Thinking of shutting 'er down

It has been quite a long time since I've posted anything. I've tired of reading, writing, and talking about religion and apologetics. At first, I just sort of fell out of it and got interested in other things. After a while, I had a sense that it would be so easy to dive back in -- reading blogs, reading books, listening to debates and talks , etc. -- but wondered if I'd be any better for it.

Call me apathetic, but the only thing I can really say is that I am who I am and I'm simply where I'm at. For me, that currently means non-belief in things religious and spiritual. I'm not sure I could tell you what it would take to change my mind. I just know that after surveying the land, I find it unlikely.

I'm ready to move on to more interesting and practical things. I've got home renovations underway, a table saw to restore, programming languages to learn, data visualizations to create, Coursera classes to take, and (Oh, right) a family to love and take care of. I've been diving into R, data visualization, machine learning, d3, and a bunch of other stuff. Having lived both phases of life, I'm happier investing in the latter assortment of topics compared to when I was fully immersed in religion.

At this point, investing energy in apologetics seems like perseveration. If god wants to find me, surely he knows my threshold for belief and can do what he wants. I hold fast to the Litany of Tarski: if god is real, I want to believe in god; if god is not real, I don't want to believe in god. I'd rather focus my efforts on overall self-improvement and growth, which seems practical and beneficial, regardless of one's religious path. Should theism find me in the future, so be it.

Which brings me to this blog. I love the name, but it's become a jumbled mess. I have plenty of other (as in non-religious) interesting things to write about (and already have), but I can't really share them freely as I'd like to avoid alienating co-workers and acquaintances who stumble into this probably-more-open-than-it-should-be open book I've got going on here. Thus... I'm debating either 1) just starting a new blog and deleting this one or 2) archiving all my posts from this blog and starting over.

I'm more inclined toward #1, as I'm thinking I'd still get comments like, "Hey, didn't you used to write about religion?" or "Hey, are you still an atheist?" and I'd like to go ahead and avoid all that.

Anyway, I thought I'd at least post that much for my small reader-ship. I never did flesh out my reasons for non-belief, nor did I finish my massive and ever-changing book list. But I suppose that's life! I'm in pretty good spirits, my wife comments on feeling more cared for and loved (even thought I couldn't tell you what I did to produce those feelings and nor could I identify a key point of change in myself!), and work and extra-curricular life is just plain great.

I'm grateful to all of those I met through this blog and through reading blogs like it. It's quite the rough road, and I empathize with any who have been through a personal struggle as jarring as these types can be. At the moment, it just feels like time to move on. I'm happy to discuss and respond to thoughts... if there are any still subscribed or who check this, feel free to post and let me know what you think!