My Blog
Yes, I am still here! I’m sorry about all the problems with my website lately! There may be a hacker trying to stifle my freedom of speech, so if the site goes down again, you’ll know that is why.
Dear Mr. Potential Hacker,
If you are the reason for my blog troubles, I can only assume it is because of religious motivations. And since that seems to trump freedom of speech for you, let me appeal to the Ten Commandments. I pay for my website, therefore, when you shut it down, not only are you stealing my right to free expression, you are also stealing my money. Where are your principles?
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October 29th, 2006 @ 12:57 am
One of the other sites I visit, The Atheist Mama, had a problem last week as well. They, I think, suspect foul play/hacking. I was going to say “unbelieveable”, but it is, unfortunately, all too believeable…if you know what I mean.
October 29th, 2006 @ 7:00 am
Good to see you’re back.
And (if he exists) he doesn’t have principles. He has dogma. And dogma says you can’t be allowed to talk because you might convince someone you’re right.
October 29th, 2006 @ 7:01 am
Good to see you’re back.
And (if he exists) he doesn’t have principles. He has dogma. And dogma says you can’t be allowed to talk because you might convince someone you’re right. And then God will kill us all. So he has to shut you down. Principles don’t come into it.
October 29th, 2006 @ 7:57 am
Do you have other reasons for believing that the supposed hacker had “religious motivations?” Just curious.
October 29th, 2006 @ 9:43 am
It was odd, not being able to enter your site. At one point I asked Zoe if she knew what was going on. She speculated that perhaps you were doing some hefty maintenance or re-designing of your site.
There are so many shenanigans going on. As you may know, Zoe’s site has been wholly stolen. Such things go a long way to prove that if someone CAN do something - be it good or bad - it will be done.
It would seem likely that if you have in fact been the victim of a hacker, religion may well be the motivation. It’s difficult to imagine that someone picked your site at randam. In Zoe’s case, it appears to have been greed in that her replicated site has a number of ads which do not appear on her true site.
I am curious as to what you actually had to do to get back in business, as it were?
Oh, me, oh my.
I’m melting! What a world, what a world.
TLS
October 29th, 2006 @ 11:36 am
I’m glad to know you are alright. I was worried and also realizing I didn’t have your phone number to check up on you guys.
I’m so sorry to hear about your hacker.
I know it may be possible this isn’t religiously motivated, but chances are pretty good it is. I know of an ex-mormon website that gets hacked or threatened by hackers a lot. These hackers are like cyber-car thieves; it always happened in one area and its a rash of them and then they move on to other places.
Be strong, keep up the good fight, and take care.
October 29th, 2006 @ 3:05 pm
I’m glad you’re back….I wasn’t sure what was going on. But, when I visited Atheist Mama I became suspicious
Hopefully it won’t happen again.
October 29th, 2006 @ 5:39 pm
I’m scheduled to fly to San Francisco to attend my niece’s baptism in December. I’m seriously considering not attending. My sister knows I’m agnostic but I don’t think she really knows how serious I am about my position. Four years ago I attended my nephew’s baptism and kinda just played along but now in light of my new understanding of secular humanism it just seems really silly to go through it this time around. I started to write an email to my sister but I didn’t really know where to start. It’s only gonna be a day trip because I have to go back home to study for my finals so I think it would be a waste of plane money ticket. On the other hand I do want to see baby Madison again. What would you do? Should I just play along with the whole ceremony one more time and act like this is an important ritual that needs to happen to a baby? Are there any secular rituals that parents can do? I doubt I can change my sister and my brother-in-law’s plans but maybe in the future.
October 29th, 2006 @ 5:48 pm
Hi Rodolfo. Would you mind if I give you my opinion? I have several nieces and nephews who are baptized and my children are not. Personally, I would attend as it would show support for your sister and her child. This, to me, is more important than any stance on religion. Also, by extending the olive branch, so to speak, you could rightfully expect her to support your beliefs and honor your celebrations of life events. Anyway, that is my 2 cents worth of advice. — PS, I certainly wouldn’t feel obliged to put money in the collection basket, though. Save it for the next homeless person you see (probably sitting right outside the church!)
