. Grrrrrrrr! I cannot see a user profile or author listed for the Angelfire blog, but it clearly appears to be the same person.

Lastly, I also stumbled across an active "Reality Based Lifeform" user profile on TheBlaze.com.  

So again, apologies for all this confusion.  Should it ever actually cause anyone any REAL confusion, then please let me know via comment below, and if it becomes enough of an issue, I will consider changing my title.

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."