Who is here?
Offline I haven't posted regularly here in more than a decade. I feel as if I am walking down the darkened hallways of a long abandoned building.
- Who is here, and perhaps more importantly - why are you here?
- Any theories as to why this site collapsed? When did it happen?
I agree that the debates end up as pointless. The reason was clear from the start:" The theists we generally encounted were only looking to post in order to assuage their doubts.
The fact that someone else disagreed with them and did it well bothered them. I can recall one theist angrily insisting that my argument "collapsed like a cheap lawnchair" when it was torn apart on another site. That always stuck with me, but not for the reason he might have imagined.
It stuck with me because the fear was palitable... he really needed my words on his screen to be defeated, somehow... and he was ready to celebrate the second anything appeared to help save him from the possibilty that he was wrong.
I actually felt bad for him. I doubt that he'd have ever known I felt that way...
Anyway, when I visited the scene of the murder, the place where my argument was choked to death, I found that the response in question was based on citing a dictionary (!) and insisting that one of the words in my argument could be defined differently.
If only we could live in such a world! I'd be down at the river right now, at the river bank, withdrawing all the cash....
I'll never forget that. Multiple adults cheering on something that pathetic... all to find a way, any way, to ignore my argument... which in turn was never mine - it was as old as the observations of Saint Augustine.
Well, after that, the theists still came here, posted, and then re-posted the same arguments no matter the response. They eventually ran off, although some would reappear to claim victory, only to run off again.
Where are they now? Some may well have joined us, without thanks. I do know that one of the most notorious would eventually concede that his arguments rested on non contingent faith... of course he never bothered to apologize for the personal attacks, pious lies, etc., that he told prior to this eventual concesssion....
As for the regular atheist posters here, the ones who impressed me, I imagine they are all white collar, professionals. They were thinkers of the first order... Deludedgod, Kevin, Hambydammit, Kmisho, Strafio, MrRage, doctoro, and of course, THE man, Rook Hawkins
I'd even toss in a few theists.... Gdon I believe, StMichael, if I remember correctly was always pleasant at least...
I am of course forgetting someone important, more than likely a few someones.... my apologies.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
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I am here. Why am I here? Brian Sapient met prior to his creation of this website. He inspired me to be fearless in dealing with theists. He also hosted my BJBS show as well as my poetry thread which is still here.
As far as traffic, the economy tanked and the money that funeded the fab 5 origional RR gang ran dry. And on top of that the internet exploded with new social media websites almost every single day. Brian isn't daddy warbucks and cant compete with reddit or twitter or FB which also allows atheist groups. The economy crashing also affected Infidel Guy's 24/7 radio feed too.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Todangst, I don't view this site as having "collapsed." It's primary goal was always to explain all of the ways that theistic belief is irrational and it does that today better than ever before as every day there is even a larger archive to draw on.
I've reposted some reasons for the lower traffic below, however I forgot to mention that another thing that slowed up new users is that we've had a problem with spam accounts signing up on the site. We've gone through weeks where 1500 spammers sign up and 1-10 actual users sign up. We worked hard to solve the problem and found a stop gap at one point but the problem returned shortly thereafter. As a result we made new sign ups more difficult, the process now requires that a new user email me after signing up. It appears to me that most people don't figure this out and as a result I don't get at least 90% of the emails requesting I complete the sign up process.
At this point if you're looking to use this site for a thriving debate, you wont get that here. If you'd like to post some of your writings so that they are found when people search the web, that would be effective.
As I stated in the other thread that this came up...
For what it's worth, we still have 150-200 unique visitors per day that stumble on various arguments/pages on this site, they average 2-6 minutes per day on the site depending on the day. Many of those readers are first time users. I view this site mostly as an archive of every argument someone would need to abandon belief in god.The biggest reasons the site is visited less today is that we stopped doing the radio show and broke up the band. Secondarily many people took their online time to major social media companies like facebook. Had the band stayed together I would've needed to migrate the site to a format that allowed facebook/twitter/google account logins to post. That might've been enough to make this place very active, but it's too hard to know. So many people use the larger social media networks for their online time now. That's the reason I created Atheism United and have a list of links to every atheist site on the web, it was an attempt to support the atheist site owners out there.
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Thanks, I wasn't sure I would get any response at all. I can see why people might turn to sites like facebook, but this site always allowed for a good back and forth.
- Chris
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
The reason that debating theists is pointless is that they don't usualy don't know what their religion teaches. If they do know, they really don't believe it. At best, they just have a hope that a god is looking out for them and that death is not the end. So people believe what they want to believe or what they were indoctrinated with as children.
What atheists don't get is that the masses live a life of quite desperation. So, they turn to things drugs and religion. It is no coincidence that as religion wanes, opioids wax. Why do atheist want to take away someone's religion if that is what gets them through their days? Also, there is the social benefits of church attendence. Atheists offer no alternatives.
The only thing that can change this situaltion is a rational commitment to ending the desperation of the masses. The chief causes of this desperation are population pressures and a political system that forces the working man into slavery to the state and the rich and the powerful. The political indoctrination to maintain the status quo is way more powerful than any religious indoctrination. To me, this is the great evil in society, not religion. So, I'll fight this anywhere in any way I can.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
I agree with all of this. However I always found that the most compelling, emotionally powerful motivation for them was to shut us the hell up so that they would not have to deal with the doubts we raised.
This is also one a major task for the church going theist: quelling doubts in each other, lest you yourself start to doubt. One only need to observe them "whooping it up" to recall Shakespeare "I think they doest protest too much..."
I found that atheism does offer an alternative. I had a patient today discuss the loss of her spouse. She told me that she found little solace in the fantasy of imagining him waiting for her somewhere, wearing bedsheets and playing a harp. She found that whenver she tried to think in those terms, she felt childlike. She found those who consoled her in such a fashion were also childlike.
She told me that the real world seemed to here to be ambigous, uncertain.... and that somehow, facing that made her feel mature. To face up to what she held to be reality that rather than try to hold to thinking like a child. It gave her pain purpose.
She had previously discussed her growing suspicion that she was an atheist. I told her that what she had just said was in fact her declaration of atheism. She had also expressed precisely the benefit of being an atheist.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
On thing I hate, no matter how well intended, is the double standard of what theists expect when their family or friends die, and still insist on behaving the same way with an atheist when their family and friends die.
I unfortunately watched my late mother die. But even prior to that, when she got the final diagnosis, and chose not to do anything more, although she could have, her friends were constantly telling me they would pray for her and me. And the moment she died, staff rushed me out of the room, put me in an office, and all of them were saying "She's in a better place", "We will pray for you".
It took me everything not to scream at them. I didn't want to hear that. I know they will do that, but it was not a comfort to me one bit, and it was inconsiderate on top of that because they all knew I didn't believe.
I love my late mother, but she didn't go up or down, she simply died. No amount of old mythology is going to change that reality. It it sucks yes, and if I could have her for another 10 or 20 years of course I would want that. But she wasn't around 4 billion years ago, and had no pre life, so why should I fool myself into thinking she'd have an after life?
The comfort I did find that got me through those first weeks and months after, was talking to other atheists. It was hard and painful. But I am thankful for the internet and skype and even cell phones with nationwide calling. It allowed me to talk to other atheists.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I'm still around, I stopped coming because I was bored.
Strange thing, when I tried to login the website redirected me to another website and there was a spam/virus attempt on my computer
It tried to install something, but my system caught it.
I think I'll change my password