"In the process of broadening our appeal, and gaining thousands of new members, we also experienced a decline in the total number of atheists and freethinkers. FACTS is an attempt to bring those quality members back to BookTalk.org by offering the same incredible book discussions we used to enjoy."
http://www.booktalk.org/FACTS-book-selections.php

In an attempt to reverse the decline of atheism at BookTalk I have taken it upon myself to invite interesting atheists to join, beginning with Matt Wallace, The Compleat Atheist:

http://www.compleatheretic.com/bio/ohair.html
Meeting Satan Herself

I hope my example will be imitated.

Thanks for inviting him, Thomas. We're always welcoming to new members, no matter what their religious belief. But I sure would love to see more non-believers in our ranks. Is this a blog you like to read?

It's mostly autobiography. In the link Wallace is describing his attending an appearance of Madalyn Murray O'Hair and his support for her as a sixteen-year-old atheist. I enjoyed his account and am hoping that he will eventually show up here.

I'm an atheist, but I've never been invited by anyone else. I found BookTalk on my own.

Why is there a decline in atheism among BookTalk users, and why does it matter?

I'd have invited you if I had known where you were. How could one find atheists to invite? Do you have atheist friends who might join also? Are you a member of an atheist network or society?



With the decline of atheistic totalitarian systems throughout the world, atheists are becoming an endangered species. I think they need special protection

Ah, the old recruitment quagmire. I've run online communities in the past, and I know that to get users, you need to have users.

Regardless, I do have atheist friends who might want to join.

Haha. But atheism has become more commonplace overall in the United States for the past nineteen or so years! [1]

Though, seriously, why is the religious (or lack of religious) inclination of the userbase worth fretting over?

BookTalk has only two atheism-promoting members, its owner Chris and Frank the prison guard. There are others -- Geo, Interbane, Tarav -- but they don't have the fire in the belly of Chris and Frank. I am not an atheist of the Chris and Frank sort, but would like for atheism to have a fair representation, and for representation it needs numbers. You are a valued addition to BookTalk.

I have had no luck in recruiting new atheists for BookTalk. Any advice?

Tom

First of all the idea that there is a decline in atheist members is not entirely accurate… I will explain…

BookTalk used to be a freethinker and atheist community primarily… we did have out theist members and debates were commonly hot (and fun) but in an attempt to bring in more members Chris decided that making the site less specialized would benefit the community.

Chris revamped the site making it more about books than freethought.

Chris was right we have many more members than we used to and the book discussion portion of the site has grown tremendously.

However Chris is an atheist that wants to promote the benefits of rational thought, critical thinking, and freedom from dogma and superstition. Chris and I (as well as most atheists in this community) think that the world would be a better place with a little less religious bigotry and more rationality.

We believe that if we can help get even a few people to understand that atheism is an acceptable (even noble) way to live than we have helped our society.

To that end Chris wants to make sure that at least part of his site remains dedicated to that goal. And while atheist membership has not declined (I think we have more members than ever) we are in danger of becoming drowned out by the many theists that have joined the community.

This was not unexpected but, like I said Chris wants this site to remain to be a place where atheists are welcome and appreciated. In an effort to not be drown out by irrationality completely we simply need more atheist members.

Later

Fair enough. Just so you know, I actually came to this site not for the non-fiction (I prefer to read my non-fiction in news articles over reading a commentator's long-winded perspective on economics, for example), but the fiction. I now get a feeling that the fiction portion of BookTalk, in actually, is intended to take a backseat role to the non-fiction portion.

Thank you for the explanation, though.

No section is intended to take a back seat to any other; you are free to enjoy any section you please. There were some good discussions about some fantasy books recently… and you may also start a thread about any book you are interested in.

Enjoy the site...

Later

and as you can tell, I rarely post, although I do pop in to read what posts I can manage. Life is hectic lately, but of all the online discussion boards I've come across, this is the one most appealing to me. I'm a novice book discussion member, whether online or in real life, so am learning a lot from everybody's posts. I am also an atheist, and am particularly glad to see the emphasis on rational thought and logic here.

My next book to read is the one already discussed, When Good Thinking Goes Bad, just haven't had time to get around to it.

New atheist booktalk member here! I'm glad to see we're welcome. I'll try to get some of my friends to join, but most of them (unfortunately) are not readers...

Hhhhhhmmmmmm.....now this is interesting: I'm also a born again atheist and proud to be one. And I managed to find this site on my own. Do we have built-in antenae?

... or maybe it was destined that you would find us

Welcome!

maybe instead of an antenna it was your inner fish.