Can the Atheist Blogosphere Hold a Candle to the Bestselling Atheist Authors?

The Atheist Experience

the blog and the the podcast 🙂

What atheist blogs do you think provide “exemplary” intellectual stimulation?

Mine, of course. However, Friendly Atheist comes in at a close second.

I joke of course. Really, I think that Daylight Atheism and Its sister site are probably one of the best intellectual sites in the blogosphere.

Read the article in a recent Atlantic about how bloggers are killing the old, respectable journalism where reporters worked hard to dig out the truth and are replacing it with advocacy of little substance and no middle ground…

I’m sick of hearing this.

Journalism in America was already far along its way down the tubes long before blogging became popular. And it’s not even a contention. Blogs are all about quick response and discussion, not high-minded investigative journalism. It’s a different medium.

Also, what’s with the condescension?

I’m sorry, but I have looked all over the internet and never found anything on the New Atheism that comes close in intellectual merit or maturity to the six N Y Times bestsellers and other books I mention. … I love my grandchildren but don’t refer to their scribblings in my books.

Really?

Maybe it’s valuable to point out that not everyone values the intellectual side of the discussion the same way? Some “new atheists” just don’t care.

This will be a good list of recommendations for other readers! I hope to pick up a few from here.

I very much enjoy Greta Christina’s blog. I think she makes some of the most well-written and well-reasoned arguments on various subjects.

I also enjoy Pharyngula. Sometimes it’s rather polemic, which is often a good thing. However, my favorite aspect of PZ Myers’ writing is that he takes creationist or theist articles or books and painstakingly, masterfully dissects them, one point at a time. His efforts are textbook examples of how to deal with religious apologetic arguments effectively, rather than dismissing them out of hand.

I like Paul Fidalgo’s and Trina Hoaks’ Examiner columns, and wish they wrote more.

I do follow Harris’ “The Reason Project”, although not as closely as others.

I follow the NCSE, AHA, and FFRF on Facebook.

And of course Friendly Atheist is high on my list! I like the tone here, and I like the volume of news items.

As has been pointed out in various comments, if Stenger is looking solely for intellectual stimulation, and asking whether blogs provide it, he’s missing a big piece of the picture. Atheist charities, secular associations, the argument over the Collins nomination, the battle over accommodationism, those didn’t happen in books.

I agree with Stenger on this, but I don’t believe that is the function of blogs and forums. The s/n is way too low. However, the Internet serves as a virtual gathering place for atheists who live in communities where they may feel isolated. Without the Internet, I’d still be a shellshocked former fundamentalist, terrified I was going to hell. You cannot get that kind of support from a book.

However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t intellectually stimulating blogs out there. One of my favorites is The Secular Outpost, especially Taner Edis’ posts. Also, for an intellectual heavyweight, Austin Cline is one who I believe actually superior to writers like Harris or Dawkins, when it comes to putting together a taut philosophical argument. He’s also merciless on discussion boards, considering he goes back to the good old days of alt.atheism (any veterans of usenet?).

Stenger loses major points for comparing bloggers to pre-literate children. He also loses points for failing to realize the influence of blogs, whatever their intellectual merit. There are far more new ideas on the web than in any published book, and they certainly affect far more people.

I think Stenger missed the point in his response. The argument was that by neglecting blogs, he’s leaving a big part out of the modern atheist movement. His response was that the blogs aren’t high literature, but usually that’s not their main purpose.

Atheists use the blogosphere to organize, to keep abreast of relevant news, AND to submit arguments against religion/the religious.

It seems Stenger thinks that “New Atheism” is only about debates hashed out in competing books, and he does non-bestselling atheists a great disservice by dismissing their contributions.

Also, I want to second Greta Christina’s blog as an excellent and thought-provoking one.

Read the article in a recent Atlantic about how bloggers are killing the old, respectable journalism where reporters worked hard to dig out the truth and are replacing it with advocacy of little substance and no middle ground…

Nothing like the objectivity of the printed media calling itself much better than another source and blaming that source for its demise.

