****UPDATE 7-22-07 CONTEST EXTENDED. GREYDON SQUARE CATEGORY ADDED. OTHER CHANGES AND PRIZES AWARDED. PLEASE REVIEW AGAIN AND SUBMIT SOMETHING!!!****

NOTE: DUE TO ERROR IN LINKS AND LOW SUBMISSIONS, THIS CONTEST HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MARCH 15TH, 2008.

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. 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. Please post everything publicly on our forum so it's there for all RRS members to access who are working on this project. 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've put the categories in order of need and may alter the order later as submissions come in.
Prizes will be awarded MARCH 15TH, 2008, but you can continue to submit content well after MARCH 15TH, 2008.

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

1. Flyer creation for the Rational Response Squad Perpetual Enlightenment. (a counter to Christian "tracts") Submissions go here.
2. In the spirit of the Sam Harris book, "Letter to a Christian Nation" write an essay imploring theists to leave their irrational beliefs behind. Example here Submissions go here.
3. Write an essay entitled "I am the Rational Response Squad" (please see details below) Submissions go here.
4. Write a letter to a specific loved one or friend who embraces an irrational theistic worldview. Example here Submissions go here.
5. A debunking of any creationist or theist site. Also debunkings of specific arguments of theists. Example here Submissions go here.
6. Write an essay entitled "I am every atheist" (please see details below) Submissions go here.
7. Write a book review for a freethought or atheist book! You can post the reviews in this thread.

VIDEO SUBMISSION REQUESTS SPECIAL CASH PRIZES AWARDED IN THIS CATEGORY!

1. Create the best music video for Proclaims' song "Brainwashed" download the original, download the remix.
2. Create the best music video for the title track to Proclaims' new album "Question Everything" download
3. Create the best music video for any Greydon Square song!!! (NEW!!!) The Compton Effect

PRIZES FOR SUBMISSIONS TONS OF PRIZES AWARDED FOR THE MOST HELPFUL PARTICIPANTS AND THE BEST ENTRIES!

• 1 RRS wall clock signed by RRS show hosts
• 1 RRS mousepad signed by RRS show hosts
• 1 RRS T-shirt
• 1 Evolvefish "Darwin" Emblem Shirt courtesy of Evolve Fish
• 5 Evolvefish Emblems courtesy of Evolve Fish
• 5 lifetime subscriptions to the Rational Response Squad radio show
• 5 Brian Flemming signed copies of The God Who Wasn't There DVD
• 15 subscriptions to the first 25 RRS shows
• 1 copy of "The God Delusion" autographed by it's author, Richard Dawkins
• 2 copies of David Mills book Atheist Universe signed by the author and personalized to "member of RRS."
• 3 copies of Valerie Taricos book The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth.
• 1 copy of Nick Gisburnes book The Atheists Are Revolting.
• Fame, Recognition, Notoriety! Outstanding submissions may be read on air. Authors of pieces may be asked to appear on show. Your flyer or article may be the most read, talked about, or handed out piece of literature!

FURTHER EXPLANATION

ARTICLE SUBMISSION REQUESTS IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE

1. Flyer creation for the Rational Response Squad Perpetual Enlightenment. (a counter to Christian "tracts") 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


2. In the spirit of the new Sam Harris book, "Letter to a Christian Nation" write an essay imploring theists to leave their irrational beliefs behind. Example here 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.


3. Write an essay entitled "I am the Rational Response Squad" 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.


4. Write a letter to a specific loved one or friend who embraces an irrational theistic worldview. Example here 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.


5. A debunking of any creationist or theist site. Also debunkings of specific arguments of theists. 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/.


6. Write an essay entitled "I am every atheist" 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.
   

VIDEO SUBMISSION REQUESTS!

• Video submissions can be made here!
• Videos should contain appropriate links if you have the ability to add text to your video. Link to RationalResponders.com and the artist you made a video for.
• A great idea for both Amanda and Greydon might be to choreograph a compilation of religious attrocites set to their music.
• Music videos should have the text "Music by......" and "Song title......" It should also include an RRS logo at some point.
• A great video could bring you major exposure if you are a budding director!
• Creation of the best music videos may earn you a place as director if Proclaim or Greydon rise to the point where they can create a made for MTV video!
• This site might help you with capturing footage for your video.
• You could use this site to create a video based on pictures.
• You should upload your videos to youtube and send us a link... post it here. If you are unable to place a text link within your video you must link to the appropriate site in the description of your video. You should also make sure to keep the video on your hard drive in case we want to store it on our server and host it from our site without youtube.
• We'll create a library of videos for people to view and we'll draw traffic to your youtube page... be prepared to retort comments on your youtube page!

1. Create the best music video for Proclaims' song "Brainwashed" download the original, download the remix.
2. Create the best music video for the title track to Proclaims' new album "Question Everything" download 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. Lyrics are available here.

PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED FROM LARGE BATCH OF PRIZES LISTED.



3. Create a music video for any Greydon Square song The rules under the main heading for video submissions and the section on Proclaims' videos are good guidlines to help you in creating a good video.

PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED FROM LARGE BATCH OF PRIZES LISTED.

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 manner 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. We reserve the right to extend the contest if we aren't receiving enough submissions. We reserve the right to change anything for any reason at any time.