Are you addicted to the sound of my voice? I feel bad for you. So much so, that I’ve made a new show that’s exclusive to my Patreon. It’s called my “State of the Union” podcast. It’s a behind the scene at my projects, most notably The Good Atheist.

The good news is that I’ve been keeping the shows free, so if you already have an account on the site, you’ll have access. Please check it out!

A few years ago, back in 2017, I made the mistake of allowing my then website, thegoodatheist.net, to fall into the hands of the “enemy”. I had forgotten to renew my domain, and unbeknown to me, a religiously affiliated group had snatched the URL from under me, and had created a mock site to try and trick my former listeners into believing that I had suddenly switched sides. I spent weeks trying to force them to take down their deceitful content. We settled on a truce, where they agreed to stop using my logo without permission. The damage, however, had already been done.

At the time, I had no interest in continuing my work. I was burnt out, and felt that it was time for me to craft a new online identity. It seemed like no one was interested in atheism anymore, as most of the big bloggers had moved on to other projects. The loss of the site had an almost prophetic feeling, as though this was a sign that it was time to move on.

However, an experience with a coworker changed my mind a few years ago. He had found some of my old podcasts that I had put up on YouTube, and was curious about some of the stories I had covered. Despite being born in Nigeria, he had never heard of a dangerous pastor by the name of Helen Ukpabio, who operates in his home country. He seemed genuinely shocked by the revelation. It was then that I realized that The Good Atheist was more than a silly podcast; it was a catalog of religious wrongdoing.

So, I resolved to restart TGA. It was, however, a massive undertaking. Although I did possess copies of most of my articles, I had failed to properly back up the database. This meant that every article, and podcast, had to be manually uploaded and painstakingly redone. To make matters worst, most of the hyperlinks in my old articles were no longer working, a reminder that the internet is a far more fragile informational environment than we are willing to admit.

I’m happy to report that after almost a year’s worth of effort, the site, now called “The New Good Atheist” is up and running. I’ve uploaded over 1300 articles, and over 340 episodes. I also took the time to edit the metadata so that shows are divided into seasons, and each season has artwork that corresponds to the different looks that the site had over the years.

I’m also regularly blogging again, and the podcast, which is still being tweaked, it set to be released for the new year. Some folks who can’t wait that long has generously donated to my patreon, and these hardcores provide valuable feedback so that my new solo show can sound as good as possible.

So, it’s with a cheerful disposition that I welcome you to this new relaunch. Let’s keep kicking ass, shall we?

If you’re reading this newsletter, hopefully you’re somewhat excited with this new announcement that TGA is returning. In order to do this, I’ve decided to utilize the program Discord as my new platform. For starters, it doesn’t limit my ability to communicate with people, unlike the restrictions of Facebook. It also comes with tons of options that I hope I can also utilize if this works out.

So, what do we need moving forward? People to Join. So far, we only have a few members joining, but when we reach the first 100 subscribers, I’ll be dong a live show. I’d like to make Thursdays the official day for podcasting. I want to call this “Throwback Thursdays” and ideally, I would be interviewing old listeners, or reviewing my early shows for fun.

Of course, this all depends on you guys to adopt this new strategy. Wish me luck!

If you’re not a gamer, you might not have heard of a program called Discord. It’s a social media platform that reminds me a lot of the old IRC chatroom days, but with the added ability for voice chat, and even video. Maybe it’s the nostalgia talking, but this has a lot of attractive features for a guy like me: it allows for a secure, not intrusive way for people to have a dialog about a variety of topics. It’s also not facebook or instagram, and already that’s a huge plus in my book.

So, if you’re one of the rare people following this website, sign up to the channel and start a conversation!

If you’ve paid enough attention to my life, you know that I have generally stopped podcasting. This seems strange to most of the people who used to follow me. Podcasts have never been more popular, and sites like Patreon and Youtube offer revenue opportunities that were unimaginable when I first began to podcast back in 2006. Some  have become rich, and even famous doing this stuff. So why did I quit?

When I finished writing my book, I was still processing the pain of my breakup. I had a lot of free time suddenly, and I was living in a two bedroom apartment with my mom, hoping against hope that the book would magically catch fire. It did not. It was time to get a job, get my life together, and forget about my dreams of success (whatever that meant).

