Go into all the world making freethinkers of all nations.
Atheist, agnostics, freethinkers, and other nonreligious people make up a surprisingly large portion of the population at 15% of the US population and much more in some states, such as Vermont (34%), Wyoming (28%), Washington (25%), Oregon (24%) Delaware (23%), and Idaho (23%).
It’s amazing how much more power the believers have in Idaho than in Washington, considering the statistically insignificant difference as far as the population goes. Atheists here in Idaho feel scared and alone while in Washington there are so many that nobody cares. If we make ourselves known, more people will be true to themselves. The more people who are true to themselves the fewer misconceptions people will have about the evil atheists, and better life will get. We don’t need to go out and deconvert people, we just need to reach out to our fellow unbelievers.
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Interesting observation. BTW, saw Joe on the bus today. He talked about your discussions.
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When I first moved to Idaho 5 years ago I figured it must be a xtian, conservative state. Not so.
Atheist need to stand up and be counted and push back when necessary.
Art Rigsby
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Cherise – Joe from the podcast? Did he talk about the episode we recorded that was never released?
Art – we sure do.
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When I first moved to Idaho 5 years ago I figured it must be a xtian, conservative state. Not so.
Atheist need to stand up and be counted and push back when necessary.
Art Rigsby
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As the regular reedar and commenter in question, I suppose I should probably weigh in. I wasn’t so much suggesting that Canadian Atheist move to a group of blogs format as musing about the possibility. I think the blog is pretty good in its current form otherwise, I wouldn’t keep reading it.I suspect PZ’s point, regarding subjects the FtB bloggers are interested in , was that a potential new member of FtB would have to fit in well with current FtB bloggers in order to be seriously considered. This approach must have its pros and cons. As things stand, FtB only reflects a fairly narrow slice of the political and intellectual diversity that exists among atheists, but that narrowness gives it a coherence that would be lost if FtB tried to accommodate a wider range of perspectives.As for Joe’s point about the blog being Canada-centred , I don’t think this is really a huge obstacle to attracting a wide reedarship. There are plenty of posts here that discuss issues that aren’t specific to Canada, and even the more distinctively Canadian content will probably be interesting to some foreign reedars. Basically, keep up the good work!