User:SciAwakening

About Me
I'm a software developer in his 30's currently living in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. I grew up in a conservative evangelical family and through accumulated life experience eventually came to the conclusion that conservative, dogmatic religion is an all too often dangerous and destructive force in the world.

For most of my life I have suffered from a mental disorder called Social Anxiety Disorder. In 2011 I began taking medication and engaging in psychotherapy that changed how my mind perceives the world and now I no longer have the dramatic ill effects of the disorder. I credit the proponents of the scientific method for this incredible breakthrough in my life experience.

I'm fascinated by the human mind and enjoy learning about the latest findings in philosophy of mind, neuroscience, neurobiology, positive psychology, abnormal psychology and all other brain-related scientific and philosophical fields of study. I'm also very interested in religion and especially finding the space between dogmatic Atheism and dogmatic religion. How do we accurately understand and successfully engage with people of differing personalities and religious beliefs? How do we successfully counter our own cognitive distortions? These are the kinds of questions that I am interested in.

I'm a big fan of the following books:


 * Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dan Dennett (What are the implications of this strange inversion of logic, bottom-up design?)
 * The Happiness Hypothesis by Jon Haidt (There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.)
 * The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan (The immense power and value of science.)
 * On Being Certain by Robert Burton (Want to understand how confidence is all too often de-coupled from empirical evidence? You better understand the "feeling of knowing" and how it works.)
 * Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey (The differing human personalities, what purpose they serve, and how we can relate to each other.)

I run a blog called Scientific Awakening where I pontificate on topics like science, religion, politics, technology, and humor. Feel free to stop by and comment on some of my posts!