It’s My Blogiversary!

June 13, 2007 By 20 Comments

This site’s now been up for exactly one year, and at the risk of sounding hokey, it’s like an extension of me now.

It’s like the baby I didn’t really want to have, but I made a mistake and had one, and now that it’s growing up, I can’t imagine life without it.

As you can tell, my metaphor-writing skills have also improved.

So thanks to everyone who has commented, sent emails, or simply read the posts. Here’s to another year :)

…

I was looking back to what I wrote when I first started this site, and it had to do with a church I had been invited to speak at. The pastor and I had a dialogue on stage that went fairly well. The one thing that really got to me was that the pastor was distributing this awful, mistake-stricken (surprise!) pro-Creationism pamphlet, that he had authored, on the church’s website.

After citing many of the mistakes, they eventually took the pamphlet off the site.

Since then, they’ve replaced it with an equally disturbing set of answers (PDF) to the questions I posed that weekend in church. I wrote about some of the problems with the document, but there were too many for me to tackle alone.

Here’s just one example that proves the author Hadyn Shaw never bothered to open a Biology textbook:

Finally, Michael Behe is on to something with his term irreducible complexity. (See Darwin’s Black Box.) We still don’t have plausible explanation for how the eye could develop, or for the thousands of examples of orchestrated chemical processes.

Here was my quick response at the time:

Watch how the eye developed. Or read Dawkins again. And if you don’t trust Dawkins, surely you trust Wikipedia.

What about the chemical processes?

Here’s a scientific explanation of the evolution of the blood clotting cascade. Here’s a collection of several other explanations.

That’s just one problem. The majority of the document is an embarrassment to anyone with a brain. It makes me mad that this garbage would be written by someone in my community.

And it’s still up on the church’s website, though obscurely hidden. See if you can find it on the “sermon archive” page. Hint: It’s nowhere near my name.

Ok. It’s off my chest now, I swear.


[tags]atheist, atheism, Parkview Christian Church, Hadyn Shaw, Biology, Michael Behe, irreducible complexity, Darwin’s Black Box, Richard Dawkins, Wikipedia[/tags]

Filed Under: General 20 Comments
  • http://globalizati.wordpress.com globalizati

    It’s like the baby I didn’t really want to have, but I made a mistake and had one, and now that it’s growing up, I can’t imagine life without it.

    You should’ve exercised your right to choose.

    Oh, and on the PDF, I love the part where Gandhi goes to hell.

  • http://olvlzl.blogspot.com/ olvlzl, no ism, no ist

    Watch how the eye developed. Or read Dawkins again. And if you don’t trust Dawkins, surely you trust Wikipedia.

    Trust Wikipedia, un, no, actually. Especially in Evolutionary Psychology related issues, I believe to a large extent what you see there is Dawkinsonian propaganda.

    I’ve got a question for the atheists here. What if you aren’t going to ever be more than a small minority in a much larger population of religious believers? What if this recent fashion turns out to be largely preaching to the choir? What if the majority of people do what they’ve done all along and continue to believe in religion? What are your goals in that situation? Certainly the goal of being able to not pretend that you believe in something you don’t is a worthy one, and protecting life and limb are worthy of a bit of attention. But if you stay a small minority you will have to have the support of other people. What are your plans then?

  • http://olvlzl.blogspot.com/ olvlzl, no ism, no ist

    OH, Congratulations, Friendly Atheist. I should have started with that one. Yours is the best of the atheist blogs I’ve yet seen.

  • http://www.missheretic.com/ Becky Robinson

    Happy Blogiversary, Hemant! You certainly have created something here.

    Kudos!

  • HappyNat

    What if you aren’t going to ever be more than a small minority in a much larger population of religious believers?

    Why would I assume my “group” would be anything but a small minority ? I don’t see this status greatly changing during my lifetime.

    What if this recent fashion turns out to be largely preaching to the choir?

