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I Am Alive

Adrian Hayter — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:35:41 +0000

This is just a quick blog post to highlight the reasons for my continued absence from the blog, as my last post was more than a month ago, and I haven’t posted on a “regular” basis for several months. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being an increased workload at university, given that I am now in my final year of study for my degree. It’s more than that though; I like writing blog posts, but I generally think that blog posts that aren’t at least a few paragraphs long are ultimately pointless unless they are really meant as quick placeholders to let people know what I’m up to.

I’ve been told multiple times by people that I’ve exceptionally good at explaining things (usually), and when I have an idea for a blog post, I want to research it as much as I can before I write about it. I usually read several sources, and the whole process takes a good hour at least, if not more. Hence my problem is finding a few hours free where I can work on the post without interruptions. Of course, the other problem is that Twitter has practically removed the need to write small updates on the blog. Not only do I stay in contact with a lot of my friends and readers via Twitter, I can post tiny bursts of information from literally anywhere with a 3G internet connection.

Another problem is that other projects have suddenly become popular, largely because of my advertising them on Twitter. AtheistForums.org for instance, has exploded with new members and posts in the past few months. Various events in the world have managed to piss me off so much that I’ve become increasingly more interested in politics, namely that of Libertarianism in the UK (a criminally underrepresented minority in my opinion). I could rant about so many things on this blog, but I’m worried it’ll just divert off to something of a personal blog again, rather than one focused on atheism.

Anyway, I’m going to plow ahead and see what happens. I want this blog to stay on track, and I certainly have no plans to take it down. I’ve been doing some “atheistic” work recently, so I’ll be blogging about that when I find the time. Tomorrow for instance, I’m going to the House of Lords (part of British parliament) with the President of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist, and Secular Student Societies (AHS) and the British Humanist Association (BHA). Last week, I met Ariane Sherine at a book swap event in Windsor, and I have the photo to prove it:

@ah8r + @arianesherine = @awesomeness

So watch this space. It’ll be updated eventually, but possibly not as often as I have managed before. I’d just like to thank everyone who has supported the blog thus far, and that includes all my readers, all my twitter followers, and anyone else who’s stopped by and thought “cool blog”.

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Happy 1st Birthday!

Adrian Hayter — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:12:56 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

One year ago today (even to this very minute – thank you Wordpress scheduling!), a 19 year old Computer Science student had a ridiculous idea; to register the domain “atheistblogger.com” and start a blog about atheism. He had no real experience in the blogging world, and the only reason he did it was that an atheist-related post he made on his dwindling personal blog got thousands of hits, and he realised there might be something to this “atheist blogging” lark.

So here we all are, a whole orbit of the Earth later, and what an orbit it has been. I wrote down 101 atheist quotes which got featured on the Digg homepage and managed to crash the server (leading to me pulling an almost all-nighter in order to fix it). I got in contact with hundreds of atheists online through various blogs, and through them found things like the atheist blogroll (which has been down due to technical issues for 4 months now! grrrr). I also saw the formation of new websites like The Atheist Spot and Atheist Nexus, as well as many new blogs.

I got introduced to the Secular Student Alliance via Hemant Mehta, and since then, my student group has picked up the pace and started running all sorts of events. I’ve also been sent a load of books by fans of the blog, and I promise I’ll get round to reading them eventually! I’ve started an atheist forum which has brought together atheists from all over the world and of all different ages to share life experiences, and one thing can certainly be said of all this:

I started blogging for me, and I ended up blogging for you. Many thanks to all my wonderful readers; here’s to another year!

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A Photo Of Me

Adrian Hayter — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:16:52 +0000

This week has been filled with problems, with the server going down from the Digg Effect, and an atheist forums I help run almost driven to extinction. The previous owner (who was meant to be my partner in the scheme) told me he had sold the site and lost the contact details of the new owner. This apparently happened several months ago, and meant that we were left with a forum that we couldn’t upgrade or fix the current errors.

We decided that since we only had 1000 posts, we’d simply move domain and start again. The new forums are running well and everyone is happy. I started a thread in which members could post their picture if they wanted to, and I suddenly realised that other than small gravatar images, most people probably have no idea what I look like.

