The Atheist Blogger

In my random stumbling around on the internet, I found a bunch of creationist websites that contained photos of various creationists as part of some kind of “about our team” page. Now some of these pictures are just plain and boring, but there are a few that simply cry out for a funny caption. So I’ve decided to create a caption competition in order to correct this massive lack of creationist captions, and here is the first picture.

So dear reader, what exactly is Eric Hovind reaching for? Why does he have a look of terror on his cute creationist face? Why is he clinging to that rock so desperately? The answer to those questions is up to you.

Now onto the issue of a prize. As a student I generally don’t have any money, which means I cannot promise a prize, although I do have an extra signed copy of Ray Comfort’s latest masterpiece “You can lead an atheist to evidence, but you can’t make him think”. To be quite honest, such a book would be better off as a booby prize instead, but it is all I can offer at the moment. Perhaps I could get some cheap badges made, I’m open to suggestions.

So really, it’s a double competition now: Whoever comes up with the best caption and a great idea for some cheap (but cool) prizes will win…er…one of the prizes (and a copy of Ray’s book that I will sign / doodle in). You have a week to do so; off you go!

It was a dark and stormy night…well, not really. It was actually a rather lovely (albeit windy) day in Georgia. The night before had seen torrential rain, although nothing on par with the tornado that hit the north of the state only a few days earlier. For a couple of weeks, Brother Richard (of Life Without Faith and Atheist Nexus) and I had been planning on meeting up, as we were only an hour’s drive apart. So we chose a meeting point about halfway between our two locations, at a shady bar called “Chip’s Bar & Grill”. We arrived and proceeded to enter, only to get promptly asked to leave because the US has backwards drinking laws, I wasn’t 21 yet (14 days dammit), and this bar didn’t even let 20 year olds set foot inside.

Heading down the road, we found a Fatz Cafe that would be suitable for lunch. Our small group of heathens (comprised of myself, Brother Richard, and my girlfriend Amanda) had only just been seated when our waitress asked us if we would like some complimentary bread rolls, saying “They are the ultimate spiritual experience in a basket, and they will bring you closer to God“. I hastily looked around; it seemed as though our godless meeting had been rumbled by the faith squad, but they were nowhere to be seen. A coincidence perhaps? Maybe, but just to be sure we decided to de-convert some of the bread rolls before eating them. You can never be too careful:

The ultimate Godless experience in a basket!

Brother Richard also insisted on praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for protection:

RAmen!

And he was quickly filled with the presence of His Noodliness (I’m assured this wasn’t just me turning the camera flash on):

Book of Noodles 7:1-3 "And he glowed with the power of the spaghedeity, and all was well amongst the midgets"

After the prayer we turned to business, and discussed the progression of several projects like Atheist Nexus and NoGodTube. I am very grateful to Brother Richard for inviting me onto the board of directors for Atheist Nexus, and I hope that we can work closely together to see the site grow and expand outside the realms of the Ning interface. NoGodTube is also going very well, and will hopefully continue to collect atheist videos from around the web. As a result of some recent backlash against the name, Brother Richard has secured a “freethoughttube” domain (not entirely sure on the exact wording of it) in order to have a more “open” name to the site as opposed to the jab at GodTube.

Brother Richard also encouraged my girlfriend to start a UGA atheist group if one does not already exist. So if you attend the University of Georgia and are interested, you’ll have both my support and the support of Brother Richard behind you! Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Conversation veered onto marriage, with Brother Richard making not-so-subtle suggestions about my relationship with my girlfriend, and whether we were “serious”. I guess the answer lies in the fact that I fly out to America to come see her (which isn’t cheap) so often. I told Brother Richard that if we ever tied the knot, I would get him to perform the ceremony in the most secular way possible.

At the end of our meeting we decided to take some fun pictures, all of which are available here (you shouldn’t need a facebook account as the album is public). Below are some of my favourites:

I choose reason!

Deep in thought, Brother Richard gets a sign from above...well, not really.

My girlfriend Amanda (on the right...duh) and Brother Richard

All in all it was a very nice meeting, and Brother Richard is the first person from the atheist blogosphere I have actually met offline. Hopefully I’ll meet a few others at the London “The Amaz!ng Meeting” later this year, or at some conventions I’m hoping to attend in the future. Obviously I couldn’t attend the American Atheists convention this year (it was too expensive for my budget) but I might be able to make it to some others. Given the recession, it is becoming more expensive for me to travel across the pond, which is a shame. If I get a good enough summer job things may change though!

On Valentine’s day, I took 3 of my student group up to London in order to protest the Vatican’s interfering in Italian politics, and their general views on women and homosexuality. It was a great day out, and we managed to attact quite a few protestors for the march, which started at the Natural History Museum, and ended at the Italian Embassy. It was great to meet some famous people there, like the political activist Peter Tatchell (who performed a citizen’s arrest on Robert Mugabe twice), and the President of the National Secular Society, Terry Sanderson.

As promised, I took loads of photos, and those of you who have me on Facebook can simply view the two albums there. For those who don’t use Facebook or haven’t added me, I have installed a cool plugin for the blog that makes my facebook albums available through a special gallery. If you wait for the entire page to finish loading before clicking on anything, each picture should appear in a nifty JavaScript viewer which you can use the arrow keys to move through.

Album 1 (60 photos)

Album 2 (22 photos)

My student group is currently planning a trip to the Darwin Exhibition at the Natural History Museum, which we will hopefully do next weekend, although tickets are selling out faster than we originally thought, so we may have to do it in early March.

So yesterday was a snow day, and all my lectures were canceled! I was originally planning to go to the Christian Union’s lecture on “why does God limit my sexuality?”, although I had a massive change of plans. Let me put it this way: the last time it snowed in my area was several years ago, and the last time it really snowed was about a decade ago. There was no possible way I would miss out on any snow time, and when the chance to have a snowball fight came up, I couldn’t turn it down.

We decided to walk up to Windsor Great Park, but as soon as we walked out the door we were pelting each other with snowballs. It was actually a really good place to fight, because the parked cars made for great cover, and were covered in snow to make ammunition. A few neighbourhood kids turned up, and we got into a fight with them. Unfortunately they didn’t know when enough was enough, and they started to follow us as we continued our walk. Two of their friends joined us, and started throwing snowballs at very high speeds and with remarkably good accuracy. One of them collided with my face, knocked my glasses off my nose, and was unbelievably painful. We managed to shake them off, and proceed to walk to a local pub we knew. On the way I noticed a small evangelical church with a big “Jesus” sign, and, with my friend Dan on camera duty, I proceeded to pelt it with snowballs.

Take that you non-existent deity!

Once we got to the pub, we decided not to go to Windsor Park after all, as the people we were planning on fighting with weren’t going, and we had already had a snowball fight. My full album of photos from the day is available as a public facebook album here. The last few photos are most certainly NSFW for various reasons, mainly because they are pictures of a giant snow sculpture of the male sexual organ I made for a bet. I’m quite annoyed since it was stolen last night, but I guess I’ll just have to make a better one when it snows again later this week.

Friendly Atheist has linked to an “atheist bus advert” generator, so I thought I would do my best and tackle an issue that has been with the adverts since the start of the campaign. My advert probably won’t be on buses any time soon though!

THERE IS NO GOD!

Whilst the message isn’t really philosophically accurate (especially given my position as an agnostic atheist), you can’t deny it would turn some heads! For those confused, the ASA is the “Advertising Standards Authority” which determined that a statement like “THERE IS NO GOD” wouldn’t be legal, and Christian Voice are the arses who filed numerous complaints about the adverts.