Note how well the media has been covering health care reform -completely ignoring and trivializing single payer – the proven system that works everywhere else.

Note the digging deep and showing there were no weapons of mass destruction – that’s why we did not attack Iraq in 2003.

Note the heavy coverage of Media Reform?

As tech-savvy as he may or may not be, let’s face it: Stenger is an old man. Not to denigrate him in any way, but he is accustomed to to print media. He is familiar with the way it operates and presents itself.
The (I hate the term, but…) Blogosphere does not function the same way; you can’t look at a blog as ‘a newspaper online’, that’s not what it is. A blog is not a place where you go to get information, it’s a place where you go to get opinions. Blogs and forums are like little tiny social clubs, not little tiny newsrooms.

Print media is a sailboat, online media is a speedboat. They have their own pros and cons, they share similarities, but you can’t treat one like you treat the other. Stenger is clearly a sailboater and he’s trying to judge speedboats by the same standard. No wonder he’s not impressed.

I think anyone who refers to the blogosphere as “informal, unedited, exchanges that are mostly soundbites rather than deep discussions” has revealed a generational bias (even if young) and has become confused about the nature of “discussion.” A book is not a discussion, it’s a monologue. It’s also frequently outdated by the time the work is actually published.

A blog, a good one anyway, isn’t devoid of good, serious discussion. I learn from several of the blogs I read, all of which have been mentioned already. They’re all thought provoking and constructive.

Sure, blogs are far too democratic in that anyone can participate regardless of qualification. Yet, Harris and Dawkins, both brilliant writers, make the mistake of bringing up already rejected dogma (like Harris’ discussions of transubstantiation) as if any mainstream believer still took it seriously. This is an example of the atheist using a straw man. It’s not a good thing, but it got published, so it’s superior to blogging?

Well, no.

There are problems in both media. There are successes in both media. The most accurate thing we can say is that they compliment each other. At least, that’s how I see it.

I have to agree with Victor on the sound-byte nature of most blogs (atheist or not). Blogs are fine for what they are able to do – connect people in ways they weren’t able to connect 15 or more years ago. But blogs have had a huge effect on the new atheism and I don’t think anybody can deny that.

For what it’s worth, I’ve never been all that impressed by the intellectual merits of the books he talks about, either. I’ll take some Michael Martin, Quentin Smith or Kai Nielsen any day over Dawkins, Harris or Hitchens.

Wow. Stenger just went way down in my esteem. I think this is the attitude that spawns all those “ivory tower” comments. I suppose we’re lucky he wrote the book in English, and not in Latin, as a truly educated person would.

What atheist blogs do you think provide “exemplary” intellectual stimulation?

Intellectual? Debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com, John W. Loftus’ site, does a good job. Also (as already mentioned) daylightatheism. Epiphenom – bhascience.blogspot.com – does some great sociological stuff, but I don’t know if that would count as an atheist blog. sandwalk.blogspot.com – Larry Moran’s blog – definitely does. Also whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com – Jerry Coyne’s blog.

Hey, I also get a kick out of rude-and-crude blogs like “God is for Suckers”, though.

And I love the podcasts “Chariots of Iron”, “American Freethought”, “Dogma Free America” and “The Non-Prophets”…there’s sometimes some overlap in the news they cover, but I don’t care.

I also subscribe to Free Inquiry magazine, especially for the excellent book reviews.

I pay attention to the Blogosphere and the Podcasts to learn what new books are out there and worth reading, including Vic Stenger’s newest work, which I first heard of on Freethought Radio with Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. My favorite part of the FFRF newsletter are the letters to the editor, just hearing from fellow atheists in their own words.

I’ve found many of the contributors to PZ’s blog to be very well educated and articulate, and sometimes the comment threads are just as entertaining as the posts themselves.

The Internet (YouTube) has turned The Atheist Experience from just another local, obscure U.S. cable access show to a world-wide phenomenon.

All of these various media are interdependent on each other and are stronger in their creative combination.

