Since launching in 2009, RationalistJudaism.com has had over a thousand posts, and seven million pageviews, as well as countless posts that circulated via e-mail subscription. The top ten posts had between ten and thirty thousand views. Perhaps most gratifying of all, it really seems that the word "rationalist" has entered many people's vocabulary and is now heard much more frequently.
It's been quite a journey. Topics have included dinosaurs, IDF avoidance, hyraxes, werewolves, Kupat HaIr, counter-terrorism techniques, the Betech battles, Zionism, the international dateline, demons, the Cross-Currents combat, angry birds, extinction, jumping elephants, Groundhog Day, leaving peeled garlic overnight, the Gedolim, Yissacher and Zevulun, rabbinic authority, metzitzah b'peh, theodicy, bans, kezayis, magic rings of power, post-charedim, pigs in streimels, beavers biting off their testicles and throwing them at people, the Deluge, sexual relations, cosmology, when lashon hara is a mitzvah, quackery, Rambam, brain-death, miracles, antisemitism, spontaneous generation, pi, EJF, robo-rabbis, mass hysteria, the Zohar, the religious politics of elections, the chicken wars, Colonel Patterson, Israel advocacy, Batman, evolution, Daas Torah, platypuses, segulos, intersectionalism, Ghostbusters, exposing endless distortions of Torah and science, and so much more. Oh, the memories!
If you feel that you identify with the values of this website, and that you have benefited from this forum, the next 48 hours are the ideal time to show your appreciation. Because by making a donation to the new building for The Biblical Museum of Natural History within the next 48 hours, your donation will be quadrupled!
In celebration together with the supporters of this mission, I would also like to offer a special gift for those who donate $180 and above: a PDF containing all ten years' worth of posts! This was actually quite technologically complicated to assemble, but it makes it easy to search for topics, and you can print it out for comfortable Shabbos afternoon reading. It's quite a huge file - nearly 2000 pages! After making your donation, write to office@biblicalnaturalhistory.org and say that you donated as a RationalistJudaism reader, and they will send you the file. If you become a patron of the museum and donate $1800, we will send you a printed copy - in several volumes!
Thank you for joining me on this journey, and here's to the next ten years!
Best wishes,
Natan Slifkin
UPDATE: I miscounted! It's actually nine years! Oh well. Now that I've gone to the effort of compiling the entire blog, and it's an opportune date vis-a-vis the museum campaign, we'll celebrate this day anyway!
"the ten-year anniversary ... [s]ince launching in March 2009".
ReplyDeleteIs this some funky British way of counting anniversaries? Or did I fall asleep for a year? :)
Wow. That is incredibly embarrassing.
DeleteNow what do I do???
DeleteOK, I amended the post accordingly!
Deleteyou fell asleep on 9/11 2001 :-))
DeleteHere's a better solution: Base nine is the only rational base! Base ten was invented by mystics!
Deleteyou see! we're ahead!!
DeleteMiktzas HaShana KiKulo
ReplyDeleteWho says each year is 365 days? :-)
ReplyDeleteJust think what will be next year!
ReplyDeleteNext year, he'll make sure to forget it for real :).
DeleteIt would be deliciously ironic if you would begin to annually commemorate the anniversary with a Lag Ba'Omer bonfire extravaganza!!!
ReplyDeleteJust say it was a pun. Like Douglas Adams' fourth book in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was the 10th birthdate of the blog.
ReplyDeleteDoes the PDF include the comments sections, or only the original posts?
ReplyDeleteOnly the posts. If it had the comments too, it would be ten thousand pages!
DeleteIf I donate now, via www.biblicalnaturalhistory.org/donate (since I assume the quadruple offer has expired), can I still get the PDF?
ReplyDelete