Athiest Bloggers Monthly action Post

[Richard J. Collins]

Here is the link to a group of bloggers that believes in concerted action. I have floated the idea for a similar project only our project would involve secular themes and Atheist Bloggers.

http://unite.blogcatalog.com/#previous

What would it take? We need one or two people to assume responsibility for driving the program. The concept is simple.

Each month a request for action items to blog about would be conducted.

A poll would ensue to determine the topic to blog about.

The topic and the publication date would be announced, either through an announcement on this forum or perhaps through a Yahoogroups announcement-only site. Participants would all subscribe to the announcement-only yahoogroup.

We have a tremendous resource at our disposal to advance the cause of secularism. This site may eventually grow (with some help from members) to hundreds of knowledgable articulate advocates for the secular point of view.

Who wants to do this? What does it take to convert lurkers to activists? What if we could get 500 or 1000 atheist bloggers to all write a blog on the same theme on the same date each month?

[Jaakko Wallenius]

A great idea, Richard and I really hope that such a collaboration will materialize.

On my part I must say that my own main Being Human -blog at http://beinghuman.blogs.fi is a vehicle for growing some ideas that have no correlation to the daily happenings of the world, but move at a quite theoretical level and mainly focuses on the history and development of different belief-systems. I would not want to restrict this flow of ideas with any outside influences.

On the other hand my other english blog The Atheist News at http://atheistnews.blogs.fi could be part of this kind of movement, as I try to publish a single one from a atheist most interesting story from the mainstream media every day. There could be a common focus as you suggest on a given day and I could at least this scheme some publicity.

Yours
Jaakko Wallenius

[Jeremy Eagles]

I have a hard time keeping up with news now that i'm in grad school, but please post topics you find relevant and i would be glad to read up and discuss them on my new blog. I'm not sure if it would matter if all the interested blogger people wrote about a topic on the same day. I'm not sure what the project would gain by that, since blogs are sort of static, and readers may access them at different times or read the posts in any order. so it's not that relevant when the posts are made, just that they are made. It might be better to have a growing list of topics so that interested atheist bloggers can choose the topics they feel most comfortable and honest writing about.

[Jaakko Wallenius]

Good points Jeremy. I also don't think that the timing is so important, but it could be good that certain issues would pop up here and there constantly.
I could however think of situations where common simultanious action would be good, f.ex opposing the recent attack on UN on the freedom of speech byt the Muslim states would undoubtedly a get a boost from a focused counter-action.

[Richard J. Collins]

Any more takers? Here is a chance to get off the bench and into the game.

[Jaakko Wallenius]

Would you like me to send the original message about the group action to all members of this group as a group message? It would surely get more response that way.

[Richard J. Collins]

Jaakko Wallenius said:

Would you like me to send the original message about the group action to all members of this group as a group message? It would surely get more response that way.

[Richard J. Collins]

Richard J. Collins said:

Jaakko Wallenius said:

Would you like me to send the original message about the group action to all members of this group as a group message? It would surely get more response that way.

Yes, Jaakko, by all means. Thanks.

[Morgantj]

I'd be willing to blog about the topics that are approved each month.

[Richard J. Collins]

Here is an example where atheist bloggers could write a post. Perhaps everyone could send the post on January 20, 2009 so it has the most effect in the blogosphere. The spiders that scan the web will be picking up maybe 20 or more different blog entries. This should have the effect of pushing up the entries in the rankings.

Suggested blog entry title:

Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart Bashes Atheism

[e-mail] Alonso Fyfe is the Atheist Ethicist and he is newly come to facebook (we need to recruit him)

Here is the subject:

The Anti-Atheist Bigotry of Congressman Diaz-Balart (R- florida)
Posted: 15 Jan 2009 06:37 AM CST
In my previous post I presented ten examples of anti-atheist bigotry in 2008
(See: Anti-Atheist Bigotry in 2008)
It is not too early to start the list for 2009.
From Friendly Atheist Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart Bashes Atheism:
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Congressperson from Florida, saw the “Divine Performing Arts” show the other night and couldn’t stop raving about it.

“I was very moved by the song that talked about the damage that atheism has caused and is causing. It was very moving, but all of the performances were moving, uplifting; they teach us about the eternal nature of mankind and of how we have to be humble.

My discussion this week has been in the context of doing moral work. I have been presenting the idea that morality involves picking up the tools of praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment and applying them to promoting good desires and inhibiting bad desires.
I have argued that, while reason tells us how to use these tools and whether they are being used to good ends, reason alone cannot do any moral work. The moral work gets done by those who pick up these tools of praise and condemnation and apply them to specific cases.
It means making public statements, since their objective is to mold the desires of any who hear the praise and condemnation - particularly children.

Diaz-Balart is doing moral work with his statement. It is a statement of very high praise for that which takes a stand against atheism - that which condemns atheism for all of the trouble atheists are causing in the world. It says that of all of the values that were captured in this concert, the highest value of all - the one most worthy of being promoted - was the value of anti-atheist bigotry.

Diaz-Balart has picked up the moral tools of praise and condemnation and applied them to promote an aversion to atheists.
My question now is whether there are any people willing to pick up the same moral tools and apply them to actually making the world a better place, rather than applying them to promote unjustified hatred and bigotry.

Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart is a Republican representative of Florida's 21st District. He can be contacted through his congressional office web site. This district is a suburb of Miami and, thus, its members can be best reached by letters and comments to media that serve the Miama market.

A list of Miami media can be found at ABYZ News Links for Miami and includes, among other media, The Miami Herald
One also has the option of contacting any organization that one belongs to that has reason to stand in opposition to bigtroy (not limited to atheist or humanist organizations) and getting them to offer official condemnation. The more condemnation that one can muster, the more moral work that gets done.
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So shall the Atheist Bloggers do some moral work?