Wow, an atheist-oriented message board that I haven’t joined yet!  I’d better jump right in.  I’m EverLastingGodStopper.  I’m not anti-religion, though; the only "God" I’m stopping is the one in the US government.  I’m just a simple secular activist, my focus is on fighting theocracy and building atheist community.

You may call me ELGS, or just Stopper, but many people know me by my real name, Janice Rael.  I have an official bio floating around on the internets: [quote:71ccd074f2]Janice Rael is a grassroots political activist, atheist community activist, and public speaker.  Residing in Southern New Jersey with her husband and two children, Rael is known to Internet users as "EverLastingGodStopper," a reference to her activism on the church-state forefront.

Rael is the President of the Delaware Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation and State, an at-large Board Member of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, and is the Public Relations Director on the Board of the Internet Infidels.[/quote:71ccd074f2]
For reference, here are some of the groups and sites I’m affiliated with:

Delaware Valley Chapter (PA/NJ/DE), Americans United for Separation of Church and State, http://www.dvau.org

Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, http://www.fsgp.org

Internet Infidels Discussion Board: http://www.iidb.org

Internet Infidels/Secular Web: http://infidels.org

I’m also active on dozens of Yahoo-based listservs and other message boards.  I’m likely to be mostly a lurker here on CFI forums, although I would appreciate Private Messages or Instant Messages from other CFIers, alerting me to important threads or posts here on CFI.

It’s nice to see the CFI board, I feel that all of our leadership groups should provide online homes for their group members and supporters.  I’m a big fan of online atheist communities, and I’m glad to be a new user in a new nonbelief group.  Thanks for having me!

EverLastingGodStopper: South Jersey activist

Wow, an atheist-oriented message board that I haven’t joined yet!  I’d better jump right in.  I’m EverLastingGodStopper.  I’m not anti-religion, though; the only “God” I’m stopping is the one in the US government.  I’m just a simple secular activist, my focus is on fighting theocracy and building atheist community.

You may call me ELGS, or just Stopper, but many people know me by my real name, Janice Rael.  I have an official bio floating around on the internets:

Janice Rael is a grassroots political activist, atheist community activist, and public speaker.  Residing in Southern New Jersey with her husband and two children, Rael is known to Internet users as “EverLastingGodStopper,” a reference to her activism on the church-state forefront.

Rael is the President of the Delaware Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation and State, an at-large Board Member of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, and is the Public Relations Director on the Board of the Internet Infidels.

For reference, here are some of the groups and sites I’m affiliated with:

Delaware Valley Chapter (PA/NJ/DE), Americans United for Separation of Church and State, http://www.dvau.org

Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, http://www.fsgp.org

Internet Infidels Discussion Board: http://www.iidb.org

Internet Infidels/Secular Web: http://infidels.org

I’m also active on dozens of Yahoo-based listservs and other message boards.  I’m likely to be mostly a lurker here on CFI forums, although I would appreciate Private Messages or Instant Messages from other CFIers, alerting me to important threads or posts here on CFI.

It’s nice to see the CFI board, I feel that all of our leadership groups should provide online homes for their group members and supporters.  I’m a big fan of online atheist communities, and I’m glad to be a new user in a new nonbelief group.  Thanks for having me!

Hey great, glad to have you here! Agree with you completely about putting a stop to a US theocracy; that’s got to be the real issue here. We ought to inquire freely into the most fundamental beliefs of religions everywhere, but in the final analysis of course it must be a country free to all who wish to practice their religion in peace on their own time ... so long as the rest of us non-religious folk can just as easily keep away from the pernicious religious influences that surround us.

Best,

Just a fast hello and welcome from the other moderator, I’m in the introduce yourself section under the name you see below, a monicker I chose to hide behind when coursing thru and about fantasy football and baseball forums.

You will enjoy this experience I’m sure.
Jim

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

Re: EverLastingGodStopper: South Jersey activist

ELGS,
Welcome!
Bob

Welcome Janice. Hope you enjoy it here.

Nancy

Welcome to CFI. I am also a mod, but unlike most others here; I have only made my real name known once.  I totally agree on ending the american theocracy,

NYC Atheists

[quote author=“EverLastingGodStopper”]

New York guys, have any of you ever gotten involved with NYC Atheists?  http//nyc-atheists.org/  I spoke to that group in May 2005 and was one of the youngest people in the room!  The only folks younger than me were the Internet Infidels people who I brought with me!

ELGS.
I never got involved with them.
Bob

I also haven’t gotten involved in any atheist societies. It seems to me a bit odd to have a society devoted just to atheism ... I mean, if atheists want to congregate on that basis alone, more power to them of course! But to me it’s just too thin a topic.

What I like about CFI is that its mandate is very broad, really coming out of the whole Enlightenment project: science, reason, free inquiry into religion, superstition, supernaturalism. That’s got enough meat on it to interest me. And I don’t know any other group that’s doing exactly the same thing. (Although there are a lot of other very worthy groups out there, to be sure!)

Another group that’s doing exactly the same thing

[quote author=“dougsmith”]What I like about CFI is that its mandate is very broad, really coming out of the whole Enlightenment project science, reason, free inquiry into religion, superstition, supernaturalism. That’s got enough meat on it to interest me. And I don’t know any other group that’s doing exactly the same thing. (Although there are a lot of other very worthy groups out there, to be sure!)

dougsmith,
As far as I know The Secular Humanist Society of New York is doing exactly the same thing.
Bob

Re: Another group that’s doing exactly the same thing

[quote author=“Bob”]dougsmith,
As far as I know The Secular Humanist Society of New York is doing exactly the same thing.
Bob

Perhaps I should have said, “at this high level” ... There are other societies that are committed to the same principles, which is great, but none that have the size and scope of CFI. Skeptical Inquirer is the leading magazine of its kind in the world (investigating pseudoscience and the paranormal). Free Inquiry as well (investigating religion). Prometheus Books as well for books on these topics. And then there’s the nationwide and worldwide leadership role of the CFI umbrella organization.

Really, it’s an absurdly small organization compared even to Campus Crusade for Christ, but even so I don’t know of any that compares.

The one good thing to come out of my association with Universism is that I was introduced to the Free Inquiry magazine and the Center for Inquiry organization, as well as the Internet Infidels message board. 

It’s reassuring to know that even in this screwed up 21st century there’s an organized group of people who are committed to reason, science, free thought and atheism.