Introduce Yourself

[Caxpax]

Howdy- I'm pretty sure I've introduced myself before but.....29, married, female, work for a public health non-profit, one toddler son with another baby due this summer. I have a Masters degree and am a godless heathen. Been a fundie watcher for years, then ended up accidentally dating an ex-fundie lite (who is now my hubs) to many people's shock and amusement. He's now a godless heathen too. My gateway fundie was Crystal Paine. Oh, fun fact, I grew up with Brian McLaren's kids and he was my soccer coach in middle school. I didn't realize he was a semi-famous pastor until I met my in-laws and went to their church and heard an entire sermon about how he was a heretic and preaching the false gospel and would burn in hell.

[bbtlover]

I'm a 34 sahm of 2 that lives in ebil Upstate NY. I've been lurking for about 2 months. I found FJ after the Duggars miscarriage. I'm so glad that there are so many articulate, educated women on this forum.

[Guest Anonymous]

Well, guess I might as well start here ;)

hey, everyone, nice to meet you.

I'm 17, still in school (but hopefully not for long) and have an unhealthy obsession with religious nutters.

I discovered this page a few month ago and have been a lurker until now. (I am a chronical lurker actually, i hardly ever post anywhere which is weird considering taht in real life I can hardly ever keep my mouth shut :lol: )

Also, english is not my first language so if you find any mistakes, don't think I was educated at the school of the Dining-room table ;)

[alaeangelorum]

I am in my mid-twenties. I live in the UK and am slogging my way through what will hopefully be my final few months of medical school before I start work in August. I love the NHS, and I hate the lies that get spread about it through anti-socialised-healthcare propaganda. I have been brought up a Catholic but I'm definitely of the cafeteria variety.

My gateway fundies were the Duggars, as I saw one of their earlier documentaries on TV, and looked it up online a while later and found FJ.

[Austin]

Just a quick note to lurkers: we are happy to have you as an FJ member IF you are at least 18 years old.

/PSA

[Katiedarling]

I'm a 31 year old SAHM of one child. We live in the Seattle area. I majored in Comparative Religion and Political Science, so I particularly love stories involving religion and its influence on politics/government. I've been a fundie fanatic since circa 2001 with specialized knowledge of Orthodox Judaism, Mormonism- mainstream and splinter groups, Scientology, as well as the IFB movement. My passion for such matters has made for many confused family members and friends. For this reason I'm thrilled to finally join FJ after lurking since the old board. I enjoyed reading for all this time and never felt motivated to join until a recent OJ post irritated to me no end. :lol:

[FuManchu]

I'm going to be absolutely honest: it hadn't even occurred to me until just now that I might scroll through 11 pages of introductions at this forum and not find one person introduce themselves as male. That's a dynamic I certainly didn't pick up on - it'll teach me to make assumptions.

Anyway - hello! I'm 28, male, and live in London. I'm a lawyer for a fashion company. Doug Phillips was my gateway fundie (if you don't count Kent Hovind and Ken Ham, the creationists), and thence the Botkins, Duggars, and all the rest of it. My friends and I used to get together on Sundays at the pub in our mid-20s and talk incessantly about creationism. Good times!

[Shirley MacLaine]

Ayo, I'm Allison, I'm 25 and I live in Seattle. I'm an unemployed slovenly wino currently but am considering becoming an EMT or going to trade school. My gateway fundie was probably... well, the whole crew over at LAF, but mostly HRH Kelly Crawford. Bless her heart.

[Tuesy]

I thought since I was finally starting to post here I should introduce myself. I've been lurking here for a few years off and on. I found Free Jinger through Free Katie, which I've been reading for years.

Hmm...let's see...what else to say. I'm Canadian and was raised Anglican, but I'm not particularly religious. I'm in my mid30s, and I guess my gateway fundies were the Duggars, because of their higher profile than others.

[Little Miss Alien]

Hi, I'm 30, female and live in the UK. I studied in London and got my Masters in Health Psychology. I have now moved back to my hometown, a small city just outside of London.

I love the NHS, and I hate the lies that get spread about it through anti-socialised-healthcare propaganda.