I’m a little amazed that John Loftus’ site Debunking Christianity isn’t mentioned more frequently and higher up in this thread.

It has far and away the most detailed and in-depth writing on philosophy, theology, and epistemology on the net. Not really for the faint of heart; it’s not as much fun or as snarky as many of the others, but as an intellectual source it can’t be beat.

I think that Stenger misses the point if he looks solely for detailed theological arguments in blogs. Take Pharyngula’s “Courtier’s Reply” for instance – this has been cited hundreds or thousands of times and has, I think, shifted the way we think about apologetic responses far more than most books. As well, the debate around “framing” and Mooneybaum’s newest book has gone a long way towards persuading much of the soft, mushy centre that atheism isn’t something to run away from and that fatheism is an intellectual cop-out.

Blogs aren’t about building a theological argument but about building communities and having conversations, a vital feature of any movement especially the atheist one where we’re not visibly distinct. After reading a book, what then? How do atheists stay engaged and informed? It may not be as glamorous but blogs and web forums are key tools. And let’s not forget that the work in these social groups can have real-world impact such as the atheist bus campaign.

I must grant that the book tours of Hitchens and Dawkins have probably achieved far more popular press, tv coverage and media attention than blog posts (even Crackergate).

Since it hasn’t come up more than once in the thread, I’ll throw in what I thought was an obligatory mention: Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True, which may not be a fair candidate given its namesake book.

When I was deconverting, I read through the entire archive of daylightatheism.org. It was much more meaningful to me than the books by Dawkins, et. al.

As far as high-minded stuff, I’d recommend “Atheism: Proving the Negative” by Matt McCormick, a professor of philosophy at CSU Sacramento.

You can’t say a professor of philosophy isn’t scholarly, Vic!

http://www.atheismblog.blogspot.com/

Also, he’s building a remote-controlled R2D2, which means he’s beyond awesome!

http://buildr2d2.blogspot.com/

I think Greta Christina nailed it when she said attempting to document the history of the last 5 years of ‘new’ atheism without mentioning blogs would be like trying to chronicle the gay rights movement without mentioning gay bars.

A truly scholarly approach would document non-scholarly history and interaction.

It’s as if you decided that in history class, everyone should only read books by writers of history textbooks.

But of course, I haven’t read your latest book, so this isn’t a review.

And also:

I love my grandchildren but don’t refer to their scribblings in my books.

Dude, you don’t have to be such a dick.

What jtradke said.

And, hey, I’m in mid 40’s, computer programmer, and when it comes to atheism, my reading material, 95% of the time, comes from blogs.

Plus, I use the blogs to have discussions with my family. Almost every day, my 16 year old son asks me about the latest conversations on the atheist blogs. Lots of meal times are spent discussing our opinions based on whatever the scuttle was that day.

I have only read Dawkins’ God Delusion and Sam Harris’s two books one time, but I read Friendly Atheist and others every single day.

Hands down, PZ and Hemant, et al, have more influence on me and my family than any book I’ve read in the past few years.

By the way, with Vic Stenger AND Sam Harris posting on this blog, I’ve also got to share with you this:

Neil DeGrasse-Tyson is in my office building right now! Doing an interview!

Squeeee!!!!! Science GEEEKAGE!

Books are wonderful. Books are, in fact, necessary to Life As I Know It. But the problem with a book is…you can’t have an on-going interaction with it. It is a snap-shot in time of the author’s views. The information it contains today is the same information it will contain tomorrow. You can’t ask it to re-state something for purposes of clarification, and it doesn’t update its content to deal with the implications of more recent data. Yes, the author can publish another book to clarify and update, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. And it costs more to buy the subsequent book/s than to interact in the Blogoverse. Yes, there are libraries (for now….), and there is Interlibrary Loan (but…years…lives….), but again, no real-time element. Nothing close to a real-time element.

Also, books don’t bullshit over a beer or coffee worth a damn.

Seneca summed up religion extremely well when he said that is was regarded by the masses as true, by the wise as false and by rulers as useful.