I spent around two years dealing with my feelings of loss and humiliation. It was a slow process at first. Instead of denying my emotions in an effort to contain them, I learned more than just the need to accept them. I discovered that digging a little deeper into the reason for my pain allowed me a greater understanding of my own self. It was during this time that I discovered that I had been emotionally distant from my family. I resolved to change this. But where was I to start?

If you’re going to change something about yourself, you have to be willing to challenge the way you’ve done things in the past. In my childhood, one word stood above all others to me: no. It was a word that gave my younger self independence and power. As a middle child, you are often the ignored one, and so my mechanism to stand out was to be difficult. If the whole family was into an idea, I was against it. I mean, it got so bad that I would throw a fit because the family wanted to go out Trick or Treating at Halloween and I was crying because I felt “forced” to wear a costume. Could you imagine such a difficult child?

So to make up for this deficit of fun-killing, I resolved myself to become the brother, the son, and the uncle that would rarely say no. If something was asked of me, rather than grumble and complain, I would do it with a positive attitude. At first, the new me was met with mistrust. Was something wrong, they wondered. I was acting a little bit off, and old attitudes can be hard to change. I needed to do something big if I was going to convince people I was different.

My spirit of discord as a youth was perpetual, so you can guess what kind of fun I was around Christmas. So when I finally made my move, and declared myself filled with holiday cheer, they were more than a little suspicious at my sudden change. But soon enough, it was undeniable to them that I had changed.

Since that time, I have endeavored to continue to improve all of my relationships, and to grow personally. While the whole world was busy trying to get attention, I shied away from it. Instead of feeling compelled to talk, I felt compelled to listen. The arrogant of youth is gone. I’m a forty year old man now, a far cry from the twenty six year old that first picked up a microphone.

It’s not to suggest I have nothing to say. I simply know that an opinion should be allowed to change, and I never feel married enough to an idea to try and profit from it. It’s why I’ve switched my focus to writing fiction. Writing Bible Stories taught me a great deal about this genre, and of the power of metaphor.

I’ll have more to share soon, but for now, the process of blogging is simply to tighten up my skills a little while I continue working on projects that I feel invested in.

So there are two possibilities. Either hundreds of people have been subscribing to my newsletter without me putting even one ounce of effort, or my sub list is filled with spambots trying some new scam I’m not even aware of. You tell me: have I become too jaded?

In the old days, it was easy to know what was a scam was. They were all so obvious. Now, I feel like an old man trying to stay in touch with the latest nightmare the internet has to offer. It’s goddamn exhausting. This is why the internet is such a pain in the ass.

I never gave the security of a newsletter (which was barely featured) much thought, but with all the telltale signs of fake accounts, I’ve decided to update the security. I will be emailing certain accounts personally to test whether they are legit, so I’m sorry if you are such an account. Getting accused of being a spam account. What a nice comeback, eh?

Here’s the upside to this. If I’m just being jaded, and the majority of these profiles are legit, then I promise to start to take it things way more seriously. Although I’m not yet ready to believe it, perhaps in my slumber a whole slew of you have been waiting patiently for my return. In such a case I will endeavor to awaken.

Unless it’s all spam and the internet sucks. I guess we’ll see.

Everyone is too literal these days. Literally.

What do I mean by this? It’s taken for granted that what you say is what you mean, despite the fact that this often isn’t true. Have you ever been in an argument with someone and blurted out something hurtful (typically out of spite), and instantly regretted saying it? Of course you have. You’re human, and you live in the real world; a messy place that tests the mettle of all living creatures. Others, however, spend their lives online, and in this virtual world, hurtful words are immortalized to be used against perceived enemies at any opportune time. The internet these days feels more like a record of your moral failings useful only to those that despise you.

Nuance is dead. Attempting to understand the arguments of your opponents is a crime,  the punishment of which is administered by social media mobs that hunger for self-righteousness. If they can’t destroy your life and reputation, these faceless ghouls aim to forever smear you lest you mend your ways, and return dutifully to the fold.