October 30th, 2006 @ 9:34 am
Rodolfo,
I agree with Lisa that if you want to show support for your sister and her child, then go. No matter what the event is. However, it appears to me that you don’t have much time (have to study for your finals) or money (plane ticket for one-day trip) to justify the attendance. I would think that events like weddings or funerals count for absolute must-attend. But baptism? I am trying to “grade” the event from the religious person’s view, and it’s still not higher than, let’s say, your niece’s future high school graduation - it would be great if you could attend, but if you have a reasonable explanation for not attending and send a nice gift instead, that should settle it. I would suggest that you first talk (email) your sister and explain your time and money limitations. See how she will react. In the end, you are the one who knows your sisters best. You will have other occassions to explain her your views. This may not be the best opportunity to do that. Hope your niece will have fun (as if she is going to remember anything) And think about poor Jewish boys who are circumcised for purely religious beliefs of their parents (parallel to baptism) - they don’t enjoy their parties!
Noell,
Good to see that you’re back. I wanted to let everyone know that last Tuesday I heard Richard Dawkins speaking at the bookstore in my area (Washington, DC) as a part of this book tour (The God Delusion). It was amazing to be in the crowd of people with similar views - just like discussing things amongst ourselves on your blog but also HEAR cheers and applause when one says “we don’t need Bible to have morals”, “God is imaginary”, etc.
October 30th, 2006 @ 10:26 am
Welcome back.
October 31st, 2006 @ 7:25 am
God Is For Suckers is down also. They also suspect a hacker.
October 31st, 2006 @ 10:35 am
I was wondering what was going on the past few weeks! I like the new design, though, I think I will miss the photo of the pretty flowers at the top…
Just think, though, you are now important enough to be attacked and not just ignored by the right-wing! Congrat’s! Next thing you know, James Dobson will be denouncing your bog on national television, and soon you’ll have hundreds of hits instead of just a few dozen…
Ahh, the price of fame and simply being right….
Good luck with the whole hacker thing–from what I’m reading here, a few other sites I visit are being–shall we say persecuted?
October 31st, 2006 @ 10:52 am
The atheist mama, then you and now god is for suckers… coincidence? I’m expecting more in the next weeks.
November 1st, 2006 @ 8:20 am
This is starting to sound a bit paranoid for a community of avowedly rational non-believers. Atheist Mama and this blog both use WordPress. Does God is For Suckers use WordPress also?
It may be fun and easy to blame the Internet goblins (who happen to have strong and totalitarian-leaning Religious Right sympathies), but have you called up your web host and asked them what the heck is going on? What version of WordPress are they using? How recently have they upgraded (a new version of WordPress was released 5 days ago). Have any other customers, using WordPress or not, reported unusual behavior?
November 2nd, 2006 @ 9:37 am
I’ve just popped over from GifS (which is back up now) where Stardust mentioned that you’ve been having gremlin troubles. It’s starting to look like we’ve been attacked. My favourites list was minced on Halloween. I don’t think I use WordPress, unless it comes with Blogger. My template isn’t affected, just my bookmarks.
November 2nd, 2006 @ 11:01 am
Ben–Sure, maybe we’re paranoid. Don’t forget I mentioned the hacker as a possibility. The others are coming here with more evidence of other blogs having problems as well, not just wordpress.
I have reason to be confident it is not related to Wordpress and the new version. And as much as we encourage showing evidence here, my giving evidence for my reasons would compromise the blogs of other people I am associated with, if there is a hacker and he/she is still trolling around on my blog.
Hopefully the problem here is fixed. I’m about to switch the template back and we’ll see if it worked!
November 2nd, 2006 @ 12:35 pm
Ben, we have confirmed that it was not Wordpress that was hacked, it was my host’s server itself. Was my blog the target? Well, I can’t say for sure. But out of the 5 domains that I have up at that same host, it was the blog that focuses on atheism that was taken down - at the same time as the other blogs that were taken off line (this one and Gifs). Obviously my host has issues as well, so we are in the process of searching for a new host.
My opinion is this: Someone is looking to mess with blogs run by the godless. They are “hacking” us in several different ways. They found my security flaws… They probably found different holes here and at GifS.
Noell, I’m glad you are back up and running! I hope you didn’t loose too much.
November 2nd, 2006 @ 12:42 pm
Cassandra, hi!! Good to hear you’re solving the problem.
Again, without going into any specifics, I can confirm Cassandra’s experience.