Update: Make sure to read the comments for discussions that include AtheistCensus.com founder Lucas Matheson who responds to some of the criticisms of his project.
Atheists tend to be a very skeptical bunch – at least those who participate in online communities, so when an email arrives in my inbox titled “AtheistCensus Mailing List – Action Required” when I never signed up for such a thing, my skeptisense gets tingling.
Thank you for your interest in www.atheistcensus.com. We are reaching out to the world and getting atheists and agnostics on the same page. Please opt in to receive our emails on our progress.
Your address: [email protected] has been subscribed. Click Yes, I want to join! to confirm your subscription. If you did not intend to subscribe, simply ignore this message and your e-mail address will be removed from our records.
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Thank you again for joining.
Sincerely,
AtheistCensus
This email was sent by AtheistCensus, PO Box 4567, Edmonton, Alberta T6A2Y7 , using Express Email Marketing.
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On seeing this, I sent a reply to [email protected] – the default reply address – and later to [email protected] – the email listed on their website.
I did not complete your survey and am not ready to be included in your database. Please remove my email and tell me how you obtained it.
Your website mentions "We are committed to 100% transparency," yet you include no names as to who registered your domain, or how you plan to use "90% – funds atheist & agnostic organizations and promotion" without working with existing atheist and humanist organizations that have done decades of legwork on secular issues and community building.
One may even think your website is little more than a religious attempt to simply catalogue as many atheists around the world as possible.
Ian Bushfield
This was 4 days ago, and I have yet to see a single response.
A bit of Googling returns a self-published press release from Lucas Matheson of Edmonton, bragging about the “Official Launch” of Atheistcensus.com as well as a somewhat spammy Twitter account. There is also a blog post by Leo Tarvi that is as equally skeptical as I am about the purpose of this site.
This entire story is quite similar to on from last year where an American pastor made news for calling for a “national registry” of atheists.
I haven’t signed the census for a few reasons:
- The hypocrisy of claiming to be 100% transparent but yet providing no information about who’s running the page
- The claim that 90% of their funds will go to “atheist & agnostic organizations and promotion” lacks any credibility as no one knows this guy, especially when they also claim not to be affiliated with “any external parties”
- There’s no incentive or benefit. With my local groups, I help build an actual community. With blogs, I communicate to others. All this does is give some pseudo-anonymous guy my email address.
- Despite being active in the atheist community in Edmonton for 3+ years, I have never heard of this Lucas Matheson.
Overall, it’s far too sketchy and lacks any effort to actually build a real (online or offline) community. It’s a perhaps novel idea, but otherwise it seems like little more than a marketing gimmick.
Why am I thinking stage two is sending out an email to marketers. “Want to market to atheists. I have them all on an email list you can purchase for … “
Ian, I apologize for not responding to your email sooner. I’ve had hundreds of emails and working through them as fast as I can. I’m going to be sending out my first letter to participants in the next few days explaining what I’m trying to do. I’m just waiting for my web developers to update my ‘Location’ database first. I can understand your scepticism, something most atheist do very well. I’d ask for a little patience, and I hope to pleasantly surprise you with what I’m trying to do. I’m doing everything I can to reach out to atheist, which included requesting people to join an email list. I’m also looking to establish credible partnerships with atheist groups to address your point above. I’ve also indicated that I will be fiscally transparent, which I will.
If you’re in Edmonton, I’d be interested in meeting up with you. I’m looking for all the help I can get.
All best,
Lucas
Being transparent about the money means letting people know where it is going *before* they have donated it. I’m also not sure why this letter has to wait for we developers to update your “location database.” Does that prevent you from letting people know what you are up to now? If you could write the above comment couldn’t you also write an explanation of what you are doing?
Just so there is no confusion…that should have said “the developers.” Typing on an iPhone has its pitfalls.
Hi Per, my other favourite skeptic! Can you give me a couple more days? I’ll email you when I have news. I’d appreciate it. At the end of the day, It would be great if you could support the project. I understand I have work to do to get there, but don’t discount this census yet.
In the meantime… What am I up to… I want to bring positive attention to atheism. I want to financially support leaders of change who educate others, and I want to get everyone on the same page. That’s it. This is a simple idea… let’s start a census, engage our community, and get conversations started.
Lucas
What “news” are we supposedly waiting for and why is news required for you to be transparent about what you are doing and who you are? In all those words you failed to address my points just like the first response fails to address any points made in the blog post. More time = more emails and possible donations … is that it?
It seemed odd to me too ( http://www.rationalskepticism.org/nontheism/official-launch-atheistcensus-com-t31392.html#p1316497 ). If Lucas Matheson is really a non-believer/secular humanist/atheist etc then they should have a track record somewhere of how they express their understanding to corroborate this claim. Else without an ability to verify our trust in him then we’re just taking everything on faith. We’re the wrong market segment to take claims on blind faith : evidence please.
Apparently whoever he is, he has managed to “partner” with the Atheist Alliance International – http://www.atheistalliance.org/home?start=72 . It still doesn’t explain the lack of transparency so far. Getting an explanation for that would be extremely helpful. Also getting an assurance from AAI that they have vetted the Census and its source adequately would be nice.
OK I’m still a bit curious here. The address that the census has now posted on its website “10155 50th St. PO Box 38026 Edmonton Alberta T6A 0A0” is the address of a Rexall Drug Store. See
http://mystore411.com/store/view/396940/Canada/Canada-Post-Edmonton
You can verify this on Google maps street view as well. I urge someone who lives in Edmonton to take Lucas up on his offer to meet up and/or anyone who has connections to AAI to contact them to ask what they really know. I mean the address could just be a typo. Who knows … but its hard to imagine why there is still so little actual transparency. Lucas if you’re out there are you operating out of a pharmacy?
The address is likely just a mailbox. Many nonprofits rent boxes when physical addresses are too expensive. It also isolates them from using personal addresses.
Well it gives a PO Box in the middle, but are you saying the PO Box is located at 10155 50th St.? That’s the part that confuses me. I don’t know anything about the Canadian postal system, but here a PO Box is just a PO Box, it doesn’t attach a physical address.
And it doesn’t attach a street address because a PO Box is located at a post office. Would a PO Box be located at a drug store, or at the same address as a drug store in Canada? I’m really just curious here.
Yes, many drugstores and postal outlets offer mailboxes. You can then either list PO or make of look like a unit number.
The project abruptly closed!
Clicking on Lucas Matheson’s name above direct you to this message at http://atheistcensus.com/
This project has come to an end 🙁
We are unable to continue funding development to overcome some technical issues with our database resulting in unreliable data. Without accurate census data, the goal of this project cannot be achieved. Unfortunately, this project has come to an end.
We appreciate the support from all participants and 90 individuals who contributed a total of $751.41. We apologize to all the participants and to Atheist Alliance International, which partnered with us in good ‘faith’ to promote the project before these unforeseen problems. All email addresses provided as part of the project have been deleted and 100% of contributions were transfered to Atheist Alliance International on May 19th, 2012.
We wish you the very best!
“Technical issues with the database?” Sounds like a load of rubbish to me. The thousands of people who gave them their email addresses can now expect a requisite amount of spam emails. If anyone knows someone at AAI I would suggest asking them what the deal here was.
It’s back (being run by AAI). I signed up yesterday & all the sudden have been inundated with spam. Couldn’t figure out why until a post on reddit eluded to it. Any clue how to get an email address taken off of their list?