The End of a Journey and the Beginning of a New One
Where one journey ends a new one begins.
I have decided to call it the end of my Advocatus Atheist journey.
This blog was monumental in helping me grapple with my loss of faith and working out my thoughts and feelings as I approached new belief systems and looked toward an uncertain future.
This blog was monumental in helping me grapple with my loss of faith and working out my thoughts and feelings as I approached new belief systems and looked toward an uncertain future.
Now, after years of writing and years of speaking on religion, I've decided to call it quits.
Many of my atheist friends have also moved on. Once prominent bloggers are now focusing their energy and activism into things closer to them, taking on more personal challenges, and living their lives.
As you can tell by the lack of posts over the past couple of years, I too have shifted focus.
No longer do I feel the religious debate has anything worth discussing. That doesn't mean it's not a discussion worth having if you're engaging it for the first time. I'll continue to answer any questions directed my way, but as for new content, don't expect anything other than once in a blue moon.
Nowadays I have shifted all my focus and energy on my fiction writing, which has become rather lucrative for me.
What isn't lucrative is this blog. No matter how hard I tried, this simple expression of my ideas and thoughts, no matter how well researched, never generated a dime for me. And that wasn't such a concern when I was single and fresh out of college.
But, now, with three children, two dogs, and two rabbits I have many more mouths to feed and many more lives I am responsible for. Which also means I need to spend more time working for them and less time with online activism that seems to do little in the way of convincing anyone -- no matter how disciplined the rhetoric or how factually backed the arguments.
As such, it's time to close shop.
Naturally, all good things must come to an end. However, I realize that this blog has helped many others navigate their own loss of faith and perhaps helped, in some small way, give them direction in a turbulent, frightening, and uncertain time in their lives.
As they move forward in their own personal journeys and dare to look out beyond an absence of their faith for something to anchor them in a godless and vastly indifferent universe, if anything here can provide a small modicum of comfort during that terrifying existential crisis, then I'm certainly happy to leave up all of my past posts and discussions.
Over the years I've received numerous correspondence from people thanking me for this blog. I forged numerous friendships because of it and am proud that after a decade I still am friends with all my secular skeptics who I first met when I launched The Advocatus Atheist.
Because this blog has always been a valuable source for not only myself but others, I will leave it up. It won't be as active as it once was, but don't be surprised if the occasional political or religious reflection shows up.
That said, I will pour all my energy and artistic creativity into my books such as my science-fiction fantasy series Jegra: Gladiatrix of the Galaxy and the spinoff series Skywend: The Last Peacekeeper and the Knights of Caelum.
I also have a couple of new series planned for next year (2019) called The Wayfarer, a Tomb Raider styled adventure series, and Blood Alchemist: The Untold Tales of Dracula, a Vampire series -- obviously.
These, along with my current projects, will take me well into 2023 with non-stop writing. At the same time, I continue to teach English in Japan and will divert more time to my own English school as I continue to add students and build clientele.
Anyway, I wish you all well. And as always, live well and be wise. Finally, in this day and age of instant outrage and seemingly endless online profiling, doxing, and hypersensitivity, I will share this bit of wisdom I learned from my grandmother.
If there's anything in this world you could choose to be, it is my hope that you'd choose kindness. Be kind to one another.
Love one another.
Let go of the hate.
And live your lives to their fullest.
Do it in that order, and be content. Life is too short for senseless bickering, petty grudges, and no room for forgiveness.
Be kind.
Choose love.
That is all.
Many of my atheist friends have also moved on. Once prominent bloggers are now focusing their energy and activism into things closer to them, taking on more personal challenges, and living their lives.
As you can tell by the lack of posts over the past couple of years, I too have shifted focus.
No longer do I feel the religious debate has anything worth discussing. That doesn't mean it's not a discussion worth having if you're engaging it for the first time. I'll continue to answer any questions directed my way, but as for new content, don't expect anything other than once in a blue moon.
Nowadays I have shifted all my focus and energy on my fiction writing, which has become rather lucrative for me.
What isn't lucrative is this blog. No matter how hard I tried, this simple expression of my ideas and thoughts, no matter how well researched, never generated a dime for me. And that wasn't such a concern when I was single and fresh out of college.
But, now, with three children, two dogs, and two rabbits I have many more mouths to feed and many more lives I am responsible for. Which also means I need to spend more time working for them and less time with online activism that seems to do little in the way of convincing anyone -- no matter how disciplined the rhetoric or how factually backed the arguments.
As such, it's time to close shop.
Naturally, all good things must come to an end. However, I realize that this blog has helped many others navigate their own loss of faith and perhaps helped, in some small way, give them direction in a turbulent, frightening, and uncertain time in their lives.
As they move forward in their own personal journeys and dare to look out beyond an absence of their faith for something to anchor them in a godless and vastly indifferent universe, if anything here can provide a small modicum of comfort during that terrifying existential crisis, then I'm certainly happy to leave up all of my past posts and discussions.
Over the years I've received numerous correspondence from people thanking me for this blog. I forged numerous friendships because of it and am proud that after a decade I still am friends with all my secular skeptics who I first met when I launched The Advocatus Atheist.
Because this blog has always been a valuable source for not only myself but others, I will leave it up. It won't be as active as it once was, but don't be surprised if the occasional political or religious reflection shows up.
That said, I will pour all my energy and artistic creativity into my books such as my science-fiction fantasy series Jegra: Gladiatrix of the Galaxy and the spinoff series Skywend: The Last Peacekeeper and the Knights of Caelum.
I also have a couple of new series planned for next year (2019) called The Wayfarer, a Tomb Raider styled adventure series, and Blood Alchemist: The Untold Tales of Dracula, a Vampire series -- obviously.
These, along with my current projects, will take me well into 2023 with non-stop writing. At the same time, I continue to teach English in Japan and will divert more time to my own English school as I continue to add students and build clientele.
Anyway, I wish you all well. And as always, live well and be wise. Finally, in this day and age of instant outrage and seemingly endless online profiling, doxing, and hypersensitivity, I will share this bit of wisdom I learned from my grandmother.
If there's anything in this world you could choose to be, it is my hope that you'd choose kindness. Be kind to one another.
Love one another.
Let go of the hate.
And live your lives to their fullest.
Do it in that order, and be content. Life is too short for senseless bickering, petty grudges, and no room for forgiveness.
Be kind.
Choose love.
That is all.
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