Intro/Culturally Prescribed Lens

Hello, my name is Sean Moffett. I am a 20 year old student at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. I am majoring in International Studies with a concentration on Europe (specifically Germany). I am currently living at home with my parents, Dean and Joan Moffett, my brother Dillon, and my grandmother Mary.

I moved to McCalla, Alabama when I was five years old from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania due to my fathers work. I moved to Hoover, Alabama five years ago and attended Spain Park High School and graduated in 2007. I began college at Jefferson State Community College in Hoover, and transferred to UAB in the Fall of 2009. I became interested in Anthropology in the Spring of 2009 due to an Anthropology class that I took at JSCC. Learning about other cultures became fascinating to me, and I took an interest in Europe due to my German heritage. I began asking my parents "what do you know about our family and where we came from?" but the only answer that they could tell me was "we have German and Irish roots" which was too bland of an answer for me. This was my turning point in life where I began searching for answers, and became fascinated in the history of the world. With learning about one study, I became interested in another, and before I knew it, I realized that I have a lot to learn about the history of the world and why people are so different but at the same time, the same.

When it comes to Anthropology, I am most interested in religion. I was born Catholic, and attended Catholic school from age 5 until age 14. When I was 19 years old, I began labeling myself as an Atheist. I could not continue to have faith due to so many flaws in my religion. I began realizing the similarities between all religions of the world, and how my life was filled with Christian propaganda ever since I was born. I could not fathom the idea that one man was watching over me at all time, or that God would allow tragedies to occur such as the Holocaust or the 9/11 attacks. With the millions of starving children around the world, and the horrible incidents that are happening in Darfur today, how could a God allow this to happen? These ideas are only the beginning of how my beliefs were turned around. Today I consider myself to be a "no label", because to be called an Atheist, it suggests that I have an idea of where I will go after I die. Some Atheists will disagree with that, but for now, I am sticking with "no label".

This was about as brief of a paragraph that I could come up with. Stay tuned.