Atheist Bloggers
I’m seeing this a lot lately and they are interesting questions, therefore I might as well throw in my .02 on the matter.
It started over on Greta Christina’s blog where she asked why atheist bloggers, well… blog. Then it moved over to the Friendly Atheist’s blog where he added a few more questions. Then I saw it over on You Made Me Say It. Alright already, here is my answer:
I really don’t expect to get much, externally at least, from blogging. I’ve been debating online for at least the last 25 years, from the time of the BBS and 300 baud modems. The fact is, nothing you or I or anyone else says to a godbot is going to make the slightest difference and thinking otherwise is delusion. It’s enough to point out to the world where I think things are screwed up and hopefully, have people respond and a dialog take place. I don’t pull punches because as much as I want to communicate with people, I also want to vent my frustration at topics from religion to politics and beyond. I’ve been doing this for more than 6 months now and the amount of stupidity left to bitch about out there is endless, I could write 20 posts a day, every day, and still barely scratch the surface. At least it gets the information out there, whether anyone takes it seriously or not.
And for the Friendly Atheist’s additions:
What is our endgame as atheist bloggers? I don’t know if there is an ‘endgame’ per se. A lot of what I do personally is out of frustration. I hold no false hopes that what I do here is going to change the world. If it makes someone smile or it makes someone mad or it makes someone say “hey, I never thought of it like that”, then my work is worthwhile. What happens after that is beyond my control.
Do we want religion to become eradicated? After some of the things I write about (see the Religious Horror Show), absolutely, but I know that’s not realistic. What I’d prefer is that mankind grows the hell up and gets over the need for imaginary father figures in the sky. I agree with Greta Christina that the eventual eradication of religion is a worthwhile goal, simply because we don’t need it. I have asked before for anything that religion provides to modern-day society that is demonstrably positive, demonstrably true and cannot be achieved without religion and so far, there are no good responses. Religion is the world of self-deception and mindless placebo, believing in ridiculous things solely because it makes you feel better about yourself and the world around you. That doesn’t solve problems, it simply exacerbates them, the only way to really make the world a better place is to get off your knees and on your feet. Prayer is a meaningless exercise that accomplishes nothing and the day that people stop praying and start working, the better off mankind will be.
Do we want more theists to treat atheists and atheism with respect? It would certainly be nice, although I don’t expect it to happen, nor do I have any pretense that I’m going to be responsible for it happening. I don’t pretend to care if theists like me, in fact, there are a lot of people out there who are very friendly and happy and polite to theists, only to get kicked in the teeth. That’s not what I want. I’m very in-your-face about what I think, I say what I think and I don’t care if anyone likes it. I’ve been debating religion for so many years now that I’m convinced at the futility of trying to rationally change their minds. Now I’m satisfied to bitch about what they do and try my hardest to point out to the world at large that these idiots are out there and they’re ruining lives. If just one of these godbot morons gets shut down because of something someone reads on my blog, I’ll be thrilled.
Do we just want to rant? Sometimes ranting is very cathartic, it makes you feel better that you’ve just gotten to yell for a few minutes at some irrational, irresponsible goober who is using religion as a “get out of reality free” card. It’s good for your health to textually smack around some of these morons because it relieves anxiety.
At the end of the day, maybe if I’ve made someone think or given them the slightest inkling of doubt in their silly beliefs, I’ve done my job.
2 Comments to “Atheist Bloggers”
When I first started “debating” online, it was around 1979 or so on a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem in the days before networking. In fact, my friends and I wrote some of the earliest networking software in that we had a network of BBS’s that called each other at about 3am and transferred messages back and forth once a day. Otherwise, I was doing what you were doing, calling about 15 BBSs a day.
But when I started, I was a Christian and was doing the same thing the idiot theists we see today do. Scary, isn’t it?
My first experience with the intertubes or preintertubes was via Mighty Mo modem on my C64 going BBS to BBS. I wasn’t arguing atheism though. My motives were far less scrupulous. 
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