The Atheist Blogger

Friendly Atheist has got a new meme which involves categorising your last 20 emails and working out what they say about you. Here goes.

My Last 20

5 emails from Second Life stores confirming stuff I bought.

3 messages from the WordPress mailing list.

2 messages from Atheist Nation confirming T-Shirt purchases.

2 messages from the CompSci department of RHUL.

1 person requesting a link exchange (Nico Raj)

1 friend sending me a photoshopped image for the new student newspaper “Atheist Column”.

1 message from my online bank telling me some money has been sent successfully.

1 message from Linux Format magazine with some special offers on courses.

1 message from the Secular Student Alliance.

1 confirmation from 10 Downing Street e-petitions.

1 message from Douglas Whaley thanking me on plugging his book (and telling me he has sent me one for free!)

1 message from the Royal Holloway Humanist Alliance inviting me to a preliminary meeting (which was great fun and we are discussing merging our groups).

What did I expect?

More emails from lecturers possibly. It is the first week after all!

What did I learn?

I spend too much time (and money) on Second Life, I subscribe to a WordPress mailing list that I rarely read, and I’m a geek…oh wait, I knew that ages ago.

I recently entered the Friendly Atheist “motivational poster” competition and came 10th. It might be last place, but at least it’s at the top of the page! My submission was one that only made sense with the picture so in some ways it was quite deep. It was inspired by one of my favourite atheist quotes:

Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.

Anyway, here is my submission:

I’ve entered the latest competition as well, because I really want a Friendly Atheist wristband, and I encourage anyone else to do the same.

Time for some blog promotion! I subscribe to quite a few atheist blogs in my feedreader (Liferea for all you Linux fans), and I thought I’d give you a summary of my favourite ones:

Friendly Atheist (http://friendlyatheist.com)

No atheist feed is complete without the blog of the “eBay atheist”. As the chair of the Secular Student Alliance, Hemant Mehta is a great person to add if you are in education and want someone who understands your view. He also seems to update his blog about 5 times a day, so make sure you don’t miss anything!

Atheist Revolution (http://www.atheistrev.com)

Now with a brand spanking new domain, Atheist Revolution is almost the opposite of Friendly Atheist. Whilst Hemant Mehta strives not to be overly offending to people of faith, vjack is openly critical of religion and belief in gods. If you like to read determined attacks on religion, read this blog! vjack has recently started a new feature called “Blogging Tips” which are aimed at new bloggers who want to make a good start to their blog.

The Atheist Jew (http://baconeatingatheistjew.blogspot.com)

As the author explains on his website, he is an atheist since he doesn’t believe in gods, but he is also a Jew since his mother was a Jew. It’s his heritage, not his religion. This blog is based in Canada so if you are Canadian it will keep you up to date with the national atheist information. The Atheist Jew, like Atheist Revolution is a great place to go if you want to see relgion / belief openly mocked.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Friendly Atheist posed an interesting question today:

Who was the first atheist you ever met?

This question takes me back to my childhood, specifically when I was 11 and told my mother than I didn’t want to get confirmed because I didn’t believe in God. Luckily my family have never been one to pressure me into anything, and although she didn’t like the idea, she left it to that. Belief in God is a personal decision at the end of the day.

Of course at that point I would describe myself as agnostic, not atheist. I was more unsure about God and I wasn’t prepared to outright deny his existence. The first true atheist I met at that time was a boy called George who had also been brought up in a relaxed environment, but had completely denied the existence of God. It was probably due to talks with him that made me the atheist I am today.

Since then I’ve met numerous atheists and agnostics, and as soon as I came to uni, I formed an “Atheist Union” with a few friends, which has now grown into a recognised group on campus. Next Thursday we are debating the Christian Union over whether Biblical Christianity is credible in the modern world, which of course I will blog about in detail afterwards.

So, who was the first atheist you ever met? Did meeting them persuade you to become one as well, or were you already atheist?