Me too! My reasons for loving the NHS are that it has always been there for me - from when I was born prematurely with lots of problems, to just 3 weeks ago, when I had a transplant. And lots in between, as I have very complex health issues. I also work for the NHS. So they've saved my life, and they pay me, definitely reasons to love the NHS!

My gateway to the fundies was an article about Jennifer's birth on the LiveJournal community OhNoTheyDidn't. Someone posted a link to the TWOP On the road with 16 kids thread and I spent days, weeks even, reading the whole thing whilst I nursed my then tiny son (he's a month and a bit older than Jennifer). From there, I followed links to Razing Ruth's blog, and No Longer Quivering, which helped me to realise

over the course of about 6-9 months, that although we were athiests, I was in an abusive relationship. It took a while, but we left. We've been so much happier since we broke free.

(Edited to remove identifying info)

[daharyn]

30 yrs old, living in NYC, writing a dissertation on the 1980s, and teaching at night. A couple of sweeties; one cat. My gateway to fundie blogging was a set of xangas written by the eldest daughters of a family I used to know IRL (our parents were friends). I found FJ I think through the TWOP boards.

[Defrauding Errday]

I joined at the beginning of January, but I never formerly introduced myself. I'm 22, unmarried, childless, and a senior with a statistics major and gender studies minor. I live and go to school in the Northeast. I am agnostic and I don't like it when people use religion to be bigots. I first found out about fundies through the Duggars and I found this forum through the Facebook page.

[prairiemuffin]

Hiya! I never introduced myself either :oops:

I'm a somewhat recently single Twin Cities dweller who's greatly enjoying my "singleness". I was raised Lutheran but don't identify as Christian any longer. I'm a theatre/choir geek and have a doofy cat who loves to spoon with me at night.

[Guest Anonymous]

Hi, I'm Digger and I am a Duggar addict. Is this the support group?

[Lola]

27 on friday, discovered this site a few weeks ago.

[flipflop]

Hello I live in the UK and am a 40 something married mother of two teenagers, therefore I do not need Google or Wikipedia as the eldest knows everything about everything!

I work as a lawyer in the public sector. I am a Roman Catholic, although I do not agree with the church on everything or else I too would have 19 children :)

I also love the NHS!

Became interested in FJ etc though initially watching 18 Kids and counting. The whole fundie thing fascinates me. It also really worries me in terms of women giving away their rights and freedoms and handing over total power and control to men. The fundie movement is not big in the UK, I sincerely hope this is something that does not make its way over the Atlantic.

[YAHsome]

I am in my seventies, a widowed woman. I have three children who are grown and have families and loved ones of their own. I have been lurking for some years, since a long time before "the rapture." I have never been a fundamentalist or anything close, but when I was a young girl, life was different, and perhaps more in line with fundamentalist thinking in terms of a woman's position in society. I don;t often post because I feel that I am still learning how to be a being free from expectation, if that makes sense. I am a product of the year of my birth, of my conservative upbringing, of the long marriage I kept ( and didn't want to keep ). So I watch and learn.

Yes. You can teach an old dog new tricks.

I write for a "living." I have several published books and two more to be published this year. Not along the lines of anything discussed in this forum, but perhaps I will try to write a memoir one day, of the woman I was, the woman I wanted the be, the woman I have become.

[NurseNell]

I am in my seventies, a widowed woman. I have three children who are grown and have families and loved ones of their own. I have been lurking for some years, since a long time before "the rapture." I have never been a fundamentalist or anything close, but when I was a young girl, life was different, and perhaps more in line with fundamentalist thinking in terms of a woman's position in society. I don;t often post because I feel that I am still learning how to be a being free from expectation, if that makes sense. I am a product of the year of my birth, of my conservative upbringing, of the long marriage I kept ( and didn't want to keep ). So I watch and learn.

Yes. You can teach an old dog new tricks.

I write for a "living." I have several published books and two more to be published this year. Not along the lines of anything discussed in this forum, but perhaps I will try to write a memoir one day, of the woman I was, the woman I wanted the be, the woman I have become.