Maybe you think I’m being a bit dramatic. I’ve heard people say that cancel culture is exaggerated, that even if it does exist, it’s only being used against the truly deserving. The problem with this assessment is that it incorrectly assumes that we are properly equipped to judge others. By participating in it, we make ourselves judge, jury, and executioner by proxy.

This is where the power of metaphor comes in. A metaphor is a speech technique that demonstrates the moral truth of a proposition by using analogies. Rather than get bogged down in the weeds of reality (which is often messy and incomprehensible), a good metaphor can engage the reader the way a literal story cannot, for it eliminates the biases and preconceptions we have by giving us a neutral medium to express ideas. Aristotle said of metaphor that it makes learning pleasant. I contend that in today’s politically saturated world, it may in fact be the only tool to reach others and change minds

I’ve been devoting more and more time to storytelling rather than lecturing. In fact, peppered throughout the site are short stories that the reader will find are part of a larger project I am working on. As some of you can attest, rewriting the Bible has taught me the power of story, and more importantly, how metaphor speaks through multiple generations. I’m done arguing with people. Philosophy is dead, politics is poison, but stories are forever.

They say the website is dead. They talk of social media as the final evolution of the internet. They claim that without their gigantic reach, and their constant quest for attention, it’s impossible to resist the urge to use their platform. Well, fuck that. There are other ways.

Full disclosure: I have not blogged regularly in over a decade, or podcasted in the last few years. In my late 20’s and early thirties, I was making what people now called content at a furious pace. For me, it was just a form of self expression that eventually turned into activism (some might call it “evangelizing”). My voice became one of a handful of early adopters to podcasting, when just existing was almost a guarantee of listeners. The world of online atheism was exploding, and these were heady times. It wasn’t clear just how big things would get, and there remained an innocence and optimism that has since passed in these cynical years. Alas, it didn’t last forever.

When I finished writing “Bible Stories”, I was technically homeless, and my dreams that the book would provide the needed capital vanished in smoke. Sales were essentially zero, and my absence from the community, along with my general disdain for the politicization of belief drew me further and further away. By then, I felt my contribution to atheism had been largely completed, with the exception of my book trilogy still awaiting its final chapter.

I had to rebuild, and there was no time, or any real motivation, to continue on trying to emulate this new generation of “content” producers: a term that describes perfectly the mechanistic and artistically devoid process of creation for the youtube generation. The online world had changed, and money has a way of ruining everything. As advertising began to pollute the internet, it fundamentally changed the structure of how we live our lives. The dictates of chasing after views, and the endless quest for stimulation has driven people into a collective frenzy to produce endless materials in an effort to drive revenue for themselves. In other words, it’s less about sharing your thoughts, and more about catering them to the lowest common denominator. It’s what puts the “con” in “content”.

I wish to be free of these constraints. I want to reawaken interest in blogs again. I don’t want to share these thoughts for social media, or youtube, or any of the algorithms that dictate your lives. If you wish to know me and my work, then you will visit this place, and read my writings. I won’t promise to write every day. I am not that insightful. But I am interested in sharing some of my unusual thoughts, and maybe along the way a few may turn out to be insights.

If you’ve already heard of me, or listened to my shows in the past, this space will be where I answer your questions, and share some of my new ambitions as I prepare to show you all what I’ve been working on these past few years.

Perhaps this will fail, and I will have only been able to reach the bots that routinely try and hack websites. If that’s the case, then at least I won’t be alone. I’ll have plenty of friends trying to steal my identity.

Not much has changed for children in the rural parts of Nigeria where a toxic mix of belief leads to abuse, and even death. The organization that helps to provide relief for these kids always needs help, and more importantly, money.

Were you a backer of the book for 40$ or more? Then you’re entitled to receive your physical copy of Bible Stories. I’m sending these out right now to those that got in touch with me.

Now, it’s been a few years, and most people tend to move, so I can’t send the book out until you reach out to me. So be on the lookout for an email, or better yet, get in touch with me as soon as possible at news@jacobfortin.com

I can’t wait to have these babies in your hands and hearing your thoughts in the Forums, or even better, as reviews on Amazon.com