I will make no secret of the fact that, at this writing, I am almost certainly a card-carrying atheist. This book is a representation of how I got there.
I am not a Bible scholar or a Ph.D.-wielding lecturer, nor a scientist. I earned a degree in Professional Writing, and intend to complete a Masters Degree program in writing as well, soon. Other than that, I am just a writer who is many other things, not the least of which is a lifelong learner and seeker of truth. This journey is a personal one. My truth may never be your truth. So take this or leave it. But understand that I embarked upon this task with the utmost sincerity and the most profound need to know myself and my place in this world.
I am only now fully recognizing the courage it will take for me to embrace this part of my identity in a world where this stance is often cause for oppression in general and ostracization in particular. But I'm no stranger to that. I have been a minority more than once and still am. I am a woman-(though not minority in number, at least minority in a patriarchy and all that entails); I am also a lesbian-though I dislike the connotation of that moniker. I am simply attracted romantically to certain other women, and never, men. I fought disability for years, but refuse to let that define me, currently. And last, and most sobering: I am an atheist.
Let's see...what more could I do to achieve the permanent status of pariah?
In this work, I do not seek to denigrate other great thinkers or respected persons, but to ferret out the facts and, as much as possible, put it down in words.
The act of composing this book led me to some conclusions, or verified those I suspected along the way, and so there will be an unavoidable slant in that direction throughout the text. I didn't stumble on this project after a random thought waltzed through my head. I began the project to refine the ideas and questions that have always niggled at my brain; questions about belief, mortality, reason, religion, human nature and my place in this world. I seek peace with those things I know which might at first appear daunting, and clarity of those things I know on some intuitive level to be true.
I seek my own personal cosmology.
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