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Patheos
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“”Hosting the Conversation on Faith
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| —Patheos' current slogan |
Patheos is a website serving as a multifaith portal, library and blogging platform. It was founded in 2008 as a collection of accessible writings on various religions. The name is a combination of "pathos" and "theos".
Patheos Blogs[edit]
The site hosts over 450 blogs divided into 11 "Channels" by worldview, covering everything from Buddhism to Catholicism to neo-paganism to the vague "spirituality". The 42 blogs in what was the Atheist Channel represented both the largest atheist online presence in the world and the highest number of monthly pageviews of any worldview on Patheos... unfortunately, Patheos got bought out in 2021 and the new owners said that it would host no blogs or comments that were hostile, negative, or even 'critical' to religion or faith. This essentially told the atheist community there to hit the bricks, which they promptly did.
Atheists[edit]
URLs to the long list of blogs that Patheos used to host now go to a "Not Religious? Seeking Answers?" page which is obviously thinly-veiled proselytism hiding behind a fig leaf of gently encouraging answers about faith (it's notable that their first link goes to Why I Stay, a list of stories of people who failed to deconvert and thus explain exactly what it says on the tin). There is now only a "Nonreligious Columnists" section tucked away that is a mere shadow of the former atheist community on Patheos.
The atheist blogs included:
- barrierbreaker (Peter Mosley)
- Camels with Hammers (Dan Fincke; used to be on Freethought Blogs before moving to Patheos)
- Cross Examined (Bob Seidensticker; the title is a pun on his critique of Christianity)
- Daylight Atheism (Adam Lee also writes for The Guardian[1])
- Dispatches from the Culture Wars (Ed Brayton, formerly at FtB)
- Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta, known for selling his soul on eBay, eating babies and generally trying not to be an asshole to believers)
- Love, Joy, Feminism (Libby Anne, on the Quiverfull movement and the more general Christian Patriarchy movement; probably the first Freethought Blogs blogger to move to Patheos)
- Roll to Disbelieve (Cassidy McGillicuddy, an ex-Pentecostal who was raised Catholic).
- Token Skeptic (Kylie Sturgess; another ex-member of FtB[2])
- What Would JT Do? (JT Eberhard, with frequent contributions by guest posters; another ex-member of FtB)
Leah Libresco's Unequally Yoked was also in the atheist section, until June 2012, when she announced that she is converting to... Catholicism, of all possible things. Her blog was consequently moved to the Catholic section.
Patheos' poaching of Freethought Blogs' bloggers was noted and became something of a jocular meme on FtB.[3] (It's worth noting who had the last laugh. Almost none of the above remain at Patheos in 2022, while FreethoughtBlogs has remained strong and vibrant.)
Others[edit]
Other good blogs are Science on Religion, a group blog that takes a scientific and/or scholarly look at the phenomenon of religion in humans individually as well as culturally. Among it's more interesting contributors is Connor Wood, a Ph.D. candidate at Boston University in religion and science. Wood's "research interests include religion and health, evolutionary science, public theology, and comparative religious inquiry." Also worthwhile is Slacktivist by Fred Clark, a liberal Christian who dissected at length the Left Behind series, and No Longer Quivering, a group blog collecting experiences of survivors of the Quiverfull movement.
Not everything on the network is sunshine and singing "Kumbaya," though. While the network has spent some effort to be inclusive, some individual participants are not necessarily an enlightened, tolerant bunch. And, among those of a secular hue, there can be varying levels of scientific knowledge. If you want to get your blood boiling, but FSTDT is too low-brow for you, just try browsing the "Evangelical" and "Catholic" channels.
So, other notable blogs filed under "Misc" are:
- Bristol Palin blogs on the Family channel. Yes, you read correctly - that Bristol Palin, and yes, she's blogging in the Family channel.
- Standing on My Head, by Dwight Longenecker, a Catholic priest (formerly Anglican, even more formerly Evangelical). In September 2012, he came to the attention of the atheist blogosphere after saying some really dumb things about atheists (a two word sample: "spiritual zombies", though the problems with what he wrote are a bit deeper than that)
- Black, White and Gray, a group blog on the Evangelical channel. Among the contributors is Mark Regnerus, a social scientist notorious for a bad study on the effects of gay couples adopting children.[4]