SAQ
Q. What is a SAQ?
A. Typically, you see FAQs on Web sites. Only a couple of the questions that follow are frequently-asked, however, so I'm labelling this a Sometimes Asked Questions -- a SAQ.
Q. How many kids do you have?
A. None. I started this site in anticipation of having kids as a way of compiling resources that would help me as an atheist parent. The site snowballed before I got a chance to have any kids.
Q. Is the site really about atheist parenting?
A. Well, I do seek out references that would be useful to atheist parents, but because the site grew out from under me, it does tend to be a site for atheists with only occasional essays targeted toward atheist parents.
Q. Do you consider your essays to be infallible works of factual virtuosity?
A. Believe it or not, I get this one a lot. People assume that because I don't qualify every sentence with "I believe" or "I opine" that I represent every word I write for this site as a stepping stone toward an infallible statement of fact. Not so! A good bit of what I post here is just my opinion. A lot of sentences I write are representations (ironic or otherwise) of opinions I have either heard expressed by or I have projected on other people. These you should not take to be factual sentences. For the most part, unless I give hard data to back up a statement, it's up for debate. Very seldom do I intend to present ideas as objective fact, even if I don't state explicitly that the essay in question is one of opinion. I trust readers to exercise discretion when reading. In matters of religion or lack of it and parenting or lack of it, objective facts are hard to come by.
Q. Why do you write about Christians only?
A. In most cases, when somebody's trying to curtail my rights or is trying to convert me to their view of the universe, he or she is a Christian. Christians are the most visible opposition. I don't go out seeking opposition, of course. But because Christians often do things like try to post their dogma in public venues, it's natural that I should react to them. For the record, I oppose all religions I've encountered so far. Christianity just happens to be the one whose agents make themselves the biggest nuisance.
Q. Shouldn't an atheist be worried more about arguing against the existence of a god than about arguing against specific dogmatic points of specific religions?
A. Here's the funny thing. Most atheists I know would rather concern themselves with the simple pleasures of living than with refuting dogma. It's because we're confronted so frequently by the religious that we react and argue against the dogma in question. In an ideal world, I wouldn't even find myself arguing against the existence of a god because there would be no one pulling my shirtsleeve and asking me to believe in a god. I think that if religious evangelicals would practice a more private form of religion, they'd see much less negative reaction from atheists.
Q. When was this site started?
A. I registered the domain atheistparents.com on July 31, 2000, and pointed it to some Web space I had at ibiblio.org. Not sure I really had permission to do this, I sort of flew below the radar. In June of 2001, two things happened. First, I decided to renew the domain in the event that I was going to be able to find real hosting in the near future. Shortly after that, one of the ibiblio gods stumbled across my little subdirectory and invited me to move it up to its own real directory and add it to the ibiblio.org collection. It turns out that ibiblio.org can't host .com domains, so I decided to go ahead and purchase the .org version of the domain and ask ibiblio.org to provide me virtual hosting. And that's where the site stands today.
Q. How much money do you make by running this site?
A. Not a penny. Occasionally, I make things like tee-shirts and bumper stickers available as incentive for people to contribute to the site or in exchange for enough money to cover my cost for one instance of the item in question. While it'd be nice to maybe make some money at this, it's also nice to have the freedom of not having a paying customer base to keep happy.
Q. Do you accept article submissions?
A. Yes. Ideally, articles should pertain in some way to atheist parenting, or to atheism in any case. From time to time, I branch out and post something a little different. If you're not sure whether or not what you've got in mind is something I'd be willing to post, send me a note and ask. While supplies last, new authors are eligible to receive either a tee-shirt or a bumper sticker as incentive for submitting an article.
Q. Why don't you have a hatemail section?
A. I get surprisingly little hatemail. I do get an occasional patronizing note from a Christian. I also get some well-written and thoughtfully-expressed notes from Christians. Most of my mail comes from people who enjoy the site. Even if I did get a lot of hatemail, I'm not sure I'd dedicate a section of the site to it. AtheistParents.org, though pretty outspoken about how silly religion is, really doesn't exist for the sake of bashing religion or its practitioners. I don't think it's constructive to make a big show of bashing individuals whose beliefs are different from mine. That said, I do occasionally incorporate parts of silly emails into my articles.
Q. Don't you care that your children are going to burn in hell?
A. I don't think my children are going to burn in hell because I don't believe in hell. Even if I believed in god, I'd sure have a hard time worshipping an entity who thought my children should burn in hell even if I never gave them a real opportunity to worship him.
