Sadly, I must report that the Digital Cuttlefish has joined the flock of negligible pests who seek to raise more money for Camp Quest than me. It’s sad and pathetic — the forces of Team Awful seem to be spending more effort recruiting allies to give them some sense of personal worth than they do actually fundraising. If you’re able to give to a good cause, wouldn’t you rather give it through the agency with less overhead, more efficiency, and a ruthless determination to crush its enemies? Then you must make the obvious choice: give to Team PZ.

As for treacherous cephalopods…the rhyme for this is “om nom nom nom nom”. Repeat for a few dozen more lines.

Another atheist exits with grace and dignity.

Here it is. I’m dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote–the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.

If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.

Please, could you all stop dying and let me get to know you while you’re alive? I know, that’s a terribly selfish sentiment, but I browsed through Miller’s archives and he was a good and decent person…and his death just reminds me that there a multitude of good and decent people still here, still all around me, and I don’t know them all.

The gentleman squid gazes at you with an appraising eye. Do you have what it takes to stand up for the right and the truth and a civilized way of life, or do you side with the barbarian rabble?

Sadly, I must report that Greta Christina, Hemant Mehta, Jen McCreight, and JT Eberhard have recruited another conspirator, Adam Lee, to their goal of defeating me as we strive to raise money for Camp Quest. They have narrowed the gap to approximately $1100 now and…

Wait, no, that’s ridiculous. They are so far behind and their vain struggling so comical that I have no fear at all that they will catch up. At this point, it’s simply a cruel, vicious game of piling up such an insurmountable lead that their spirits will be pulverized. Which is, of course, what we atheists do. Join me. Donate. Destroy the weak.

Would you believe that Greta Christina of Greta Christina’s Blog, Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag, and JT Eberhard of Zerowing21, after the severe beat-down I gave them and even before they had belatedly dragged themselves over the finish line in our race to raise money for Camp Quest, are now changing the terms of our competition and saying that the winner is whoever raises the most money by the end of this month?

No fair, I say! Moving the goalposts, I complain! Just like a bunch of dastardly atheists, I declare. Well, I will just have to lazily raise another tentacle and crush them again. The widget will be up on the sidebar all month, and I’ll periodically remind you to contribute, again.

And remember, if it’s annoying you like an NPR fundraising campaign, it’s their fault. I wouldn’t reward them for their obnoxious behavior if I were you — funnel all your donations through me, the nice guy who would rather not harrass you, unlike Greta, Hemant, Jen, and JT.

I can’t just beg without giving you some reward. Here, behold the fate of those who oppose me.

Read the latest from Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman. Are we smug and arrogant? Damned right, and with good reason.

A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.

Consider that at the societal level, murder rates are far lower in secularized nations such as Japan or Sweden than they are in the much more religious United States, which also has a much greater portion of its population in prison. Even within this country, those states with the highest levels of church attendance, such as Louisiana and Mississippi, have significantly higher murder rates than far less religious states such as Vermont and Oregon.

As individuals, atheists tend to score high on measures of intelligence, especially verbal ability and scientific literacy. They tend to raise their children to solve problems rationally, to make up their own minds when it comes to existential questions and to obey the golden rule. They are more likely to practice safe sex than the strongly religious are, and are less likely to be nationalistic or ethnocentric. They value freedom of thought.

Don’t get complacent, though: being good takes hard work. No slacking allowed, you are all expected to be well-behaved, and the only naughtiness allowed is the delightful, delicious kind.

I’ve been asked to compete in a fundraising contest for Camp Quest. But look what they did to me!

Five awesome atheist bloggers are competing to see who can raise the most money to support Camp Quest!

Since one of those bloggers is the indomitable PZ Myers of Pharyngula, we have made two teams in order to make this competition more fair.

Team 1: Greta Christina of Greta Christina’s Blog, Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag, and JT Eberhard of Zerowing21.

Team 2: PZ Myers of Pharyngula.

The first team to raise $5,000 for Camp Quest, or the team that has raised the most by June 1, 2011 will win!

What will the winning team receive? Bragging rights. Pure and simple.

All contestants and contributors receive: the knowledge that they have supported a fantastic program for freethinking families and their children.

Camp Quest is a fabulous program to give kids a fun and educational experience without the taint of religion. They should be encouraged and supported, but you know what this means…I must also crush the competition. Donate to help the kids, but also do it via my little widget. If you don’t, you’re probably also one of those wimps who roots for the faces rather than the heels in pro wrestling.

I have already goaded my feeble opponents into responding. Do they even realize that if they were to win (which is inconceivable), they’d have to split the bragging rights four ways? My question is, who would get the “buh?”, who gets the “err…”, who gets the “Aaaaa!”, and who gets the “gah?”

I have a couple of promising events that don’t have firm dates yet, but you might want to keep your eyes open for them in the near future.

• The paperwork for Rock Beyond Belief has been resubmitted, and with any luck they might be able to pull off an atheist event at Fort Bragg after all.

• What are you doing next spring? You might want to think about visiting Washington DC for the big Reason Rally. Several of the big atheist organizations are coordinating for a massive rally on the mall. Everyone must show up! We will all demand a secular nation NOW!