The Atheist Blogger

I’ve just got back from America; the flight was long, and I’ve been awake for most of the past 30 hours. I’m about to try and get some sleep but I thought I’d share with you some interesting sutff on Nate Phelps, the estranged atheist son of fundamentalist “God Hates Fags” pastor Fred Phelps. Nate was “discovered” by a journalist late last year, and was invited to speak at the American Atheists Convention a few weeks ago.

A full transcript of his speech is available online at Atheist Nexus, and Brother Richard has an article written by Nate about his experiences before and after the convention. Brother Richard and Nate have also set up a support group at Atheist Nexus called “Life After Christian Fundamentalism“, aimed at helping people who have escaped from Christian fundamentalism.

Check it out, I’m off to sleep :D

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!

This has clearly been a YouTube-centered couple of weeks, what with the JREF’s YouTube account being suspended and then subsequently restored. Whilst James Randi might have been happy with the conduct of YouTube in this affair, most people were not. YouTube has a history of censoring people for speaking out, and it has a backwards policy of combating copyright claims. Luckily, this shouldn’t be a problem for much longer, as Brother Richard of the Atheist Nexus leadership has announced on his blog that a new video site, NoGodTube has been launched!

With NoGodTube, we can continue to debate, but on our terms. Theists will be able to present their arguments based on reason, but if they disagree with our responses, they won’t be able to get us banned or flame us. Best of all, we can use NoGodTube to preserve our arguments for posterity.

Some may argue that we will be biased because of our name, NoGodTube. The way I look at it, the statement, “No God” is the default position. Just like “No Unicorns” is the default. The burden of proof is on the believer. In fact, using Carl Sagan’s statement, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” it is more important to claim “No God.” If we find out someday that there are unicorns, the impact on our daily lives would be much smaller. – Brother Richard

NoGodTube isn’t designed to be a replacement for YouTube, but rather a supplement to it. People can upload a video to both YouTube and NoGodTube, knowing that even if their account is suspended or their videos taken down, they still have a viewable backup copy. Plus, the new site won’t censor videos and is open to discussion from both sides of the argument, atheist and theist.

Hopefully a lot of people will start uploading videos relating to atheism, and perhaps some of the big YouTube names like Thunderf00t, The Amazin Atheist, and gogreen18 will create accounts to backup their videos. If I ever get back into video blogging (no promises) I’ll make sure to use it, and I reckon that under the leadership of Brother Richard this project can only get better.

I previously wrote about why I left Atheist Nexus, for reasons that I believed saw the site turning into a more commercial business than a friendly social networking site. I have left the controversial article up, but let me make one thing very clear:

I was wrong.

The article was written as a response / inquiry to the donations listed on the Atheist Nexus website. People have accused me of being impolite by posting “private” donation targets in the public domain. I stand by my actions of posting the amounts, not because I wanted to be impolite, but because the same donation amounts are easily accessible by any member of the public. All you have to do is register (for free) on Atheist Nexus and click the donations link. Is this private? I don’t believe it is. Just because you have to type in a few letters and give your email address doesn’t mean that somehow you have crossed from the public world to a private one, especially when the action requires no payment and little trouble for the end user.

I have also been accused of writing an accusatory article without first consulting Brother Richard on the matter, or anyone at Atheist Nexus. I admit I should have contacted someone official before writing the article, but my previous attempts at contacting anyone at Atheist Nexus have not resulted in any emails other than those explaining that they have received so many emails and are currently going through them all. I could have posted the article in the forums, but how would this have been any different? The forums are public (I can read them when logged out), so what is the difference between posting the article on my website (which I know is read by some Atheist Nexus members) than on the forums. In the end, a subscriber (vjack) linked my article in a thread on Atheist Nexus specifically about the donations.

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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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