It’s Winterfest at Freethought Blogs!


Childlike drawing of house, trees, snowy hills with a bright sun streaming up in the background and a track of footprints, and a banner that reads "Winterfest Fundraiser, FreethoughtBlogs, December 5, 2020."

Today the Fun is Fantastical and Free at FreethoughtBlogs! We’ve got a deliciously diverse lineup of offerings for you to explore and enjoy. What’s your pleasure?

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PZ interviews briefly some Rock Star FtB bloggers! You can put a face (and a voice!) to the names of your fav writers here, and maybe discover new faces and places you will really enjoy.

Megan Rahm of From the Ashes of Faith

Dr. Sarah of Geeky Humanist

Giliell of Affinity

William Brinkman of The Bolingbrook Babbler

TD Walker of Freethinking Ahead

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Our new story chain, “A Martian Odyssey” – the adventure has begun!

arid, reddish, martian landscape.

Part 1 by PZ Myers at Pharyngula transports us to the wild world of our future, where an isolated, conservative Earth has for centuries turned her back on her weird and wonderful offspring now populating the solar system… until now. How weird are we talking? Well, why take 10 million years to terraform a planet into an environment fit for humans when you can quickly whip up a little radical genetic modification to planetform the human to the environment instead?

Part 2 by Yours Truly here at Death to Squirrels picks up with three of PZ’s strange characters – a Marsborn and two Spaceborn – facing a profoundly consequential decision: what to do about Earth. Iris Vander Pluym, having ZERO experience writing fiction except for that one chapter in last month’s story chain, naturally decides to kill one of them off straightaway.

Abe Drayton now has Part 3 up at Oceanoxia, and now it’s up to William Brinkman at The Bolingbrook Babbler to bring it home! (I’ll post an updated link for Part 4 when available.)

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View our Winter Photo Gallery at Affinity! This collection comprises submissions from FtB bloggers and readers in our community – including YOU if you send a photo or ten to [email protected], and the Affinity collective likes your work!

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Creativity for Skeptics — a conversation about secular creativity with TD Walker of Freethinking Ahead. This is the event I’ve been looking forward to most this month. I’ve long loved exploring the topic of creativity, but I find the writing of so-called experts and thought leaders tends to be chock full of flaming woo. As an anti-supernaturalist this is off-putting and disappointing to say the least. I can assure readers that whatever my own process(es) may be, supernatural forces play no part in them, and I would like to learn more about what’s really going on within myself and other artists.

I’m definitely watching this just as soon as I finish…painting a dress for a 6-year old. What? Hardly a big deal since I painted my sofa.

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Gaming!

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And finally, I’ll let PZ take it away:

“Did you know this will be the one-year anniversary of our legal victory over the Pissant of Evil? Several of the defendants will be gathering to celebrate that happy event!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzbTXTvMpaA&feature=emb_title

Aww, man! Pissant of Evil was totally gonna be the name of my new fake socially-distanced band! But there goes PZ ruining everything again AS USUAL… 🙄

I kid! I kid! Our illustrious Dr. Myers bore the burden of the infuriating SLAPP suit(s) with the same wit and brilliance he does everything else. And for readers who may not be aware, that includes an enormous amount of work behind the scenes at FtB, from tech support to his laissez faire approach to management issues (which I am 100% convinced would be MUCH easier if he simply ran things like a typical tyrant) to herding the proverbial cats – in this case a large litter of curious, opinionated, godless, passionate, lefty bloggers – better than any human I have ever seen. It takes a lot of (mostly thankless) work to make this place a reality, and by far the brunt of it falls on PZ Myers. I’m sure I speak for FtB comrades and readers when I say: THANK YOU. We are very grateful for this place. And all of your arduous work, even through difficult times, is genuinely appreciated.

PZ especially deserves our congratulations for taking on the fight for freedom of speech, and triumphing for himself, his co-defendants, and all of us.

If you can spare some coin to help with the legal costs incurred when you need to fight “Pissants of Evil,” please give what you can via our PayPal.

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