It appears from his comment that Stenger is mainly interested in engaging the wise. Bloggers want to engage all of them, but especially the masses and the rulers.

What about Podcasts?
In the case of Steven Novella’s (who also runs a great blog that deserves to be included in this discussion, NeuroLogica) The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, it fits with Stenger’s requirements for respectable media. The SGU podcast is carefully planned and edited by Dr. Novella and his cast every week. Therefore, in it’s own way, it is a reviewed publication, like the New Atheist books that spurred this discussion. Do not atheist/skeptical podcasts deserve consideration (at least SGU, if not others)?

– Ben H.
Seabrook, TX

Lukeprog at Common Sense Atheism has some decent philosophical depth.

Siamang: “As far as high-minded stuff, I’d recommend “Atheism: Proving the Negative” by Matt McCormick, a professor of philosophy at CSU Sacramento.”

Maybe Stenger will be more impressed when Matt McCormick finishes his actual book:

The Case Against Christ–draft of a book proposal

—

I read one of Stenger’s books, God – The Failed Hypothesis. It had one rather annoying characteristic in that he continually referred to arguments he had made in his previous books. Dude, hyperlinks work so much better on Teh Intertubes than they do on paper. That’s one practice that would go down much better on a blog.

Stenger: “Point me to a blog that picked up the Hawking quotation abut the universe not beginning in a singularity and turning it meaning completely around. Point me to a blog that recognized the theological significance of this.”

Well dude, if you were blogging this, rather than writing a dead-tree version, you could have actually included a link to the quote in question. I would suspect that Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance, who is an 1) atheist, 2) a cosmologist, and 3) a blogger, would have noticed such a quote and blogged about it; but searching a physics-heavy blog for something like “Hawking” is rather futile.

I agree that the point was missed by Stenger, but I also think that there is a redundancy in the atheist blogosphere that is a little wearying. I know that 99% of *all* blogs will likely not be worth one’s time, but even in the upper echelon of heathen bloggery, I find entry after entry of “hey look where the Bible is crazy THIS time!” a bit “done.” I suppose I am assuming an atheist audience, as well, but if that’s so, then we all start from the same place, we all already agree that religion and adherence to bronze age scripture is nonsense, so let’s go *from there*.

That’s not to say that absurd expressions or impositions of those same bronze age ideas should not be taken apart, but I don’t need a tidal wave of blogs all telling me that Jesus was not in fact a superhero. I got it. What I want to know is: What now?

For example: you don’t need me writing about why I think the virgin birth or the resurrection is silly. That’s obvious. You might, however, want to know what the Pope’s pronouncements mean in real life policy, or what he’s saying about nonbelievers, etc.

But at this point, I’ve weeded out most of the blogs that are redundant. My problem now is that I still have an embarrassment of riches – there’s no way I can keep up with all the good writing out there on a regular basis, and my RSS reader is about to explode!

Well I for one will definitely NOT be buying his book. He displays the classic arrogance of an older generation who thinks that the Internet is for LOLCats and not much else. Just because something is printed on dead trees does not make it somehow intellectually superior to something on the Internet. If the content of his comments is any way similar to the content of his books then I’m sure it is no high minded treatise.

Oh, I forgot: I want to second what many others here have said: which is that one of the most important functions of the atheosphere is that it provides community: a place for atheists to connect with other atheists and no that they’re not alone, and a place for atheists to organize — not just socially, but politically. That is huge.

And as others have asked: How well would those wonderful atheist books have sold if there hadn’t been an online atheist community spreading the word about them?

I am going to have to stick up for Dr. Stenger here. I first came across his writing as an excerpt in Hitchen’s “The Portable Atheist”. I found Stenger’s article to be very thought provoking and deep in the scientific sense (as opposed to philosophical reasoning), which is a less common approach I see argued.

