The Atheist Blogger

Kieran Bennett has been possessed by the Holy Spirit…or possibly a Christian fundamentalist. Whichever it turns out to be, the latest Carnival of the Godless is one of the most weird things I have ever read. If I had a hat I’d tip it to Kieran for his creativity. Now you’ve had your fun Kieran, go relax…you crazy aussie you.

So this months book is “The Demon Haunted World” by Carl Sagan, and the discussion will be held on Saturday 30th, at 23:00 UTC. Again, if you need to work out your time follow these steps:

1. Visit the website http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
2. Scroll down past the first table of countries and you will see another box that has the words “Current UTC (or GMT/Zulu)-time used: “
3. With the time/date shown in that box, you can work how how far ahead or behind you are of UTC.

Everything will be confirmed nearer the time.

Now for the vote for Septembers book.

Do not vote unless you wish to read the book or take part in the discussion!

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Voting lasts 7 days.

This article does not display my current opinions on the subject in hand, and has only been kept up for archive purposes. For my true opinions and explanations, please read this article.

Amongst all the trouble the site suffered during its conception I didn’t think it could get any worse. Power was transferred from the relatively new atheist “Thor” to Brother Richard, an atheist blogger.  Brother Richard asked for volunteers for web design, lawyers, graphic designers, representatives, moderators, and a host of other roles. He also asked for “donators” since the site wasn’t going to pay for itself. I remain slightly skeptical of this part. The site is hosted on Ning.com, a free social networking engine that expects high server usage, so where exactly does Richard need the money? The issue of lawyers seems a little strange as well, seeing as the site isn’t corporate and is in fact governed by Ning.com (who I assume have lawyers).

I was recently invited by vjack to join his new group on Atheist Nexus; a group dedicated to stamping down on atheist discrimination. It’s a great idea, and I support it even if I have now left Atheist Nexus. I suggest anyone still on the site joins the group straight away.

Once I got the email inviting me to join the group, I went straight to Atheist Nexus and did indeed join it. However, I noticed a link at the top of the page saying something about “Phase 1″ of fund raising. Intrigued, I went to the page and read.

Brother Richard starts by commenting on the wonderful transformation the site has gone, becoming one of the fastest growing atheist sites on the web. He also tells how he recently sold his business and is in a state of “semi-retirement”. He wants to spend the rest of the year (which he claims does not need that much income) helping with the site. However, he states:

Of course, it is our hope that the site will continue to grow and provide a comfortable income for our family and the staff that has been working with us, but only time will tell.

What? Excuse me? Since when did Atheist Nexus, a free site, hosted by a free organisation (Ning) for FREE become a platform for earning money? So now we see the corporate nature of Brother Richards ideas. Instead of simply relying on volunteers he decides to earn some money for doing what most people would call a “hobby”. The site doesn’t need that much tending. All the admin is done by Ning, as are the server upgrades and anything else that might take time. What was wrong with keeping volunteers to do the work? I’d already gladly volunteered to help redesign and possibly remake the entire site (FOR FREE) but I never got a response.

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