Why maintain an atheist blog?

My aggressive summer vacation schedule (4 out of the last 6 weeks) ends today and I have enjoyed it immensely. We traversed 4 provinces and 4 states. We ended things off with an idyllic week in Ontario cottage country. All in all, it was everything that you could ask for in a vacation - a time to rest, read, recreate and enjoy family/friends.

One of the best parts of holidays is that they give us time to ponder and introspect about our lives. I bill my professional time by the hour (at ridiculously high rates, I must confess) so I am constantly looking at ways to best rationalize my waking hours. As a result, it should not be surprising that I have given some thought over the past few weeks as to whether the time I have been devoting to the maintenance of this site has been worth it. After careful consideration, I have concluded that this exercise has definitely been (and continues to be) worthwhile.

My first 6 months of residing within the blogosphere has:

1. Taken me to East Lansing, MI to see Richard Dawkins deliver his lecture "The Purpose of Purpose".

2. Taken me to the University of Toronto where I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the gentleman philosopher Peter Singer and hear him speak about specieism and his recent book The Life You Can Save.

3. Taken me to the Royal Ontario Museum to see Christopher Hitchens slaughter the Ten Commandments.

4 Allowed me to interact with hundreds of fascinating, thoughtful and polite readers who have been interested enough to leave comments.

5. Challenged me to embark on a deconstruction of Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life, which is ongoing despite the fact that my challenger (the Christian missionary da) seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.

6. Has occasionally resulted in my correspondence with some of the world's greatest thinkers in realms which fascinate me (such as philosopher Stephen Law and evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne).

7. Has expanded my own personal commitment to philanthropy. By the way, kudos to my readers for The Smile Train contribution which financed a surgery to correct a third world child's cleft palate. Readers have also been contributing towards a donation to The Worldwide Fistula Fund donation which will be happening before the end of this month (post to follow in this regard identifying the contributors).

8. Has taught me that you can find just about anything on google images.

9. Most importantly, has also taught me plenty about atheism and even more about theism and its adherents. I continue to be intrigued at why people are attracted to irrational belief systems. I remain convinced that healthy skepticism is the key to my children's survival in a world worth living in.

Suffice it to say that my mission will continue, whether you like it or not.

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