As his marriage and other relationships failed, he turned to alcohol to cope with the guilt and fear and spent eight years wandering through life adrift. He turned to various support groups and churches for help but nothing worked. It was only when he moved to Mississippi that he found friends who helped him take the first steps away from the religious guilt and begin the long, slow climb out of alcoholism and depression. His relationship with Tweenky Dee brought a new understanding of science and skepticism that gave him the freedom to ask questions and deal with reality on his own terms. His goals now are to educate the public about critical thinking, support others who are coming out of religion, and promote the questioning mind. His motto is, "Don't take my word for it - look it up for yourself!"
Tweenky Dee is a former Southern Baptist, Catholic, pagan, satanist, and every other thing you can imagine. From her earliest days, she wanted to know everything about everything. Unfortunately, she was very fantasy prone and had difficulty telling the difference between fairy tales, religious stories, and science texts. She was an avid proponent of every conspiracy theory, UFO sighting, ghost story, and mythical beast around. She was, looking back, the "Queen of the Credulous."
Much of that changed at age 17 when she was hospitalized for hearing voices and behaving in uncharacteristic ways. Her religious upbringing convinced her that the voices were demons and they were driving her to perform sinful acts. Unfortunately, the hospital staff brushed it all off and suggested that she merely get back in church and repent. The voices continued to plague her and made it difficult to get an education or hold down a job. She began to wonder how she could tell the difference between reality and fantasy. Thus was the seed of skepticism born.
She spent the next ten years studying science and skepticism in order to separate fact from fiction. It was very difficult as a budding female skeptic to break into the internet atheist community but she stuck with it and now believes she has a much better understanding of logic, reason, and rational thought. She has since been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder - bipolar type which is generally well-controlled with a combination of anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers (thank you, science!). Her goals are to increase public education of science (particularly mental illnesses), support those who have been harmed by any irrational belief system, promote church/state separation, and topple the AFA. Her motto is, "Well, what you need to understand is..." She needs a better motto.
