Explanation of my Title

i might as well explain the meaning of my title.

starstuff: we are all starstuff. We are actually made of elements that were forged inside the cores of ancient stars, and expelled into the universe in great novas and supernovas. Cool, no? I have a great deal of interest in astronomy, and many a clear dark night you will see me outside. Sometime with my telescope--a Meade ATX-90--and sometimes with only my reclining lawnchair. I love the stars, and I've always loved being out at night.

pantheism: more of the above. I've gone though a few religious phases in my life. Christianity--of the evangelical, semi-fundamentalist type), the religion in which I was raised. Then questions and agnosticism, atheism, and most recently I've been exploring pantheism. Naturalistic pantheism, that is. It's not like I've converted away from atheism, just that I've come to realize that my beliefs about nature--especially the night sky--make pantheism very compelling to me. The Universe is Divine.

freethought: As my mother put it, "no bondage to thought." (Although she does not quite understand what freethought means, I think.) A freethinker is a person who forms opinions on the basis of reason, not religious (or other) dogma. In fact, freethinkers are suspicious of the idea that faith should even be considered a way to knowledge. By faith I mean unquestioning belief in the absence of, or in spite of, proof. When I say "faith" I don't mean "hope," or "trust," or anything like that that I've heard Christians call faith. None of this nonsense about faith being equated with a belief in a chair--that it will hold you up when you sit in it. Like what I was taught in Sunday School.

Anyway, if you want to know more about me, I also have a website at http://www.louisville.edu/~michil02/. Of course, I will have to find some other place to keep my website after I graduate . . . but I'll deal with that later.