When I go to a thread the first posting I see is the latest post. If I want to see the first post it is all the way at the bottom of the last page. To me this seems backwards as I have always read from left to right- top to bottom. I would like to change my default so that the first post appears first and the latest post would be at the bottom of the last page.

that's set as in the screen shot, right above the blue bar is 'Display' : Linear, hybrid or threaded mode changes that display.