Welcome to the final column of 1999. More significantly, welcome to my 100th Atheist Attic article. One hundred features! It's somewhat of a shock to me, honestly, but also very satisfying. For this milestone column, I think I'll share with you the story of how I got this far, and what it's like being an atheist online.
In early 1996, I entered the world of the web by putting up a personal website, Cardigan's Corner of the Web, of which The Atheist Attic eventually became a part. (Interestingly, some visitors are unaware of this, despite the links to the main site located throughout the Attic.) Being a writer, it was only natural that I would feature a variety of my work there. I offered some of my short stories, some novel excerpts, poetry, monthly rants and curiosities, as well as some more in-depth articles on specific topics. The very first of these was about religion, summing up my progression from mild Methodist to active atheist. As the Corner gained in notoriety, that particular article brought in some rather interesting email. Most of it wasn't very polite.
Jump forward to mid-1997, when I encountered a new Internet site called The Mining Company. This was a site of sites, so to speak. Their goal was to "mine" the web, digging out the best of the best on a multitude of subjects. Each topic would have a "guide" who would do the actual mining, selecting the choicest sites available on their chosen subject, and also writing weekly articles on said topic. The best part was that the guides would actually be paid for their efforts.
The Mining Company was new at that point, but still somehow managed to have multiple sites devoted to religion. There were a few Catholic sites, a variety of Protestant sites, sites on Judaism, even a Jehovah's Witness site, and more. But nothing remotely like a freethought site could be found anywhere in their directory. Nor was there any such thing listed in the "available topics" page that had anything to do with freethought, atheism, agnosticism, etc.
So I contacted them, proposing a freethought section to their pages. I was told politely that they had no intention to do such a site in the near future. And in a burst of indignation, I emailed them back, stating that the proliferation of religious sites at The Mining Company, combined with their reply to me, had the ring of religious discrimination.
Days later, I received an email stating that I was free to apply for the position of guide for their Agnosticism/Atheism site (which, as I said, didn't even exist before my email). So I did. Score one for the infidel.
Unfortunately, I was "guide" for only a short time. After ten weeks, and ten articles, came my unexpected relocation from Pennsylvania to Utah, which brought with it several weeks of being offline, unable to update my site for The Mining Company. Unsurprisingly, they let me go.
The Mining Company is now known as About.com, and the Agnosticism/Atheism site is now run by Austin Cline, another Pennsylvania boy, who's doing a smashing job of it. (I highly recommend you check out Austin's work. You'll even find some links to my articles here!) But at the time of my dismissal, I'd already written another sixteen articles, and had nowhere to put them!
Not long thereafter, The Atheist Attic was born. I obtained reprint rights to the ten Mining Company articles I'd written, and began filling up server space with my new writings, which now appear weekly, generally on Saturdays.
The Attic's growth has required archives, conveniently divided into chunks of ten columns each. I'd thought to do a topical index, and even began such a thing, but it was too daunting a task. So, a search engine was added. There are even guest columns and visitor profiles, making the Attic far more interactive than most such sites. (Maybe Attic Chat in 2000?)
But wow… A hundred articles! I never thought I'd find material enough for anywhere near that many. But the more time goes by, the more I find to write about. Whenever my stockpile of articles runs dry, I always seem to discover a slew of topics to touch upon. Sure, some are better than others, more pertinent than others, but this society of ours never fails to provide me with ample opportunities to rail against religion and the negative effects it has upon the masses.
As I said, ever since Cardigan on Religion went online back in 1996, I've received lots of email from visitors to the site. For a long time, the emails were predominantly negative. I've been called some pretty choice things by those "loving" Christians out there. I'd repeat some of them here, but don't want to offend the sensibilities of our more delicate readers.
Over time, however, and especially with the growing popularity of the Attic, the mail became overwhelmingly positive. (The Atheist Attic is without question the most popular section of my website, now, even surpassing the Bumperstickers page.) I receive frequent correspondence from all over the world--shared stories about different countries and how freethinkers are treated there. It's quite an experience, and I treasure every contact made. That's the true glory of the 'net, in my opinion. If you'd told me ten years ago that I'd regularly correspond with people from the UK, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and all over the US, I'd have called you crazy.
I even get emails asking for advice. Recently, a school choir director named Cara asked me to help her out. One of her students is an atheist, and refuses to sing a religious song. She obviously didn't understand why (amazingly), and wanted my advice on how to deal with it, and how the boy's mother could adjust to having an atheist son.
Many of the advice seekers are young atheists. One recent message was from a girl named Jessica, a freshman college student who recently "came out" as an atheist. But she's having problems with it. Specifically, she's having trouble with that whole Death thing. She finds herself worrying a lot about the health of her loved ones, and fearing her own eventual demise.
Jessica has become one of my email pals (Hi, Jess!) and seems to have found my advice helpful. I had to inquire of Cara, but she admitted my reply was helpful, though she didn't elaborate. I hope she now has a better understanding of the atheist viewpoint, if nothing else.
The Internet is a reflection of the rest of our society, positively overflowing with religion. But there are pockets of freethought out there, too. It can be an invaluable resource for those of us needing such oases of reason. As for myself, I'm all too happy to be able to provide one.