I think the intellectual stimulation one receives from an article or book to a great extent depends upon the knowledge that person already has. While there are good articles regarding atheism on the internet, if you have traveled to enough sites, you will notice that the essence of many articles is the same, even if specific details are different. In the beginning I found almost anything fascinating, having spent so many years in Christianity. A year later, I primarily use the internet and blogs to follow cultural aspects of atheism (legal and political issues).

Revyloution Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:49 am

Blogs, and the internet in general, have done something that no amount of careful scholarly writing could ever do. It has united a diffuse minority into a powerful coalition of unbelievers. It has also forced the idea of godlessness upon the consciousness of the world.

Excellent points.

Snail mail is still around despite IM and email.

Telephones nd school yearbooks are still around despite Facebook.

Libraries are still around despite, yknow, the Internet.

Books are still around despite blogs. But especially in America, there is a cult of personality; knowing jack about what your topic is means nothing compared to your charisma. (see Limbaugh, Coulter, Bush, Fox News etc). Books cannot convey personality nearly as well as blogs can (and I would hazard to guess, many of the best-selling books were written by people who were already well-known personalities).

Aside from that, it’s a totally different medium. Books are primarily for thorough education on a subject. Blogs primarily provide real-time commentary on a situation, and clarify the already-known facts of an issue. A book will tell you what’s going on; a blog will tell you why it’s going on and how it matters.

daylightatheism and ebonmusings, obviously
stenger needs to check himself before he wickedy-wickedy-wrecks himself

The best thing about blogs vs books is the opportunity to argue, and learn from others responses/perspectives. I’ve gained more intellectually through the act of adding my “2 cents”, than passive reading. You just don’t get the interaction that is necessary for this type of (my)intellectual growth in a book. I read a lot, and gain other things from
Books- but they are not superior, onlt different.

So- Here are my favs, as far as in depth content:
– Daylight athiesm (of course)
– Conversational atheism (interesting idea behind this one)
– Common sense atheism (very philosophy heavy)

There are so many more that are important, and offer: shorter, daily commentary (Hemant),are based on very personal experience(nolongerquivering.com) which is amazing and scary, or are mostly snarky “sound bites”(Dispatches from the Culture Wars).I read these just as often.

I want to add that I never thought to buy atheist books until I had been reading blogs for awhile, and I would never have heard of Stenger without this one.I buy quite a few, so I can participate in discussions of their ideas.

I agree that books and blogs are different but I see them as different complementary media. I am unclear why Stenger dismissed blogs as scribblings. This was just rude- I bet a good chunk of atheist writers book sales are attributable to these blogs (directly or indirectly)!

Staceyjw

No-one seems to have yet mentioned Russell Blackford’s blog Metamagician and the Hellfire Club. I have to confess I’m not a regular reader myself, but I’ve been impressed by some of his writing, and it would certainly be in my RSS feed (along with some of the others that have been mentioned here) if there were 25 hours in every day.

It was the atheist web community that helped me to break free from religion in the first place. The New Atheists books helped me to become more comfortable with using the label atheist, but if it wasn’t for the Internet, I might not be here today. Well, I think I would have deconverted eventually because it was inevitable in my case, but it might have taken longer and I wouldn’t have had the support I did have as I didn’t meet my first non-believer in person until this year. As for intellectual atheist sites, ex-christian.net isn’t strictly atheist, but the majority of the members at the site are atheists and agnostics and there’s a science versus religion forum there where we debate various science topics. Infidels.org is another great site for intellectual discussion on atheism.

I also recommend the Reasonable Doubts podcast, the Skeptics’ Guide To The Universe podcast, and the official podcast of Skeptic magazine, http://www.skepticality.com/ Just this past week, the Reasonable Doubts podcast had a fascinating interview with the biblical scholar Robert M Price. But if we’re determining intellectual discussion by how much science is mentioned, then neither Hitchens’ or Harris’ books should have been included in Stinger’s books. Dawkins and maybe Dennet are the only New Atheist authors who write about science the most and Dawkins and Hitchens are more focused on religion’s role in politics. Not only that, but Hitchens has blatant historical errors in his book, like how he claimed in God Is Not Great that Jews had sex through a hole in a sheet which was already debunked as an anti-Semetic rumor by snopes.com.