I'm confused because in November you said this:

Clibbyjo, this is exactly what I do for a living, and have for around six years. I have always been a Big Picture and Idea person, and can't imagine doing anything else with my life! I am 45 years old, a single mom, and prior to my consulting business, I worked in PR and Marketing and as a journalist.

I was excited to see someone older than me (I'm 67) so I looked at your other posts and saw this discrepancy. You have another post where you say you are 74. So, 70's, 74, and 45. :?

[Tempehst]

Hi, I'm 27, female, in New England (but from the midwest!). I have two kids under 4 and I'd been vaguely interested in the Duggars for a while and read some stuff on No Longer Quivering out of curiosity, but I only really became interested in them after I had my second child and had post partum depression. I couldn't figure them out. They had soooo many kids and seemed so happy whereas I only had two and was miserable.

The cynic in me was thrilled to later discover they're just faking it :P

But I will add it did inspire me to buy the book "Large Family Logistics," recommended by Michelle Duggar. So if I ever became Quiverfull myself, I now have the guide to Doing Things the Right Way--According to Vision Forum :lol:

[Witsec7]

I'm confused because in November you said this:

I was excited to see someone older than me (I'm 67) so I looked at your other posts and saw this discrepancy. You have another post where you say you are 74. So, 70's, 74, and 45. :?

Yahsome crazy chit. :o Thanks for the catch NN.

[weirdghostboo]

Hi. 20, female, originally from England (moved here when I was 10), single, no kids, currently lost in the Midwest, Musical Theatre/Journalism.

[keeperrox]

I'm 30, female, originally from Northern NJ, but currently living in southern PA. Married for almost 6 years, no kids yet, 2 rescue pups, and both hubby and I work for teh ebil publik school system (me as a middle school teacher and him as the assistant tech. director/network admin).

[daharyn]

I'm 30, female, originally from Northern NJ, but currently living in southern PA. Married for almost 6 years, no kids yet, 2 rescue pups, and both hubby and I work for teh ebil publik school system (me as a middle school teacher and him as the assistant tech. director/network admin).

Public school teachers are generally some of my favorite people. Thanks to you and all the other K-12 teachers out there. Some of the awesomeness I see in my undergrad students is due to you. :)

[FireIsCatching89]

I don't think I've ever formally introuced myself, though I've been around for a good bit.

I'm a 22 year old college student in the Midwest, finishing up my final semester to get a BA in anthropology. I go to an extremely small private liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere, basically, though I did study abroad in Scotland in the fall of 2010. I hope to enter graduate school next fall to earn my MPH and fullfill a dream I've had since I was fifteen: WORK FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD WOOOOOHOOOO! I was raised by a Christian second-wave feminist mom, and my older brother is now a very liberal ordained minister. I grew up very much in the church (youth group, mission trips, etc.), but now consider myself a culturally Christian agnostic.

My gateway fundies were definitely the Duggars, and in high school I used to lurk around TWOP, and FreeJinger at its inception at yuku- I didn't join until we were raptured, though. I also am fascinated by FLDS, and I joke that my mom is my enabler, since she's the one who got me started reading FLDS memiors in high school. I watch a lot of documentaries on fundies and read a lot of books on them, so if you need a rec, I'm always open (my personal favorite is God's Harvard by Hanna Rosin). I've also been following the Maxwells for...oh, five years, now? Oh, and I also grew up around a good number of Hasidic Jewish families, since the only Orthodox synagogue in my home state is 2.5 blocks from my house.

My friends and family are aware of my fundie obsession, but they think I'm really weird. They don't realize that there's a whooooole world of us out there. And besides, my fundie obsession has finally paid off- last month I was nominated for a departmental award at my college for a paper I wrote last semester on Mormon missionaries! My hobby is productive!

Also, my name and avatar are very much Hunger Games related. I love me some Katniss!

[LittleMy]

I'm a fifty year old mother of three living in the East of England. I found your site following an internet search for a blogger I used to read, Molly in Alaska. It took me some time to work out this site as although I knew who the Duggars were, I'd not seen the show ( have now) and the whole Jinger spelling thing threw me.

I've kept reading here because it's a very interesting site for an English person...this is a pretty secular country we don't have the same kind of fundamental Christianity here, well at least not in such a high profile way.