The USU SHAFT blog has been active now for two years; the first post was published August 13th, 2009. I want to thank all of you who have followed us from the beginning, and welcome those who have just recently stumbled upon our blog.

Despite my being less prolific as of late, the site still enjoyed increased traffic this year. And, like last year, we also won several Brodies (the Oscars of the Mormon/ex-Mormon blogosphere) for 2010: “Best News Reporting”, “Best LDS Church Watch”, and “Best Science Piece”. SHAFT has won a total of five Brodies, more than any other website.

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With the end of the year only weeks away, it’s time for some retrospection. Of the total 273 posts that were written in 2010, here are my favorite 15:

Humean, all too Humean: The Problem of Induction

God is hiding

LDS leader look-a-likes

Why Mormons should be thankful Third Nephi is not history

Bad atheist arguments

An evolutionary view of morality

Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon

LDS teachings on sex are contradictory and untenable

Sisters in Zion

Extremism in the Muslim world

The difficulty defining Mormon doctrine

The long road out

BYU censors letter to the editor critical of Prop 8

My apology to Pastor Ted Haggard

A 1984 conference talk gets an Orwellian makeover

Now that I am working full-time, I haven’t been able to post as frequently. I don’t want to see this blog suffer just because I am busier, though. If you are a member of SHAFT, a student at or a recent alumnus of USU, please consider writing for the SHAFT blog. I think some fresh blood and fresh ideas would be great.

It doesn’t have to be a big time commitment. Even one post a week would go a long way in helping this blog remain dynamic and active. There are also a lot of benefits to blogging here, too. This blog is among the most popular ex-Mormon/atheist blogs in the country, so your posts will reach thousands of readers. It’s a fantastic medium, then, by which to share your insights and opinions.

If you are interested in writing for the blog, please reply to that effect in the comments.

Thank you.

Just a quick technical update here: USU SHAFT is now using the FeedBurner service. This makes it very easy for you to subscribe to our blog in your favorite feed reader and stay up-to-date with USU SHAFT. If you’re not already subscribed to our feed or if you don’t know what a feed even is, now is a great time to add USU SHAFT to Google Reader (or any other feed reader). You can learn more about Google Reader and feed readers in general by watching the video below or by reading this page.

Also, if you want to follow the USU SHAFT blog but feed readers aren’t for you, we now offer a blog e-mail list as well! Just click on the “Blog Post Emails” link at the top of any page and you’ll receive a daily e-mail with the new posts from the USU SHAFT blog (note: the blog post e-mail list, which sends one message every day, is separate from our club events mailing list, which sends one message about every three weeks).