I agree with many of the points already made, especially regarding Stenger’s deep misunderstanding of the function and import of blogs. I actually just started reading his new book; it is well-written and well-argued, as expected, but nevertheless maintains the abrasive tone that I believe undermines the New Atheist movement.

I hate to self promote, but I would like to suggest Swimming the Sacred River, a blog dedicated to the fully atheistic tradition of religious naturalism. The site does not claim intellectual heft (although the movement itself does), but it does try to offer a sincere exploration of a naturalistic spirituality. We can argue as to whether or not that is a contradiction in terms, but it is unambiguously non-supernatural and so might represent one path in the future of atheism.

Can someone provide me with a link to a page that that contains links to all the popular atheist blogs, where “popular” is defined by more than 10,000 hits a month? I will put these in the next edition of The New Atheism and try to work something in the next printing of the current edition.

Vic Stenger

Vic,

Any list is going to be out of date before it reaches the bookstores. Instead you might want to point to a site which specializes in maintaining these lists such as Alexa: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Atheism

There are some issues with how they compile their stats, for instance they only count the root domain so that some sites get hidden (e.g.: scienceblogs.com appears only once despite the number of great blogs) and other “minor” sites get boosted by incidental traffic (e.g.: Vic Stenger’s page almost certainly reflects the traffic to all of http://www.colorado.edu and not just him). Still, it’s a starting point.

The only two atheist blogs I read regularly are Pharyngula and this blog. I wouldn’t be surprised if these were the two most popular blogs because I think they fill niches with quality commentary that should attract many atheists. I occasionally visit Austin Cline’s blog and Jerry Coyne’s blog, they’re pretty good too. Thanks to Todd, I may start reading the Secular Outpost, I like the recent posts.

With the debate with Sam Harris, which had some brilliantly constructed arguments, Andrew Sullivan’s blog was host to some great content promoting scepticism of religious claims. I think this illustrates an important point, while there are quality blogs with many readers, the way the internet works, blogs and social networking sites pull individual blog posts. Individual blogs may not be great, but as a collective, they can be something special. Quality posts are brought to attention by communities of like-minded people, a lot of the time from sources that aren’t specifically concerned with the subject of interest.

Other than here, I get a kick out of TheAmericanHeathen’s blog at theamericanheathen.com. He’s also got a great radio show Friday evenings. (Okay, so I admit I have no life. Well, yes, I do and quite a full one actually but not the way it’s usually defined in America as in out on a Friday night.) It’s moving kind of slow just now but I’m hoping it picks up because I like his in your face style.

Not Atheist per se though it tends to run that way but American’s United for Separation of Church and State has a good blog at au.org

Do I count since I talk about my grandson a lot?

Another vote here for Greta Christina.

Seriously, though, I love reading books as a general rule, but I get a lot more out of atheist blogs than I do out of reading atheist books. Give me a medium where I can participate, where I can contribute.

The atheist movement is not just about a few prominent writers (and I’m not much of a fan of any of the Four Horsemen anyway, though Dawkins is all right most of the time). It’s about a mass of people.

Also, the atheist movement isn’t just about convincing people that atheism is right (which, as an atheist, has honestly never been my personal priority). It’s about increasing the sociopolitical status of atheists, about separation of church and state. I might be reading the wrong people, but it seems to me like atheist bloggers cover that better than atheist book authors (and are in a better position to do so, since they can cover current events as they happen).

One final comment on this thread. Well, maybe:

Too much internet, too little time!

I’m an avid reader. Have always been a bookworm.

You may have noticed that I also really love to talk and have an opinion on damn near anything and am not shy about expressing it and I am always curious and interested in what other people are thinking.