    I’ve never thought that the “atheist uprising” of books et al, will really change much. It is good to have the general population know we are part of society, but I don’t suspect we have “converted” many people.

    What if the majority of people do what they’ve done all along and continue to believe in religion?

    Why would I think they would do anything else?

    What are your goals in that situation?

    Same as before. Try to live the best life I can. Be a good husband, friend, and father. I’ll try to “spread” reason and fight against religion if it is imposed on me or my family and make a difference in my community.

  • TXatheist

    Congratulations on your one year blogging and thanks to Jim for his contribution. You could have just been going to your last church service if some other guy won. ($10 per church times 52 weeks=~$504) Would have been a long year of Sunday mornings at churches.

  • OsakaGuy

    Congratulations! I hope you’re working on your next book??

  • http://mollishka.blogspot.com mollishka

    The $4 is roundoff error, with which you could now buy yourself a blogiversary cupcake, had you kept the money.

  • Alice

    Congrats and here’s to many more.

  • Richard Wade

    Congratulations Hemant, and thank you for creating something that has liberated and enriched my mind. (It’s also impoverished my bank account since I spend far too much time here, but that’s my problem, nobody else’s.)

    Just by being alive we all use up food, water, air and space. So just because we’re alive the world is a little more hungry, thirsty, stuffy and crowded. So our initial impact on the world is negative. A few of us want to have a positive impact, and for that we have to do something more than eating, drinking, breathing and sitting. We have to somehow make conditions better for others, not just ourselves. We each can make at least a small positive difference, and some can make a larger one.

    Your message of free thinking, positive engagement and respectful challenge to the mental status quo is very positive and is also contagious. You make a positive difference because you are in the world. Keep going!

  • Karen

    Your message of free thinking, positive engagement and respectful challenge to the mental status quo is very positive and is also contagious. You make a positive difference because you are in the world. Keep going!

    Yeah – what he said! Congrats, Hemant, and thanks for all your insights over the last year. :-)

  • Mriana

    Congratulations, Hemant! The web does grow on people and so does one’s site. If you still have this place or end up moving it in ten years, you’ll be amazed how it can grow. Then again, it’s not quite a website like mine is, but it could still grow.

    Here’s a toast to another year, Hemant. :)

  • http://off-the-map.org/atheist/ Siamang

    Yay!

    Yeah, boy I remember those old posts about Pastor Tim. Yikes!

  • Maria

    Happy Blogiversary, Hemant! :)

  • Richard Wade

    Mriana, I didn’t know you have a website. I don’t know how I missed that fact. May I visit? Where is it?

  • monkeymind

    Many happy returns of the day! Thanks, I’ve been enjoying your site.

  • Tom in Iowa

    Congrats and a big thank you from a frequent lurker!!!

    I’ve enjoyed your blog for several months, and enjoyed your book. (My 14 year old daughter snatched it out of my hands to read almost the moment I got to the last page.)

    Thanks for the extremely civil and positive atmosphere.

  • Darryl

    Congratulations Hemant. This is a great website in many respects. What I like the most is that, for the most part, it attracts people with substance to what they write. Although I have at times provoked some of the commentators here, let there be no misunderstanding: I appreciate their thoughtfulness and willingness to engage. If the culture of a company reflects that of its leadership, then you should be proud of what this blog says about you.

    Let the friendliness continue.

  • Mriana

    Richard Wade said,

    June 13, 2007 at 2:40 pm

    Mriana, I didn’t know you have a website. I don’t know how I missed that fact. May I visit? Where is it?

    Sure you can visit. I don’t add it to my name because it doesn’t quite apply to Hemant’s site. It’s a Trek Fanfic site mostly, but I do have other fiction and non-fiction writings too. http://www.houseofbetazed.com My newer works are better than my older works, but knock yourself out if you like Trek. :D

  • http://undiscoveredfuture.blogspot.com Rebecca

    Congrats! It’s always fun to look back on old posts to see how they have changed.