Get to know an Atheist Blogger - Db0 of Division by Zer0

The third in our services of interviews brings us Konstantine Thoukydidis, better known as Db0, who runs the site "A Division by Zer0 - Epicurean thoughts about life, the Universe and everything."

Born in Greece, he now lives in Germany, and has been in the tech industry most of his life. His site is not your average blog, ranging in topic from the his love for music to the immigration policies of Europe. His blog is an homage to how the power of technology to connect people and the pursuit of living a thoughtful life.

On to the interview!

Q. Tell us a bit about yourself, where you came from, what you do now, where you're going.

Right then. I define myself mostly thought my philosophy and that is a combination of Epicurism and the Hacker's code. I am also an open skeptic and a hopeless optimist. I mention these because I find such descriptions much more important than the all generic "Atheism" which can encompass anything from Communism to Objectivism and from Conspiracy theorists to Religion.

I came from Greece and am currently living in Germany working in the IT sector in a major banking institute. I left Greece because of the extremely limited opportunities for my sector of work and the severe exploitation of low class working people.

Where I am going, even I do not know. I am generally living my life and I hope that when I die I'll have managed to have left the world at least a little bit better than it was. At the end of the day, the best anyone of us can hope is a Wikipedia entry ;)

Q. What made you decide to blog about atheism?

I don't really blog about Atheism (am I disqualified now? :P) but since religion tends to get in the way so often, it's hard to ignore some times. Generally when I write about atheism or religion, I use The Antichristian Phenomenon which is a collaborative blog with many bright minds behind it.
The reason I blog about religion (and my necessary atheistic take on it) is because someone must write the antilogue to their propaganda and lies. If the Atheists stay silent, then people have even more reason to believe we don't have any presence at all.

Q. How long have you known that you are an atheist? Tell us about that time in your life, and what led to that point.

I've been calling myself an Atheist since I was around 15 (when I became an orphan). I was raised in a very religious country with a church in every corner and with an advertised 99% christian orthodox population. Hopefully, my family was not religious at all and while we attended religious events, it was never forced upon us as children...well, other than the school indoctrination of course.
I started calling myself an atheist mostly because I did not consider myself a good Christian so I found it hypocritical to describe myself as such. Fortunately, the atheists are not hated in Greece as they are in the US so there was not much problem there (other than an Aunt and Grandmother who almost had an aneurysm). As time passed and I read more and more about Christian atrocities I switched to calling myself an agnostic for I did not want to relate myself with their horrid history but I could also not be certain of the non-existence of god(s).
I still kept a dose of "spiritualism" and general woo-woo openness for a while until I moved to Germany and started interacting more with the Atheosphere at which point my last hints of spirituality dropped away and I evolved into my current mental form of agnostic atheism, or simply an Atheist.

Q. What excites you most about the current state of atheism, what are you optimistic about?

The only thing that excites me is that Atheists are more vocal now and as a group we generally tend to be the ones who rationally criticise everything that is wrong in our society without paying attention to silly concepts like political correctness.
Occasionally events and some bright minds of Atheism, really give me the impression that we are the only bastion of light which shines light towards all directions and drives away the encroaching darkness of mysticism, cynicism and organised religion.
I am also quite happy that the vast majority of atheists have socialistic and liberal tendencies.

Q. Your blog has a number of references to Epicurus. Tell us who he was, what he stood for, and how his philosophy has affected your views on the world.

I'm glad you asked (Seriously, I'm just shy of having a big button saying "Ask me about Epicurus" on the site :P )

Epicurus was, as you may have guessed, an ancient Greek philosopher. He lived in the Alexandrian years, in times of tremendous strife and brutal monarchy. The situations of the time made him conceive one of the greatest life philosophies Ev4r.

What he said can be described with his quote "It is fortunate that what is necessary, is easy to acquire and what is difficult to have, is not necessary". It is a philosophy of discarding unnecessary needs that bring you more pain than pleasure, of escaping fear and becoming happier simply by reducing the number of requirements you have in your life.
Because it was very focused on discarding fear from the human mind, it ended up minimizing the impact of gods. Epicurus himself was a Deist leaning towards outright Atheism.

The interesting part about Epicurism was that it spread like wildfire in the Classical and Roman times and as a philosophy it was the only thing that embattled the encroaching mysticism and dark ages. Thus there was none other more hated and assaulted philosophy than Epicurism. From Stoics to Christians, many wanted it extinguished and as a result, when the later came into power, the teachings of Epicurus where systematically destroyed and slandered (To the point of ending up meaning something entirely different). It is pretty much through luck that we have some of his works still.

