For most of human history, those who failed to accept the beliefs of the prevailing religion have been isolated, most of them fearing to give voice to their honest views for fear of persecution.

Worse still, with mass illiteracy and limited means of dissemination of the printed word, there was little opportunity to come into contact with heterodox ideas. Amazingly, however, heresies that arose among the more educated were also propagated among the masses.

Even the adoption of printing, a huge step forward in human communications, had to wait for the spread of literacy to reap its full reward.

With the development of newspapers, the spread of fairly cheap books and then other kinds of media such as radio, cinema and television, there were increased opportunities for the publication of unpopular ideas. But even then most of these media required a certain amount of investment, and the proprietors or state controllers still often tried to exclude the expression of views they disliked. Even the BBC, which has a fairly good reputation for unbiased programming, had an early bias towards religion (Christian in the early days but now multi-faith, although still tending to exclude non-belief). Secularists in the UK are still struggling over the inappropriate slot for religious proselytism, “Thought for the Day”, which is inserted into the flagship early morning radio news programme.

Now we live in the Internet Age. Most commentators see this as an equivalent leap forward to that brought about by printing. One effect has been a democratisation of publishing. Anyone with unfettered access to the ’net can now freely express opinions. So there is a huge proliferation of online journals and blogs. There are so many that the difficulty now is finding the good ones!

The Internet is a wonderful source of information. A great deal of research that would once have necessitated travel to a university library can now be accomplished in a much shorter time from a computer. The difficulty, however, even more than with the printed word, lies in deciding what is probably true and what may be the result of delusion, misunderstanding or even a desire to mislead.

One of the great benefits of the Internet has been the way it has connected people worldwide. It is now possible for isolated unbelievers to find like-minded people elsewhere in the world. You can also find out what is happening in the world of organised Humanism. For example there are websites for most national Humanist organisations and, of course, the International Humanist and Ethical Union has its own website[1].  A few searches with the aid of a search engine will find almost any organisation or blog that you might be interested in. Many organisations also publish regular e-newsletters. You just sign up to one and it is regularly delivered free to your email inbox.

Social networks such as Facebook[2] have also enabled people round the world to connect, although I must say that too much of what is posted seems to me to be irremediably trivial and ultimately boring.

Then there are the discussion boards. I joined my first Internet discussion board for atheists in 2000. It was not a great success and I left it quite soon and decamped to the very successful board Internet Infidels, which was run by the Secular Web. Alas! In 2007 it started falling apart because of disagreements between the owners and the members. Now it no longer exists, but its remnants are still running under new ownership and a different name. A similar thing happened with the Richard Dawkins Forum early in 2010. Organising atheists and Humanists is often likened to herding cats. Humanists by their very nature tend to be people with strong opinions, and that includes how discussion boards ought to be run. A particular problem arises if the owners of a board ask the members for financial support. The members then tend to feel entitled to a say in how the board should be run and feel resentment if their views are ignored.

All discussion boards depend on volunteers to staff and run them. Depending on the size and scope of the board, this can be an onerous job, involving a great deal of hard work. Owners ignore volunteers at their peril. The usual staff structure involves two levels of responsibility. Administrators are responsible for the overall tone and discipline of the board, for technical support and appointment of the other level of staff, the moderators. A board will normally have a number of different forums dealing with particular subject areas. One or more moderators will be responsible for a forum. Ideally, they should be experts in the subject matter of the forum, but at the very least they should be enthusiastic about it and be prepared to lead discussions.

How to run a discussion board is a perennial topic. I left Internet Infidels in November 2007 and for a while frequented a number of boards in the hope of finding a new Internet home. I had great hopes of one that started early in 2008. It had democratic ideals, and that seemed a very good thing. However, by the end of 2008 it had become clear to me that it wasn’t working. The problem was Internet bullies, who enjoyed harassing other members. I, and quite a few other members, decided that the board had become intolerable. After all, one visits these boards in the expectation of a reasonably pleasurable experience. There is no compulsion to remain. So we left.

I got together with a few Internet friends and we set up our new board, Secular Café, early in 2009. We chose the name because it was intended to have a secular ethos and to be run like a café, so that people could come and relax but where rowdy troublemakers would be ejected. Of course, there are still heated arguments, but the staff tries hard to reduce the level of drama. I find running it a largely enjoyable experience and would be happy to welcome readers of International Humanist News if they would like to give it a try. So far we have managed to keep it a private board that does not solicit funds from members.

For anyone who has never visited such a discussion board and would like to try it, I should mention that a culture has grown up with its own language. So a “troll”, for example, is a particular sort of disruptive poster[3]. Then there are all the common abbreviations such as “tl;dr” (too long; didn’t read)[4].

I value Internet discussion boards as a way of meeting both like-minded individuals from around the world and people with whom I am in profound disagreement. There seem to be far more religious believers than unbelievers on the Internet and some of them visit secular boards in an effort to proselytise. Their overall standard is not high (one sighs at the two-hundredth offering of Pascal’s Wager or C.S. Lewis’s trilemma) but occasionally one does meet really interesting arguments in favour of theism.

The majority of Internet posters in the English language seem to be American. This is interesting for me as a non-American, as I have been able to learn a great deal more about American thought, culture and politics than I did from numerous visits to the USA. I think it is also interesting for the Americans to interact with the rest of the world, and, increasingly, people are posting from a large number of countries.

I would encourage anyone who has not yet tried discussion boards to have a go. You might find that the first one you try is not for you, but there are many others.  I have made genuine friends through the Internet in this way and feel that it has enriched my life.

--Diana Brown
Diana Brown is a co-founder and administrator of the Secular Café, www.secularcafe.org.