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IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION READ EVERYTHING FIRST, CLICK LINKS! COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS SHOULD BE POSTED PUBLICLY IN THIS THREAD FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL PARTICIPANTS! PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THE INFORMATION OF THIS SUBMISSION DRIVE FREELY.
The Rational Response Squad is proud to announce a call to action for content submissisions. Over the last several months we have been blown away by the positive feedback we've received from the freethinking community. Thanks to everyone who has placed a banner, or our player on your website and helped spread the word in some manner. We've received many great written submissions of thoughts and views, but had no place to put them, so we've created a guideline to help you, help us. The categories in which we need submissions are listed below, send us your best material. Your writings will be added to our library of articles, essays, and debunkings. We're hoping to build one of the largest and diverse free libraries of rational thoughts on the internet. In addition to hosting everything in a free web archive, we may also compile views into a free e-book or a book for sale to generate money for activist projects. Not that you need a reward to share your views with others, but as a thank you we'll be awarding prizes to as many of the top participants as we can. Prizes will be awarded based on effort put in and quality of writing. We're also offering special prizes in a video submission contest. Aside from the little prizes were giving away, if you have a freethought themed website, we will gladly put the URL within your piece and possibly host you on a show as well.
We've put the categories in order of need and may alter the order later as submissions come in.
Prizes will be awarded March 1st, but you can continue to submit content well after March 1st.
The first section is a brief summary of items in need, the following section is a further explanation of the same topics and what we're looking for.
BRIEF SUMMARY SECTION
ARTICLE SUBMISSION REQUESTS IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE
VIDEO SUBMISSION REQUESTS SPECIAL CASH PRIZES AWARDED IN THIS CATEGORY!
PRIZES FOR SUBMISSIONS
TONS OF PRIZES AWARDED FOR THE MOST HELPFUL PARTICIPANTS AND THE BEST ENTRIES!
FURTHER EXPLANATION
ARTICLE SUBMISSION REQUESTS IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE
The ideal flyer would be one that captures your attention, is not too confrontational and is filled with verifiable facts. Flyers can be pictorial or textual and up to two pages (one piece front and back). The perfect flyer encourages the reader to find out more about the flaws in theism after they've read it. Possibly the biggest prize of all is having a flyer you created handed out millions of times over the rest of your life in an attempt to help our fellow man abandon his mind crutch. There are so many ways to attack religion, we're reluctant to suggest how best to go about it. Pick a theme, come up with something that people will actually want to read, and people will actually want to hand out. If you're a cartoon artist or can sketch something out you may want to make a comic strip. If you would like to make your message very small and to the point, this may be a good method as well. Smaller messages save paper, you could print it two (or more) times per page and fill front and back! All flyers should link people to www.RationalResponders.com
Your essay can be any length, although 2-5 pages is a good size. There are so many ways to tackle this, as there are so many flaws in theistic faith. Keep your arguments based on facts, evidence, and reason, we hold the intellectual highground, lets prove it.
Here is a thread that has some ideas on how one might write a good essay imploring theists to abandon theism. You might also want to read Atheist Manifesto by Sam Harris for some ideas. Your letter can be addressed to a Christian, Muslim, any specific type of theist, or theists in general. Unlike the letter to a friend you should not write this letter to a specific person, although you can revise your letter to make it fit the other category and submit two seperate letters.
Do you remember the Tiger Woods commercials "I am Tiger Woods?" This essay and the "I am every atheist" essay are based loosely on that ideal. The notion that everyone is Tiger Woods is obviously absurd, however there are certain shared qualities and principles that embody a young golfer who strives for perfection, qualities that Tiger Woods has. In the same regard, there are certain similarities amongst people who speak up about the dangers or problems of religion. There are certain things we have in common, even though as atheists, the only thing we must have in common is lack of belief in a god, there are often many shared principles and ideals. You should write a paper of any length but preferably of about 1 page as to why you are the Rational Response Squad. Your piece should start and end with the same sentence "I am the Rational Response Squad." If you prefer to express yourself through poetry, please feel free to do so. Here is a list of some irrationalities the Rational Response Squad speaks out against. Keep in mind that being a Rational Responder simply means we are capable of responding responding rationally, and specifically to the irrationalities listed here. Essays can be as short as two paragraphs and as long as several pages.
We recently purchased several new websites that will likely get a lot of public attention once they are up and running. The theme of these websites is that "God stole my friends/mom/family." Very often we hear people with prayer requests for non believers, or we get told that Satan led us to non-belief, however there is another side to that story, a side which is often silenced likely due to the fact that non-believers are a minority. Who cares what we think right? Well not anymore. Atheists have emotions too, we care too, theists don't have the market cornered on emotion. If you choose to accept this mission you should write a letter to a specific theist you care about, explain to them how much it hurts to see them have a deluded view of reality, or a life based on faith, hypocrisy, etc. Write about whatever flaws in your relationship or their life you feel have come out of their religious belief. You don't have to send this letter to them, and if you want, it can all remain anonymous, however it will be posted for public viewing. Letters can be as short as two paragraphs and as long as several pages.
