1. First of all, I've been curious about your blogging name. Is Hausdorff your last name? If not, where did your blogging name come from?
It’s the name of a mathematician. Back in 2004 when World of Warcraft first came out, I had my eyes open for a name for my character. I was looking for something mathy that most people wouldn't recognize and we happened to talk about hausdorff spaces in one of my classes that day. I thought it sounded cool and have just kept it as my online name ever since. It’s kinda funny how a random little unimportant decision can stick with you for so long.
2. One statement of yours really surprised me once. You said that despite growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household, you had not read the Bible through before. Why was that?
I guess the main reason is that I resisted. I hated reading pretty much everything as a kid, and the Bible is tough for a young mind to get through. When I did give it a go I mostly got confused, or stuck in some begats. It didn't occur to me that I could skip ahead a page or two and keep going, seems I had an all or nothing mentality even back then.Another thing I can think of is that I would often get lists of verses I was supposed to memorize. This is about the worst thing for me, I suck and memorizing things, I can remember ideas and logical procedures, but it’s hard to memorize what amounted to a random jumble of words in my mind. (although I still know John 3:16 perfectly).
One final thought, we would be told in church that we should read the Bible on our own. I remember one sermon in particular where he said novices listen in church, students read verses they are told to read, and scholars read on their own. I remember getting all fired up about reading it on my own, I probably read it on my own for like 2 nights and bailed because it was boring. I’m don’t think many people in the church read more of the bible than I did.
3. As a child, what denomination(s) was your family a part of? Was there any certain ministers that they were followers of? What was that upbringing like?
It was an Evangelical Free church. My parents listened to Doctor Dobson, they also read a ton of his books. I think my upbringing was pretty standard middle class, normal ups and downs. Although looking back, it seems to me that the downs were made worse by religions influence. I had an extreme fear of hell for a long time, I was always worried about doing the wrong thing or even thinking the wrong thing. Thoughtcrime is probably one of the worst things I was taught.
4. What led you to begin questioning the faith, and when did you give it up entirely?
