I was looking at Twitter and a tweet from someone I’ve followed for a long time caught my attention. I don’t know if many recall or not but there used to be a podcast, apostasynow that used to be a regular visit for me but like so many podcasts and blogs, seemed to disappear. Well they’re back and it’s good to see them. A decade ago, podcasts and yes, blogs for atheists weremany really good bloggers and their respective venues. Heck, I did for about a year and a half beginning in 2015.

I left the blogosphere because I was tired of all the venom, some of which I contributed and I thought this is not why I wanted to have a blog. I took exception to those that believed their opinion was fact and that their facts were all that mattered. Of course, being a conservative didn’t win me many allies, but there were some because yes, an atheist can be conservative. I was never concerned about anyone’s political ideology as long as they were open to hearing a rebuttal argument (if there was one). One of the things that didn’t occur was having the ability to actively rebut a lot of the nonsense that was being floated to atheists as what we should be doing (Ahteism-Plus, anyone?).

So many podcasts (I had one of those with a couple others for a while as well: Chill Girls in Pink Corvettes. Two women and me discussing some of the same nonsense.) went the way of the albatross. We had fun for a while but it became too much too keep up with all the ridiculousness from, ahem, a certain group, and we eventually ended it after a year or so. Good people, interesting voices, just seemed to drop out all of a sudden. Sure, life interrupts, but these people were gone from the online world, almost entirely.

I became familiar with many through Twitter. Now many of the same people who were voices of reason, especially when there were those that were doing pretty much whatever they could to bring distress and division to atheists, haven’t been heard from. Some for several years. But, I guess people move on and it would be unreasonable to expect things to remain as they were a decade ago. I thought at the time though, that atheist blogging and podcasting would grow much larger.

Maybe we’ll begin to see a resurgence, a renaissance of sort, in the atheist online world. There have been some enduring podcasts, but the ones I’ve heard just don’t have anything to discuss in the areas atheists used to be fond of discussing. It would be nice to see some of the “old gang” come back, especially to blogging. I don’t think there is less to say then there was back then, and in fact if anything, t’s more important today because of the direction of society, recently. I also believe it’s more important than ever to show our non-atheist audience that yes, we can have differing opinions and still get along, still have a discussion.

Welcome back apostasynow and I hope you keep up the podcast. I’ll certainly be there to listen and I think there’s a lot like me as well. We need more atheists online, whether they blog, podcast, or just post on Facebook or Twitter. I think it helps atheists to stay connected and maybe even will show someone how to become involved in their local community.