Epicurism has not affected my life for I was a Epicurist before I read about him. However reading the actual philosophy and history behind it, allowed me to crystallize my thoughts (as well as find a great "role model"). I plan to start blogging more and more about Epicurism and how it can affect your life for the better using real life examples and analysis. AFAIK there's precious little awareness about this online and I find it a great shame. I hope my writing will intrigue people to find a bit more about it themselves.

Q. With your background in tech, how do you see technology helping the atheist movement going forward? What do you think the most powerful tools atheists have at their disposal that they may not be aware of?

The good thing about most free thinkers is that they are generally progressive and thus we tend to be more open to new technologies and services. Witness for example how quickly people have embraces scoutle once I blogged about it. Within 5 days, we had 30 new members and its still growing. Same thing with the atheist nexus and twitter. We jump to opportunities to network and connect with others like us for there are precious few of us and many of them might hide their true identity.

Technology can help up connect and organise a generally very disorganised movement. Nevertheless, we still need a lot of work on this front as I see people still quite difficult to act. Sometimes it seems that only Pharyngula has the critical mass to make people move off their lazy butts and click a button :P.

Another thing that many people do not realise is how close ethically we are to Free Software movement. Withs so many atheists having left-libertarian leanings, it is very easy to see how the mentality of creating something to be free and for everyone can be suitable for us. Not only that, but learning on how an extremely decentralised movement like this has managed to become so powerful, not only in software but in everything (Wikipedia is a testament to this) can give us ideas and methods to use our well..."herd of cats".

Personally, because I use the hacker's code as well, I love to spread my knowledge and experience with the rest of you. This is the reason why I write articles on how you can improve your blogging or your performance occasionally. I don't find simply saying "Here's a new service. Use it" any useful at all. The most important parts are the "Why" and "How" and the more people that explain these, the better all of us become ;)

Q. Being born in Greece, and now living in Germany, what do you think American's can learn from the relative success atheism has had in Europe?

The thing is that Atheism has always been more accepted in western Europe in recent times. I'm not actually certain why but I get the impression that Europeans are generally more tolerant. Of course, as we have seen recently with the slow Islamization of Europe, that is not always a good thing :S

The problem the US has as I see it, is that your current social security system (healthcare, welfare etc) is so weak and skewered that people's lives are always one step away from total ruination. Even with healthcare, a family may find themselves in bankruptcy and let's not even discuss what happens without it. You can be fired at any point, without excuse. You government will not really help you if you're black and poor etc. It is no wonder why all this instability in people's lives causes anxiety and fear. And what better way to calm your fears than by swallowing the delusion of religion for a better life after death?

If you want to take one hint from Europe, look at their social security. The more of it you have, the less the fear, and the less fear, the less you need Gods.
If the Atheists in US united and concentrated in increasing the social security, you would both be seen as doing something good and you would be indirectly destroying the foundations of theism.

Q. What's your single most powerful argument when someone asks you why you don't believe in god?

Which God?! :P

Seriously though, the best thing one can say when such an argument is presented is inquire on the nature of this god. As atheists, we do not (and should not) have any preconceptions on the nature of deities as this will only lead us to try and prove a negative.

If one asks you why you don't believe in the Christian god, claim ignorance and ask them to explain his nature, once they describe his nature of omnipotence and omnibenevolence, present them with the problem of evil. In similar ways, as someone tries to prove the nature of a god, you can bring in arguments that oppose it and you're not trying to prove a negative.
What you have to remember is that not all Arguments work against all gods. The Argument from Evil absolutely fails against the Dodecatheon for example ;)

If they end up asking you to prove that God does not exist, explain that it's not yourself who is trying to convince them ;)

This classic fictional story is a great example of how this could work.

Q. Tell us why people should read your blog, and anything else you want to want to share with our readers.

Ah the shameless plug part eh? Don't mind if I do.

Well, you should be reading the Division by Zer0 if you are interested in a more varied take of atheism. I rarely talk about Atheism explicitly, but you will be able to see the opinion of a shameless Atheist on many and various subjects as well as have a look at my "real life" if you care to.

If you do not want to read the same US-centric news or commentary, you might also like it since I avoid commenting on the same things 80% of the english speaking atheosphere does. I'm trying to be unique like everyone else.

I also do not know of any other Epicurean bloggers so...there :)

Thank you Db0!

As always, if you have any follow up questions for DB0, or would like to find out more, leave your comments here, or just head on over to A Division by Zer0.

Till next time!