The Atheist Blogger

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!

If people have noticed, I haven’t been posting on the blog for about a week and a half. I’ve been extremely busy with coursework deadlines and general other university related stuff that I haven’t had the time to post. Ok well I maybe had the time, but not the drive. I’ve also been preparing for my trip to Georgia (state not country) which I leave for today. Luckily, this time I get to take my laptop along since it hasn’t exploded like the last one. I have a few blog posts in the burner, including some updates to the Ray Comfort series (which admittedly isn’t “almost daily” due to my absence and Ray’s trip to NZ). I also have an interview with Darrin Rasberry, the now-agnostic who wrote the foreword to Ray’s latest book.

One thing that I have been doing with my spare time is using Twitter because it allows me to blog 140 characters at a time, which isn’t much, and therefore doesn’t take much time to do. If you aren’t using the service, I highly recommend it. If you are, please follow me! Another thing I’ve been doing whilst not posting is reading the multitude of comments that have appeared on my post about religious child abuse in the form of Deborah Drapper. The 127 (currently) comments on that post are a very interesting read, and there is a lot of debate going on, something which I am thankful I have Intense Debate installed to handle.

So now I have to go check everything is packed before leaving for Heathrow Terminal 5 (which luckily is a 15 minute drive from here). I hear the new terminal actually works now, and they don’t lose bags anymore. My flight leaves at 15:00 and according to British Airways I’ll be in sunny Georgia at around 19:10, just in time for dinner! I’ll be posting on Twitter as much as I can at the airport, since I won’t have anything better to do. No idea if I’ll be able to respond though.