This summer, we've been working on some new plans for Strange Notions, and one of the ideas is to launch a new series of interviews with leading atheists.

We've interviewed a handful of skeptics in the past, including Bob Seidensticker, Chana Messinger, Dr. Michael Ruse, and Doug Shaver, but we'd like to hear from many more.

These interviews would be purely inquisitive. We're not looking to surreptitiously convert them through the questioning, or start a debate. They're friendly, casual, and simply provide a chance for everyone to learn more about what today's atheists believe (or don't believe.)

But we need your help to make this happen! Please let us know:

Which atheists would you like us to interview?

Leave a comment below with your recommendation(s). Also, try to be realistic: Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins or Neil deGrasse Tyson probably won't give us the time of day, but if you have an email address, contact info, or any connection with the person, please note that, too. It's often hard to connect with people online, especially if they have a high profile, so any leads or help you can offer would be appreciated.

Thanks so much!

Thanks to the generosity of the publisher, today we're giving away FIVE copies of the a great new book from Randal Rauser and Justin Schieber, titled An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar: Talking about God, the Universe, and Everything. Learn more and enter below!
 

An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar: Talking about God, the Universe, and Everything

by Randal Rauser and Justin Schieber
Prometheus Books, 220 pages, paperback

The question of God is simply too important--and too interesting--to leave to angry polemicists. That is the premise of this friendly, straightforward, and rigorous dialogue between Christian theologian Randal Rauser and atheist Justin Schieber. Setting aside the formality of the traditional debate, the authors invite the reader to join them in an extended, informal conversation. This has the advantage of easing readers into thorny topics that in a debate setting can easily become confusing or difficult to follow.

Like any good conversation, this one involves provocative arguments, amusing anecdotes, and some lively banter. Rauser and Schieber begin with the question of why debates about God still matter. They then delve into a number of important topics: the place of reason and faith, the radically different concepts of God in various cultures, morality and its traditional connection with religious beliefs, the problem of a universe that is overwhelmingly hostile to life as we know it, mathematical truths and what they may or may not say about the existence of God, the challenge of suffering and evil to belief in God, and more.

Refreshingly upbeat and amicable throughout, this stimulating conversation between two friends from opposing points of view is an ideal introduction to a perennial topic of debate.
 
 

 
We're using Gleam to help with the giveaway, which is cool because it allows you multiple entries for posting on Facebook, sharing on Twitter, etc. Click below to enter:

(If you're reading this through email or RSS and don't see the giveaway widget, click here.)

 
The winner(s) will be randomly selected next Friday and the books will be sent out, free of charge, shortly thereafter.

(Since I'm covering the shipping costs, only residents within the continental United States are eligible to win.)

I was alerted this morning that Strange Notions was just listed among the "Top 30 Atheist Blogs And Websites Every Atheist Must Follow."

I was intrigued, partly because this isn't really an "atheist blog"—it's always been a discussion forum for atheists and Catholics—and partly because I follow many atheist blogs that seem to get wayyyyy more traffic and traction than we do.

However, when I clicked over I was stunned to find Strange Notions not just on the list, but chosen as the #4 ranked atheist blog on the entire Internet! Amazing!

I couldn't be more delighted, especially seeing the company we're in. The only three sites above us are The Friendly Atheist, Reddit-Atheism, and the Atheist Revolution blog, all very well-known in the online atheist space.

Here was the ranking criteria the site used:

The Best Atheist blogs from thousands of top Atheist blogs in our index using search and social metrics. Data will be refreshed once a week.
 
These blogs are ranked based on following criteria
 

• Google reputation and Google search ranking
• Influence and popularity on Facebook, twitter and other social media sites
• Quality and consistency of posts.
• Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review

This ranking is a testament to all the great contributors we have here, and not just those who write the articles. I want to especially thank our regular commenters, who have provided so many rich thoughts and insights over the years, including:

• Doug Shaver
• David Nickol
• Luke Breuer
• Steven Dillon
• Brian Green Adams
• Paul Brandon Rimmer
• Michael Murray
• Peter
• Ye Olde Statistician

You guys are wonderful and the site wouldn't be what it is without your input.