I have noticed that in recent years, as RR grows more and more repressive, people are afraid and not without reason, especially since 9/11. I have had problems on the job with harrassment for being openly Atheist and (the job before my current and the harrassment was my motivation to leave instead of coasting to my not too far away retirement) and, after the VA Tech shooting, one of these lovely Christian coworkers who would spout about Atheists ruining the schools by removing prayer from them and other such nonsense claimed I threatened to shoot my supervisor. There was absolutely no basis to this claim.

There was a history of amniosity between us and it was obvious to anyone thinking that the VA Tech news stories gave her ideas but I had been all the way up to Human Rights on the harrassment issues and, well, they put me on emergency leave and I had to go get examined by the State psychiatrist (this was a State job) and pass a psychiatric exam. It was real creepy and big brotherish and I was damned glad my daughter came with to witness any funny business going on. (She noted a tape recorder hidden in the shrink’s desk drawer and NY is a state where you can’t tape without the other party’s consent.) The only reason I bothered was because I was high on the list for promotion and already getting interviews. Needless to say, I, of course, passed that test and now, not only have bragging rights that I’ve been certified sane but have that promotion.

Still makes you think. This was a State job and union protected. If this was some private sector job, especially one that was not unionized, where would I be? SOL and trying to job hunt with that stigma. I’m sure it happens to Atheists all the time. Hell, I’m in NY, not even the Bible Belt. We need the support that’s out there in the safety of the internet.

I love give and take conversation and conversing with people who aren’t afraid to disagree with me and who can accept that I disagree with them even if we sometimes get heated. That happens when people feel passionately about their points of view. This is so vital to broadening our minds and being open to new and differing ideas. Because people are so afraid to talk openly these days and so defensive when they do, it is sorely missing in day to day life. I have missed it but I find it on the internet. Thank you, science!

The internet is also invaluable as many have stated above to get news you wouldn’t get anywhere else. I too think newspapers are obsolete and TV and radio news is only good for headlines and so damned slanted. You can get a variety of opinions and up to date news on the internet. I find too that a lot of the places I get news are blogs, especially bloggers who make it a point to thoroughly research and link their sources.

Sometimes I click on the link and sometimes I don’t. Depends on how interested I am in the story and how much I trust the blogger. Mostly I stick with blogs I do somewhat trust but still, it’s good to have that link when you think c’mon now or want more details. Or let’s be honest, when they may be entertaining.

I also get news from the newsletters of organizations I belong to because I believe in their cause but that too has a bias. It’s good to have the conversation on-line.

Also, you can go to your computer and instantly research anything that you’re curious about. Anything. Yes, you have to consider the source but you can get a feel for the sources in how much they jibe with one another, whether it’s Joe Blow blogger or something like the Mayo Clinic, etc.

I am absolutely addicted to blogs. Some above look interesting but this one and AU’s take up too much of my time as it is.

But they will never replace books entirely. Newspapers yes — that’s a matter of time, I think. But books no. I cannot imagine a day without curling up with a book for at least a half hour and feel somewhat cheated if I don’t get in an hour.

Not all new books either. Following some fellow commenters talking about Frederick Douglass on AU’s blog, I thought you know, I know only the basics about him, minimal knowledge, and was intrigued and checked out his autobiography “My Bondage and My Freedom” and am about half way through. It’s fascinating to read. I’ve got to buy it to keep. And books I’ve treasured in the past are always a pleasant reread. And, of course, always have an eye out for interesting new books.

Speaking solely for myself, I want both — books and blogs.

And a Kindle. God, I would love to have a Kindle. Not only is the idea of having a huge library in the space of one book fascinating (I live in a small apartment) but since I’m getting older, the options for print sizes and, should the eyes ever go all together, the function where they’ll read it to you. If the eyes every get so bad, I can’t play my video games, it’ll be invaluable. And you can subscribe to blogs fairly cheaply.

God, I can’t wait to retire. Maybe then, there’ll actually be enough hours in the day.

I heard all of the arguments from The God Delusion on blogs – and was convinced by them – long before I ever actually read the book. It’s the blogs that deconverted me, even if it was the “intellectualism” of the book that they were discussing.