The Light of Reason: And Other Atheist Writings

I am materialist rationalist who took a decision to be led by the evidence many years ago and who thinks the Universe is wonderful enough without magic and forever-hidden mystery, and that being an evolved ape, 3.5 billion years in the making, is infinitely more marvelous than being the unworthy product of a magician who made me out of dirt. I was brought up in a small North Oxfordshire village in England during the post-war baby boom and have had a love of nature since before I can remember. By any standards we were poor and grew most of the food we ate in our garden and on a allotment on the edge of the village. In some respects we were close to hunter-gatherers that modern urbanized human beings and took what free food we could find from the fields, hedgerows and woods around us. I don’t remember learning to read but I read anything I could get my hands on, especially anything to do with nature. I realised I was an Atheist when I was nine years old when it suddenly dawned on me that not all religions could be right, but they could all be wrong. Since there was no more reason to suppose only ours was the right one while all the others were, and had been, wrong, the most sensible view was that they were all wrong. I have been an atheist ever since. On leaving school, I worked as a laboratory technician for Oxford University, working my way up to Senior Technician and gaining an ONC in Science, an HNC in Applied Biology, and state registration as a Medical Laboratory Technician. These were probably my most formative years, shaping my political views and honing my understanding of science and the scientific method. After eleven years I was made redundant when the government cut back on research spending. Disillusioned, I decided on a change of career and joined the Ambulance Service. Using my medical and biological knowledge I became one of the first UK Paramedics, eventually working my way through the ranks to become a Control Room Manager, gained a postgraduate Diploma In Management Studies at Oxford Brookes University, taught myself computer programming and became the Trust’s Information Manager and Data Protection Officer and a member of the Senior Management Team. I formally retired nearly six years ago but was asked to return part-time as a performance information analyst and deployment planning consultant.