This is also probably a good time to apologize for the slow-down in original content lately. Posting has been sparse over the past few months. However, going forward, my goal is to get at least 1-2 articles per week on the site, and thankfully I have a long queue of pieces from our contributors waiting in my Draft box.

So stay tuned! Lots of great stuff is coming at Strange Notions. And again, THANK YOU for making this the best online hub for serious Catholic/atheist discussion.

Today we're excited to introduce a new initiative at Strange Notions, and we need your help! We call it the "Two Views" Series. Here's how it works:
 

Step 1 - Submit Questions

In the comment box of this post, we invite you to ask a specific question you would like answered by both a Catholic and an atheist. The question should be limited and original. Nobody is going to be able to answer the question "Does God exist?" or "Is Christianity true?" in a short article. Instead, the questions should be more like "Should we teach religious truths to children?" or "Is religious experience valid, subjective evidence for God?" The questions are best framed with a Yes/No approach.

You're also welcome to pose questions that only atheists or only Catholics can answer. For example, two atheists could square off on "Do objective moral truths exist? or two Catholics could respond to "Can philosophy prove the universe had a beginning?" If you prefer your question be asked by two atheists or two Catholics, just note that alongside your question.

Finally, if you would like a specific person to answer your question, include his or her name and we'll do our best to accommodate the request.
 

Step 2 - Vote on Your Favorite Questions

Here's the important step. Vote for your favorite questions by clicking the "up" arrow underneath the comment that contains it. This will "vote up" the question and tell us it's a popular one. We'll assume that the more votes a question receives, the more are people interested in it. We'll keep the voting open for one week.
 

Step 3 - Invite Catholics and Atheists to Respond

After a week of voting, we'll then select a handful of the highest-voted questions and pose them to top Catholic and atheist thinkers, based on their area of expertise. Each respondent will offer a short article in reply (roughly 750-1,000 words), and we'll post the two responses side-by-side for all of us to read and discuss.
 
 
So with all that in mind, please leave your questions in the comment box below! (Feel free to submit more than one question, but only submit one question per comment so we can vote on them individually.)

(Image credit: Precision Nutrition)

Update on Strange Notions

 
It's been an amazing seven months here at StrangeNotions.com. Since launching on May 6, thousands of contributors, readers, and commenters have joined to make this project a huge success. In fact, as far as I can tell, it's become the largest dialogue between Catholics and atheists in the last two thousand years. In just seven months we've garnered:

• 257,000 unique visitors
• 468,000 visits
• 926,000 pageviews
• 39,000 comments
• 195 posts

Before I say anything else, I want to just say THANK YOU to everyone involved. If you've ever read an article or left a comment, you're a big reason this dialogue has taken off.

I thought now would be a good time to offer a few updates on the site and to solicit some feedback. First, a little news:

News and Announcements

 
1. Strange Notions now operates under Word on Fire. Some of you may know that I recently made a huge career transition, leaving my mechanical engineering job and accepting a new position with Fr. Robert Barron (one of our contributors here) and his Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. I'm the group's new Content Director which, among other things, puts me in charge of Fr. Barron's digital, print, and film content. It's a dream job and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Part of the transition includes bringing StrangeNotions.com under the aegis of Word on Fire. What does that mean for you? Not much. There won't be any changes to the content or commenting—no ads, fees, or shift in focus. It's mainly a brand association. Word on Fire has a similar mission to Strange Notions—to engage contemporary culture with the Big Questions of life—so they wanted to link themselves to the site. A side benefit is that the association will allow me to work on Strange Notions a little during the day, as part of my job (amazing, right?). Finally, the change will hopefully lead to more original articles here from Fr. Barron while improving the dialogue, too (more on that below.)