So without further ado, here is a picture I took this afternoon. It’s not very good quality and I should have done the flash a bit better, but it’ll do. The t-shirt I am wearing is one of my favourites (for good reason). About a month ago I decided that since I had 3 months of nothing all summer, I would grow my first beard and see what it turned out like. I’m not an expert on beards, but I reckon it looks ok, obviously a bit patchy in places. I’m thinking of getting rid of the moustache, only it might actually look better when it connects to the rest of the beard. Obviously I need beard growing advice, so please throw it at me! What should I do? Shave it off? Keep it growing? I need your opinions!

Anyway, here goes.

The essence of a geek.

Also, if the blog goes down in the next hour it’s probably me messing about with the upgrade.

Edit: Justin wanted to know where I got the t-shirt. Why, from ThinkGeek of course! I also have this one, and this one.

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Taking A Few Deep Breaths

Adrian Hayter — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:55:35 +0000

This is my first blog post since the “Digg Effect” effectively made my site slower than the inner workings of Ray Comfort’s brain. I managed to get over 3,400 votes on Digg, which I think is pretty impressive given the content, and I really must thank everyone who took the time to read the quotes, vote, and leave a nice comment. According to FeedBurner, the people who handle my RSS feeds, I have 622 subscribers now. Hello whoever you are!

If you are new here, you might wish to read the interview that I did for The Atheist Spot. It will at least tell you who I am, why I’m blogging, and what I do when I’m not being caught off-guard by a Digg Effect at 4am.

I didn’t really have much planned to write about today other than on the subject of forums. The blog has its own forum which handles general chat as well as our book club. If you wish to join our book club then you should find all the information on that page. At the start of each month, we vote for a book we want to read the next month (giving people a load of time to get the book). We then discuss the book in an IRC channel, followed by a forum discussion for those who couldn’t make the live discussion.

The book for September is “Biblical Nonsense” by Dr. Jason Long.

I have also just re-launched an atheist orientated forum after some initial mess-ups with the ownership of its predecessor. The new forums has started off well since most of the users of the old one were behind the move. These forums can be found at: http://atheistforums.org

Anyway, now that I have a larger audience I’d better start thinking of stuff to write. Damn you Digg! Making me do some actual work for once! Grrrr….

Edit: Oh yes, and I now have Twitter. You can follow me at: http://twitter.com/ah8r

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So, You Think You Know Evolution?

Adrian Hayter — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:39:22 +0000

I help run a general atheist forum which has recently been increasing in activity. The topic of Evolution comes up now and then, and the creationists always bring up all the misconceptions again and again. Sometimes you wish you had an hour or so to write an massively long response to them, citing all their mistakes, providing lots of evidence, and backing it all up with research. This rarely happens since it takes far too much effort for simple online forums, and often people are left simply pointing out simple mistakes and telling the creationists to “go do some proper research”.

When it does happen however, it completely blows everyone away.

The member, solidsquid, a self proclaimed “Dioist“, wrote an epic post complete with images, research, links, and references. It must have taken ages to put together, and I applaud him for his efforts. The question is, will any creationists actually read it?

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Some New Atheist Quotes

Adrian Hayter — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:20:47 +0000

Regular visitors to the blog will have noticed that a few weeks ago I added a random quote generator to the top of the site, which serves an atheist quote every time the page is loaded. The quotes were originally from one of my first blog posts “101 Atheist Quotes“, with the occasional one added in when I find it.

I’ve also recently purchased the book “The Quotable Atheist” which is full of quotes about atheism / religion from popular people, so a few more should be added when I flick through it and find great ones.

The thing is, anyone can make atheist quotes. The popular ones are made by well-known people since they have a massive advantage of getting the quote out in the public domain. Some other popular ones are marked as “anonymous” but logic confirms they must have had some kind of origin. Why should atheist quotes be confined to anonymous people or popular philosophers / thinkers?

Back in May, I asked my forum members to come up with their own atheist quotes, which would be added to the random quote generator on the forums. Now that we’ve got a few I can fulfill my promise, but I’m also going to put them on the main site, and make the thread known to anyone who reads this post. So if anyone can think up any atheist quotes that are original (or witty modifications) please either join the forums and post, or post them in the comments to this article. They will *eventually* be added to the random quote generator with your name (if you give it) or your alias you use here. If you want your name linked to your website, please make it known!

What follows is a collection of the quotes so far added to the random quote generator:

I stopped believing in God the same time I stopped believing in Santa Clause, and for the same reason. – akbar “buffet style theist”

Everything I see around me day-to-day and everything I learn confirms in my mind that there is nothing supernatural going on. – allan175

Saying a supernatural God created the universe has about as much credibility as saying George W. Bush is intelligent. – Nick A.

