[Michael]

So, yeah. There was quite a lot to your last post. I wouldn't quite put it how psychodiva did, but in the interest of keeping some form of brevity (I tend to be about as verbose as you, from the looks of things, and if we both do it these posts will get intolerably long) I will try to condense down to a few points.

Stephen Kahn wrote

One of the great puzzles of human life is “nature” (our genes) vs. “nurture” (our social conditioning from parents, personal circles, and culture) as the 2 main ingredients of our identity.

I sit somewhere in the middle. i believe there are fundamental ideas inherent to humans/animals/whatever, but through nurture can be encouraged or discouraged so they form greater or more dimishing roles in an individual.
I will admit to having no real basis to this belief, however, as I just started forming it when replying to this, and am basing it on what I do know about the subject - which is limited.
So if you or anyone reading this has some points to broach regarding the subject, I'm all ears. Or eyes, in this case.

About the age of 35 I came to the realization that I have the “spiritual makeup” of a religious fanatic. Except I don't believe in “God.” So I am a fanatical atheist.

From what you have written, I would say that you belong to a slightly different “denomination” of atheism than I do. Just as I know a zealous Lutheran minister who is on friendly and argumentative terms with a Catholic priest, atheists of different flavors can communicate on friendly terms without getting “bent out of shape” about differences of opinion. It would be boring if we all thought alike, would it not!?

We definitely differ here, as i don't believe in different 'denominations' of atheism, beside the a/gnostic a/theism wagon wheel. If you are unsure what I am referring to, I'll try to find it somewhere. i think I have an image demonstrating it lying around,

Basically I think atheism should be strictly considered the lack of belief in a god (with room for gnosticism or agnosticism - whether you believe a god could ever be knowable), and anything beyond that should be considered seperate to your atheism.

This is why I strongly dislike things like atheism+. Even if I may or may not agree with the other issues they want to represent, they should not be in any way roped in with atheism.

I learned that most people decide what they want to believe at a fairly early age and then spend the rest of their lives rationalizing and defending their beliefs.

Stick around here long enough and you'll see plenty of that from the passing theists.
As I said, some - most - atheists are guilty of this also. Maybe not with religion, but a lot hold views they have chosen and rationalised without even realising. I am currently trying to work through most of my ideals to see where I may have done similar.

The Evangelicals were also vehement that arguments for limiting human population were absurd.

And I think they are wrong to be so.

Even here, there are problems. If you limit population growth to aggressively, as both China and Japan seem to have done, you then get out of balance population cohorts, with lots of elderly people and not enough young people to support them. I've probably put you to sleep, so I will stop and hope you reply.

We are already finding that problem. At least here in Australia - I don't know if the same is true where you are. Basically after WW2 the soldiers came home and started breeding like rabbits, causing a boom in babies (known coincidentally enough as the "baby boomers"). However, this generation didn't have nearly as many kids of their own, and gen x had the same problem. So as the baby-boomers get older, we're seeing a larger and larger proportion of the population move into the senior-citizen category, with all the social benefit problems that go with it.

However, this problem could have been avoided if people had foreseen the oncoming difficulty earlier and put in place proper measures to resolve the situation

The same is true of any artificially-created age-balances. With proper planning, this should not be a problem. It is not like people get old overnight - there is time to put proper measures in place. It's when people don't that you get the problems.

I will finish with one warning. I am going senile. The politically correct term is “demented.” So if nothing I write makes any sense, you are certainly correct.

My condolences, though you seem fine at the moment.