While I have always been an atheist, Five Public Opinions has not always been an atheist blog, if you take my meaning. It evolved in this direction out of a growing interest in the hybridisation of religion and politics both in Australia and in the US, and the ramifications of this hybridisation for science and education (e.g. the ID debate) as well as liberal democracy (e.g. discrimination against non-heterosexuals and same-sex couples). In the course of many fruitful (and even some fruitless) online exchanges I have come to identify myself as an agnostic atheist–the kind of atheist that Richard Dawkins would term a “Level 6.” I am yet to be convinced that a move further along the scale towards “Level 7″ is warranted.