Someone once said, “Religion is the force that rescued man from barbarism”, which is like saying, “Wall Street rescued mankind from poverty” – Neowolfe

Following a religion is like using someone else’s character in a game of D&D. It works until you realize that you could have done a better job creating it yourself. – oliver

If God cared enough to want me to care, he should tell me. – oliver

And finally a few of my own:

Believers claim that atheists are cold and empty inside, and yet the same people claim that the only reason we are good is because some almighty being made us that way. To me, that seems pretty cold and empty.

Claiming Evolution led to the Holocaust is akin to claiming that gravity is responsible for every single war. Without gravity, bullets wouldn’t fly, and bombs wouldn’t drop, so please stop your incredulous claims that a fact of nature is responsible when it was clearly the work of men.

Religion is faith without the need for knowledge. Science is knowledge without the need for faith.

Do you have your own atheist quote? Here is your chance to have it seen on the home page of this blog!

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A Truely Godless Amount Of Posts

Adrian Hayter — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:21:58 +0000

Book of Revelation 13:18

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Which is why I find this screenshot I took of the forums quite amusing:

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An Invitation To All Christians

Adrian Hayter — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:00:29 +0000

Nick from the forums wants to have a word…

I would like to invite all Christians to have a responsible and peaceful discussion. Although I don’t think a website devoted to Atheism is on the priority list for any Christian, I just want to have a discussion with you.

I will not be cross and will not use offensive (I never do anyway) or sarcastic remarks.

I was a Christian before but had a change of mind. I would maybe like to share my experiences with you.

If you still think I’m a jerk for being an Atheist, that’s fine with me, but if you would like to live a better life with peace of mind, I urge you to listen just as I will to anything you have to say.

Thank you.
~Nick

If you are a Christian and want to take Nick up on his offer, join the forums and reply to his thread.

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Popularities Influence On Religion

Adrian Hayter — Sat, 31 May 2008 06:33:42 +0000

Nick from the forums brought up a few interesting questions about the influence of majority opinion when it comes to religion.

Christianity is so mainstream, at least here in America. Ask someone what religion they are, and they will most likely say that they are of the Christian faith.

My question is if someone knew of the religion but knew that no one practiced it, would they still become a Christian?

Do people really believe so strongly in these things or do they just THINK that they do because the majority of the population believes the same?

Is it like a school or club where everyone just wishes to fit in, or are there really honest beliefs in a God and “The Messiah” despite proven sciences supporting something else?

I am willing to bet many Christians would respond to these questions saying “Yes I would still be a Christian.” What if it were shunned upon to be a Christian? Would you still believe in what you do?

Here in America, I think it is somewhat brave to be an Atheist, at least an open one. It is very frowned upon here, mainly because of huge misunderstanding. When you tell someone that you are an Atheist (at least a Christian, which makes up most all of the population) they immediate hold somewhat of a resentment against you, which is unfortunate for me if it ever is a topic for employment.

I would say that religions tend to evolve, growing exponentially, branching off into different doctrines etc, so majority opinion must have at least something to do with it. If it were shunned to be a Christian I doubt very much that believers would change their minds. It seems that the only way to get someone to “choose” to believe something else is to present them with evidence contrary to their beliefs. Like all the great religions, Christianity has implemented factors to stop people deconverting:

Fear that everyone who doesn’t believe will go to Hell.
Reassurance that only believers are the correct ones (The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”).
Brainwashing that is used to enforce the view that anything (be it science, another religion, literature, etc) that is against the Biblical view in any way is wrong.

Atheists are very brave people since a large percentage of them have broken free from the above control methods, and have openly accepted their fate, whatever it may be. Those who weren’t brought up in a particular faith are equally as brave for resisting it’s advances.

What do you think? Give your opinions to Nick in the forums.

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Carnival Of The Godless #90

Adrian Hayter — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:10:29 +0000

No More Mr. Nice Guy has posted the 90th Carnival of the Godless over at his blog, and it’s well worth a look. This is the second time I’ve submitted something to the carnival, and I’m pleased to report that my article proposing an online atheist book club got through.

Speaking of which, we’re still working on the chatroom, and people can still post suggestions in the forums. Voting will be on May 1st.

On a further unrelated note, I won’t be posting as much for the next 3 weeks as I have revision followed by exams. I’ll still write the odd article, and if people want to sent stuff in (even short stuff) I’ll gladly post it for them. Wish me luck :D