Example here Every theist website on the internet deserves a debunking. They need to be outed for their dishonest, absurd, and false claims. Some sites are much worse than others. RationalResponders.com carries a high weighting with the search engines and it's likely that your efforts will show up high in the search engines when someone seeks out the theist site you choose to debunk. Make clear and factual arguments, point out as many flaws as possible in as much detail as possible, debunking as much of the site as possible. If you are an author or simply have a freethought themed website, this would be a great way to help us and draw traffic to your site at the same time. Articles can be as short as two paragraphs and as long as you want. Here is a good example of a page you could debunk from http://www.josh.org/.
Special thanks to Jake for this idea. As Jake puts it, "The idea is to show commonalities between atheists. To show that even though people may be diverse, we still have some basic things in common." These essays are much like the "I am the Rational Response Squad" essays, however they are better suited for the atheist that doesn't subscribe to the same sort of activism that RRS engages in. You may submit two essays (one for each category) that are similar, and use one to help compile the other. Like the RRS essay, please start and end with the sentence "I am every atheist." Articles can be as short as two paragraphs and as long as several pages.
This essay can be played from so many angles. You could write about how that Jesus (if he ever existed) wasn't born in December. You could write about Saturnalia/Festivus/Pagan holiday origins. You could integrate those points into the history of the Church silencing opposition. For Easter you can speak about the first Easter celebration occurring hundreds of years before Jesus was born, or maybe it's origins in fertility. Feel free to link in some of the other myths that were used when creating the Jesus myth like Osiris-Dionysus. Your essays should be posted here and can be any length. We don't need many submissions in this forum, we're looking for about 10 viewpoints, and then we may remove this item from the list.
The notion behind these flyers is very similar to the flyers for "The Perpetual Enlightenment," please refer to the ideas given under that item with the exception that now you'll link those ideas to Easter or Christmas. Flyers can be pictorial or textual, and should be no more than 2 page faces (1 page front and back). Flyers should be to the point, and implore Christians to research their beliefs further. All flyers should link people to www.RationalResponders.com AND www.EndChristmas.com or www.WaronEaster.org depending on which holiday the flyer is for.
VIDEO SUBMISSION REQUESTS SPECIAL CASH PRIZES AWARDED IN THIS CATEGORY!
A "War on Christmas" mission consists of either giving a DVD to a Christian at a Church, placing a DVD in a Church, posting a flyer outside a Church or handing them out at Church. You can listen to the short episodes about the War on Easter for free (right here) to get more ideas. Visit www.WaronEaster.org for pictures of the many different "missions" people conducted in the Spring. If you don't have a legitimate War on Christmas flyer or God Who Wasn't There DVD that's ok! Keep in mind this is a theatrical piece, it's essentially an advertisement for the project, you can stage the entire thing or place a mock DVD if needed. Of course, it would be great if you could incorporate real War on Christmas missions into this, however we are in need of material well before Christmas to help advertise the project. You are not limited to one submission. If you feel someone created a video much better than yours, you can submit again, or submit an early theatrical version, and then the real thing after Christmas. You may want to make your mission appear guerilla like, with a ski mask motif. Or maybe you'll want to ask questions of Christians outside of a Church (blurring out their face unless you get signed permission) inciting funny answers about the War on Christmas. Come up with a creative idea to draw attention to this project! A good possible tag line is "This Christmas no Church is safe from the truth!"
Philosopher and psychologist Proclaim is debuting his first EP this fall entitled "Question Everything." Check out the intro song he did for our show. If you live in the Los Angeles area Proclaim is willing to make himself available to you within 30 minutes of his location for a total of 2 hours to help you create a video representative of either of his two songs. Come up with something creative and original. If you need to ask Proclaim anything pertaining to this project, send him a message via his myspace. Amanda Bloom had the idea to set her song "Magdalene" to a backdrop of religious attrocities, either pictures or video... this idea could work for Proclaims songs as well. Lyrics are available here.
Fine print for an overly litigious society: You will retain shared copyright. You may use your article or video in any manner and the Rational Response Squad may as well. We may use portions of articles to create a main compilation article, or use ideas from pieces. If a compilation piece is made you will be credited for your work. An editor may touch up grammatical errors or spelling mistakes on your behalf without adjusting the context. You might produce a video in poor quality but have an excellent idea, we may utilize your idea and reshoot the project, you would still be awarded a prize. We may need to add our logos, overlay text, identifying marks, or links to a final version of a winning video. We will take the utmost care in never changing your context or using your piece in a method you wouldn't approve of, but we must retain the right to use your piece in literature, on our sites, on our broadcasts, or for any other reason in any manor we see fit. If you are not a member, PLEASE take the time to create an account at RationalResponders.com, this is the best way to post your content as it ensures you get proper credit and minimizes excessive workload for RRS staff.