The Atheist Blogger

After watching a recent BBC documentary on Artificial Intelligence entitled “Visions of the Future - The Intelligence Revolution” (I’m a Computer Scientist, what else would I watch?) I got into the virtual online world known as Second Life. The documentary noted that the popularity of the game, and our ability to use it to mask our actual personality and create an entirely new one was intriguing.

I tried the game out, created a new character “Tiberius Greggan”, shaped my appearance so I *vaguely* resemble myself in real life (although quite a few people tend not to do this) and set about exploring the virtual world, flying around, walking, running, intereacting with objects and more importantly, the other online people.

One feature in the game allows the character to join certain groups, so I joined a few Linux based ones since I use both Ubuntu and Linux Mint for operating systems (the server is Debian). I then decided to see what would come up if I typed “atheism” into the search box, and low and behold found a group called “The First Church of Atheism”.

The group aren’t new; in fact Hemant Mehta over at Friendly Atheist wrote about them a while back. However the group on Second Life had only just started when I arrived, and they have already bought some land, and constructed a church, which has “pews” for gatherings and talks, and a shrine to Charles Darwin on the second floor. You can ordain yourself as a minister of the Church by either talking to Reverend Baxton on Second Life, or by visiting their website.

More details on Second Life and the group can be found on their blog. So if you want to get a Second Life account (free) then log in and add me as a friend, and make sure to pay the church a visit!

What with all the pressure put on her by the blogging community and the media, and the mere fact that her outburst has travelled around the globe in a matter of hours, it was just a matter of time before Illinois State Representative Monique Davis apologized to atheist activist Rob Sherman.

For those who still need a memory refresh, the transcript of the outburst (which happened whilst Rob Sherman was testifying against the Governor for donating public money to fund a church) is here:

Davis: [. . .] I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! [. . .] I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

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Well it was inevitable that the wide media coverage of this story would blow a hole wide open and reveal similar stories that have been covered up in the past. Debunking Christianity found just a few of these stories, the most recent reporting that the accused parental murderers will be facing prosecution for the manslaughter of their 15 month old daughter who died in March this year.

This report uncovered the fundamentalis church “Followers of Christ”, which has a long history of toturing and murdering children. The church practices faith healing, but goes further than most churches by shunning those who go against church doctrine, a crime which includes seeking medical help. It’s a simple but deadly scare tactic: Go to a doctor…go to hell.

What really sickens me about these people is this part of the article:

During the latter part of the twentieth century, the church began to attract attention from authorities in the state of Oregon due to an unusally-high mortality rate among its children. Larry Lewman, a former medical examiner in the state alleges that during a ten-year period, twenty-five children perished due to lack of medical intervention–a death rate 26 times higher than the general population; an investigation by The Oregonian claimed that 21 out of 78 minors found to be buried in the church cemetary died of preventable causes, including simple infections which would be easily treated with routine antibiotics.

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