2. Strange Notions will now move to three articles per week. My original goal when I launched the site was to create new posts every weekday, which I've done since the beginning. But after seven months I think it's time to adjust the frequency. The more posts we have, the shallower the conversation on each post. Many times I've felt that just as conversations get going we're forced to turn our attention to the next post; it spreads our discussion too thin. Featuring only three posts per week will give us a couple days to focus on each topic. So starting this week, I'll be posting new articles on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

In addition to these news items, I'd like to share a little feedback. Even with the site's success, I think it still faces three problems:

Three Issues to Address

 
1. Imbalance among commenters. When I first started Strange Notions, I expected to attract thousands of Catholics but have difficulty drawing many atheist commenters, especially the high-minded, respectful sort I was looking for. But just the opposite has been true. We've had no problem attracting non-Catholics. In fact, roughly 80% of our 39,000 comments have come from atheists (and I imagine the pageview and visitor percentages follow suit.) If you scroll down any of the most recent posts, you'll see the volume of comments skews way more toward atheists.

Now, this isn't inherently bad. In fact, I'm excited about it; I don't want to decrease the number of atheist commenters. But I am afraid it hurts the conversation in some ways. Many atheists ask good questions that go unanswered simply because there are no Catholics to respond. Similarly, we have several atheist commenters well-versed in science and philosophy but not many Catholics with similar credentials. Even worse, I've heard from Catholic commenters who no longer comment because when they do, they feel "ganged up on" since each comment draws criticism from several atheists. (This is apart from their concerns with the tone, which I'll get to in a minute.)

The good news, though, is that I think we're about to make some big headway in solving this issue. A few months back I connected with Mundelein Seminary, the Chicago school where Fr. Robert Barron and others prepare young men for the priesthood, and we've agreed to launch a new partnership between Mundelein and Strange Notions. The goal is to create a practicum course which requires seminarians to engage commenters at Strange Notions several times each semester. Though it probably won't take off for a few more months, when it does we should see a new influx of smart, charitable, philosophically-minded Catholic commenters. So be on the lookout for that!

2. Uncharitable tone and complaining. We're still having a serious problem with tone, on the part of both Catholics and atheists. A large percentage of comments are laced with smugness, sarcasm, name-calling, complaining, cynicism, rhetorical zingers, and subtle insults. None of that does anything to produce fruitful dialogue. It only fuels the culprit's ego and leaves interlocutors demeaned and disrespected.

I've done my best to weed out the negative tone by adding a couple new moderators, issuing warnings, and banning repeat offenders. We've only had to remove a small handful of commenters over the last seven months—roughly the same number of Catholics and atheists—but it's still something that plagues the site.

I'm aware that some commenters think we're too heavy-handed when it comes to enforcing our commenting policy, and that's OK. I hope everyone appreciates the charitable tone we're trying to inculcate. The sort of dialogue we're pursuing is incredibly rare in religious discussions online, and it's a main reason the site has been so successful thus far. To maintain that level, though, we have to be a little tighter with moderation than some other sites.

As we move forward, we'll continue to warn those who violate our commenting policy, regardless of their worldview, and we'll unfortunately have to ban those who repeatedly transgress.

3. Lack of guest posts. Finally, I've tried to maintain a good balance betwene posting new articles written specifically for Strange Notions and adapting articles which originally appeared elsewhere. Yet still, I continue to hear complaints about the quality of our content.

I'd love to post exclusively new content and I'd also like to feature more guest posts (especially from atheists.) But right now we just don't have a stable of capable Catholics or atheists willing to write new stuff on a consistent basis. If you'd like to submit a guest post for consideration, please send it to me via contact(at)strangenotions(dot)com.

Also, and I don't mean this harshly, if you're upset about the quality of articles or dialogue, you have two options: you can either stop visiting the site (which we'd hate, but nobody is stopping you from leaving) or you can help make it better. The best way to help is by posting smart, respectful comments and by submitting your own guest articles. But relentless complaining doesn't help anyone.

Strange Notions will only be as fruitful as the contributors and commenters make it. Together, let's be part of the solution.
 
 
So there's my update about what's been going on and where I think we can improve. I'd love to hear your own feedback, though, so please leave your thoughts in the comment box!

Thanks for being a part of this exciting adventure!