Thrilled to join the forum!

[Lightningman_42]

Hello members of The Vegan Atheist Forum,
I am a fourth-year Earth Sciences major at UC Santa Cruz. I am passionate about science, rational thinking, and justice for all sentient beings. I enjoy cooking and baking, and plan on posting images of my delicious creations on the "food" section of this forum from time to time. I have been vegan now for just over one year (I started at some point in early/mid March of 2014; I don't remember the exact day), and definitely will be for the rest of my life.
I became a vegetarian 3 years ago, mostly as a sort of emotional response to learning about the heinous atrocities committed upon animals by the meat industries. Eventually I learned more about the health problems associated with consuming animal products, as well as the environmental consequences of raising massive numbers of domesticated animals. A little over a year ago I discovered the Vegan Atheist's YouTube channel, and learned more about the reasoning behind avoiding all use of animals as resources. At this time I was also learning about the rapes, kidnaps, and murders that are a matter of standard procedure within dairy industries. "The Best Speech Ever" by Gary Yourofsky was one of the strongest motivating factors for me to avoid animal consumption. Through long and careful thinking, I realized that I cannot morally justify participating in the exploitation of animals, due to my lack of necessity, and the inherent harm towards them in doing so. I finally decided to abstain from all forms of animal exploitation.
In hindsight, I'm shocked at how blind I was to the harm towards animals inherent within raising them for meat, and even more so for eggs and milk. I used to be the kind of guy who was proud of drinking two or three glasses of milk a day, because it would "give me strong bones." I'm so glad that I finally questioned my faith-based beliefs concerning the ethics and health implications of animal-derived foods, and overcame the dogma that has been imposed upon me by society.
I feel I have only just begun to atone for my past aggressions towards my nonhuman brethren, but I'm doing my best to inspire others. I have had some really fascinating conversations with my nonvegan friends, classmates, and colleagues. I do my best to never insult their character, but I always make it clear that being vegan is the least that we owe to animals, and explain why we cannot justify participating in the exploitation of animals.
I have been following the posts on this forum for a few months and have been looking forward to joining for a while now. As far as I can tell, most of the members of this forum are intelligent, rational, and compassionate free-thinkers. Thank you for reading my introduction. I look forward to exchanging thoughts with the members of this forum.

[Jebus]

Nice introduction. I heard Santa Cruz is great.

[TheVeganAtheist]

Welcome to the forum ArmouredAbolitionist! great intro!

[brimstoneSalad]

Like others said, thanks for the thorough intro! Great to have you join the forum. Welcome, and I hope you like it here.

[Lightningman_42]

Thank you for the warm welcome, Jebus, TheVeganAtheist, and brimstoneSalad! It's nice to be able to discuss issues about veganism with like-minded people, as well as people with a diverse spectrum of views on various issues.

[Dream Sphere]

Welcome, ArmouredAbolitionist! You made some very good arguments and presented them very well in that thread "LogicIsNotRelative" created. I'm happy we have another Vegan here who really understands their reasons for being so. Hopefully in this community growing even larger with such people, we can make even more gains in learning and growing from the sharing of one another's ideas.