Born in Kitchener Ontario, an hour west of Toronto, to two Dutch immigrants, the "surprise" after 4 older sisters. I was raised as a presbyterian, even to the point where I taught Sunday school for several years. My family pretty much went completely evangelical during my teenage years, and I went to an evangelical church with my youngest sister for a time. After a year, I had an epiphany and became a born again atheist. I've always had a very analytical mind, bordering on ASD, and religion just didn't make sense given all the evidence. At times I become a little militant, only because of the hate, violence, and oppression that is perpetrated in the name of faith
I'm also a firm believer in humanism, and that faith isn't required to be moral; that true empathy and altruism comes from the "spirit" within. I don't necessarily believe in a asomatous spirit; I believe that our emotions and ego are constructs by our very physical brain, as demonstrated by neuroscience. I won't rule out that these have very tangible effects on those around us, or the universe in general, given that I'm also a student of physics. The quantum universe is an eerie place.