I've been helping an acquaintance set up a new blog that has nothing whatsoever to do with atheism or any of the subjects I address here. In the process of advising him on how to get the blog going, attract readers, and the like, I've been reminded of what a pain in the ass the whole thing has become. The biggest hurdle he's going to face is post frequency. He has convinced himself that posting once every 2 weeks is going to be sufficient. I'm skeptical, but I guess we'll see.

I imagine that the sustained effort involved in blogging is the main reason we see so many excellent atheist blogs come and go. So much work is required and with virtually no return that one really has to love doing it to stick with it for more than a few months.

I think sometimes about starting a new blog in a different niche, one with less competition and even more room for growth. But then I realize that I barely have time to maintain the blogs I already have.

What do you think the atheist blogosphere will look like in 5 years? Will the niche be exhausted by then, or will a number of new subcategories have been developed? In our niche, how should one position oneself now so as to be in a good position for whatever the future holds?

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As some of you may know, the British Humanist Association (BHA) has been campaigning to encourage nonbelievers to mark "no religion" on the 2011 census. This poster and others like it seem like they'd be very effective. I know if I saw one, I'd be more likely to complete a census form.

Unfortunately, these posters were rejected as offensive by those in charge of ads in railway stations. If this happened in the U.S., nobody would be surprised. But this isn't the U.S. we're talking about. Evidently, the phrase "for God's sake" was deemed offensive.

The good news is that the campaign is proceeding with a different slogan. And besides, the controversy has probably helped publicize the real issue (i.e., that atheists need to be counted if we are to have any real clout for our numbers).

I applaud the efforts of the BHA to promote the rights and welfare of nonbelievers in the UK. Their census campaign is important, and I imagine it will be quite successful in calling attention to a growing segment of the population that has been ignored for far too long.

H/T to The Freethinker

Speaker John "the Orangeman" Boehner (R-OH) is certainly no stranger to idiocy. He's been "honored" here before, and I am reasonably confident that he will require additional attention in the future. Now that he is serving as Speaker of the House (at least when he's not golfing), he has a much larger platform from which to dispense his idiocy. And if there is one thing he's demonstrated so far, it is that he's eager to do just that.

As I have explained previously, Christians do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Here's a great video (probably not entirely work safe) making many of the same points.



H/T to WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com

I have grown tired of hearing about how the so-called "new atheists" are too mean, too assertive, or are simply being "dicks." Atheists have been accused of being militant and told to keep quiet for at least as long as there have been atheists. There is nothing new about any of this, and the real question is whether religious beliefs should be treated differently from any other absurd beliefs. Don't mock the religious, they say, you are simply making atheists look bad. I've got news for anyone who still clings to this tired argument: there is little atheists can do to make public perceptions of us more negative than they already are. It is about time we realize that outright mockery, at least in certain circumstances, can be quite effective.

If you are not using FeedBurner on your blog, you are missing out on one of the most powerful ways to make your content more accessible to your readers. In this tip, I'll show you how to set up FeedBurner to handle your blog's feed and position you to take advantage of the many things this free service can do for you. You have installed a system to track blog traffic, but if you are not using FeedBurner, you are missing lots of great information about how your blog's feed is being used. But FeedBurner can do far more for you than provide statistics. Think of it as a platform on which you will be able to build.