I suppose I should (re)introduce myself.

My name is Man on the Moon, though I usually respond well to motm if you are anywhere near as lazy as I.

I live in California right now (yeah yeah, I was gone when the earthquake hit) and have been waiting a long time to feel a quake. I left just in time for one to come :P. I live on the central coast. It's great!

I teach science to 5th and 6th graders. While I grew up yec--don't mug me just yet--I have long thought it is important to understand evolution and old earth stuff, I haven't always allowed myself to truly be critical of the world. Also, I respect the general public desire to NOT be taught creationism, so unless a student specifically asks, I don't tell. I think I started out a lot more liberal than most, but even so...I can't imagine...never mind. That's another story.

I was a member here probably four years ago. It looked a lot different then! I sort of fell away with school--it had been a summer thing, then later forgot about it until I found a link at talk.origins in some research I was doing. That was yesterday. For the last, oh, three years probably, I've let slide a lot of things in hopes I would become neutral enough to really take a good look at the world without killing myself mentally. Emotionally I am still attached to the idea of yec, not sure why. Intellectually I've all but let go, and logically...never mind, that's beyond the scope of an introduction.

I've long held the universe could be old and life be young, some of my old posts from long ago reflect that. If you think you're finding dirt on me being a hypocrit, there it is. More recently I've started to look into that question as well, which is reflected in the above paragraph. I'll probably be in and out, asking questions about the cosmology side of things, but mostly just acquanting myself again with the society and culture of scientists and skeptics that I have been so frustrated with in the past and tried to reject. Only recently (two years fair enough?) have I accepted the skeptic in myself and determined to face it if I want to be honest with myself. The dichotomy of believing in God on one hand and not being able to on the other is rather mind bending. Bear with me when I'm asking obnoxious questions, I'm just trying to work out the facts and not feel like a traitor at the same time.

Am I the only one to experience this?

In other news, I like life, just the thinking part is frustrating. Nothing could be better or more rewarding than what I do right now in revealing the world, critical thinking, and the scientific process to my students. In fact, it may be because of my job that I decided to take the next step and put myself up for whammies of thought. Either way, it's great and I'm having a grand time of it. Thanks for any help you may give me, and for putting up with folks like myself. I'm very grateful to open, non-pressure (to conform) forums like this. I very much like the no-idiot, pro-id format that's grown here. And glad to see it's still alive!

motm

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None to speak of