User:Murphy

Personal
I live in central Australia. I didn't have a religious upbringing, but i went through several phases of stupidity when i was younger. Pascals wager. Then when i read Stephen Hawking's Brief history of time for the first time i sort of went through a pantheistic phase. It wasn't really until i read Jarred Diamonds Guns germs and steel that the theory of evolution really solidified in my mind and i basically went hard core atheist and haven't looked back. I'd describe myself as a strong atheist. Much like the tooth fairy, unicorns and Santa Claus, to the degree that i can know anything useful, I know there is no god.

After my parents separated my old man went through a mid life crisis and found god. He's since remarried, attends a pentecostal church, and has become one of those guys that amen during religious speeches. I sometimes bring up religious issues with him (such as questions about evolution/creationism given his position as a high school science teacher), but he always tries to change the subject. Not to sound like an egocentric prick, but i suspect its because he knows if we had an argument i'd probably run rings around him.

My mum has always been an atheist, but she's one of those wishy washy atheists that thinks everyone can believe (and more or less do) what they want and that you shouldn't make waves. Often points out that Richard Dawkins is polemic, rude, and hurts the cause, when i go of on a religious rant, even though she's never read any of his books or seen him speak.

I also have a few uncles are aunties that are fundamentalist young earth creationists. They occasionally like to argue with me and invite me over to watch films they own like Expelled.

Some people may a priori find my atheism or atheist activism offensive. I personally find it offensive that in the 21st Century of space exploration and micro processors, such a large number of people still credulously believe in bronze age fairly tails about magical men in the sky, talking snakes, and genital mutilation, or stupid parents that believe in modern voodoo woowoo like homeopathy and end up killing their children through chronic negligence.

My interests other than counter-apologetics includes:
 * Learning about science, history, philosophy, and psychology.
 * Restoring classic motorcycles
 * Computer programming
 * Painting
 * Graphic design
 * Writing music
 * I also watch allot of movies and tv series

Work
I'm a Television Commercial Director, Film Maker, and Graphic Designer. One of the most interesting parts of my job is trying to sell a concept for a television ad to a client. There are allot of factors regarding how to sell a product. Having all the information necessary is only half the battle. Clients typically don't have a good visual imagination, they don't understand the rules of corporate identity, they don't understand the rules of graphic design, and they usually have little to no knowledge base of sales psychology. The other half of the battle is arranging the information in a way that the client will understand what you are trying to do for them, and hopefully agree that its a good idea.

For this reason, one of the main areas i wish to focus on at this wiki is to standardise the layout of information on singular pages and across multiple pages of similar subjects or content. There is allot of fantastic information on Iron Chariots, but currently there isn't a huge amount of structure to that information. This alone can weaken the arguments on this site. It can be confusing to people that aren't as well read on formal logic. People that aren't as well read on current scientific or historic facts. People that don't speak English as a primary language. Or just generally a theist that will use anything (including sloppy layout of information) as an excuse to try and call epic fail on an atheist argument.

Iron chariots projects
Iron Chariots Layout Standardisation Project

Murphy's Sandbox