Q. What is a SAQ?
A. Typically, you see FAQs on Web sites. Only a couple of the questions that follow are frequently-asked, however, so I'm labelling this a Sometimes Asked Questions -- a SAQ.
Q. How many kids do you have?
A. None. I started this site in anticipation of having kids as a way of compiling resources that would help me as an atheist parent. The site snowballed before I got a chance to have any kids.
Q. Is the site really about atheist parenting?
A. Well, I do seek out references that would be useful to atheist parents, but because the site grew out from under me, it does tend to be a site for atheists with only occasional essays targeted toward atheist parents.
Q. Do you consider your essays to be infallible works of factual virtuosity?
A. Believe it or not, I get this one a lot. People assume that because I don't qualify every sentence with "I believe" or "I opine" that I represent every word I write for this site as a stepping stone toward an infallible statement of fact. Not so! A good bit of what I post here is just my opinion. A lot of sentences I write are representations (ironic or otherwise) of opinions I have either heard expressed by or I have projected on other people. These you should not take to be factual sentences. For the most part, unless I give hard data to back up a statement, it's up for debate. Very seldom do I intend to present ideas as objective fact, even if I don't state explicitly that the essay in question is one of opinion. I trust readers to exercise discretion when reading. In matters of religion or lack of it and parenting or lack of it, objective facts are hard to come by.
Q. Why do you write about Christians only?
A. In most cases, when somebody's trying to curtail my rights or is trying to convert me to their view of the universe, he or she is a Christian. Christians are the most visible opposition. I don't go out seeking opposition, of course. But because Christians often do things like try to post their dogma in public venues, it's natural that I should react to them. For the record, I oppose all religions I've encountered so far. Christianity just happens to be the one whose agents make themselves the biggest nuisance.
Q. Shouldn't an atheist be worried more about arguing against the existence of a god than about arguing against specific dogmatic points of specific religions?
A. Here's the funny thing. Most atheists I know would rather concern themselves with the simple pleasures of living than with refuting dogma. It's because we're confronted so frequently by the religious that we react and argue against the dogma in question. In an ideal world, I wouldn't even find myself arguing against the existence of a god because there would be no one pulling my shirtsleeve and asking me to believe in a god. I think that if religious evangelicals would practice a more private form of religion, they'd see much less negative reaction from atheists.
Q. When was this site started?
A. I registered the domain atheistparents.com on July 31, 2000, and pointed it to some Web space I had at ibiblio.org. Not sure I really had permission to do this, I sort of flew below the radar. In June of 2001, two things happened. First, I decided to renew the domain in the event that I was going to be able to find real hosting in the near future. Shortly after that, one of the ibiblio gods stumbled across my little subdirectory and invited me to move it up to its own real directory and add it to the ibiblio.org collection. It turns out that ibiblio.org can't host .com domains, so I decided to go ahead and purchase the .org version of the domain and ask ibiblio.org to provide me virtual hosting. And that's where the site stands today.
Q. How much money do you make by running this site?
A. Not a penny. Occasionally, I make things like tee-shirts and bumper stickers available as incentive for people to contribute to the site or in exchange for enough money to cover my cost for one instance of the item in question. While it'd be nice to maybe make some money at this, it's also nice to have the freedom of not having a paying customer base to keep happy.
Q. Do you accept article submissions?
A. Yes. Ideally, articles should pertain in some way to atheist parenting, or to atheism in any case. From time to time, I branch out and post something a little different. If you're not sure whether or not what you've got in mind is something I'd be willing to post, send me a note and ask. While supplies last, new authors are eligible to receive either a tee-shirt or a bumper sticker as incentive for submitting an article.
Q. Why don't you have a hatemail section?
A. I get surprisingly little hatemail. I do get an occasional patronizing note from a Christian. I also get some well-written and thoughtfully-expressed notes from Christians. Most of my mail comes from people who enjoy the site. Even if I did get a lot of hatemail, I'm not sure I'd dedicate a section of the site to it. AtheistParents.org, though pretty outspoken about how silly religion is, really doesn't exist for the sake of bashing religion or its practitioners. I don't think it's constructive to make a big show of bashing individuals whose beliefs are different from mine. That said, I do occasionally incorporate parts of silly emails into my articles.
Q. Don't you care that your children are going to burn in hell?
A. I don't think my children are going to burn in hell because I don't believe in hell. Even if I believed in god, I'd sure have a hard time worshipping an entity who thought my children should burn in hell even if I never gave them a real opportunity to worship him.