your-god-is-too-small May. 2016 | Page 14

At the conclusion of our interview, Armin had some parting thoughts, directly for our forum. A personal message from Atheist Republic founder, Armin Navabi: “In the past three years, we have developed a website with a blog, news, and resources and grown a management team of over 50 people from all around the world. The Facebook page has grown to more than 900,000 fans and the private group to more than 23,000 members, which is now one of the most active private atheist communities online. Atheist Republic is a growing community of godless heathens who share views and ideas, help one another express their atheism, support one another, and discuss news, books and other atheist expressions. We give every atheist a chance to share their views with our community or raise awareness about those things which matter to them. Atheist Republic is a reflection of the views and ideas of the community as a whole. That's why it's called a republic. The entire community, all our Facebook fans, all of the people who engage with AR through the website, all direct the course of the community. It's clear that atheists care. A lot of atheists want to find a way to help, to make a difference. The barriers of communication are breaking down, and our new more transparent world is becoming a much more difficult environment for religion to spread and control. More and more people are being exposed to the fact that many atheists are moral, see true beauty in the world and lead rich, meaningful lives. The future of Atheist Republic is bright. We have ideas for offline events and groups, making it easy for our community to plan and organize through the website. We want to continue to add resources to the website and have plans in place for adding more poetry and visual art. We would like to create videos and a podcast to reach an even wider audience with more information and resources, and we have P a g e | 14