236 lines
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Plaintext
236 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
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From solano.community.net!uunet!pipex!mantis!mantis!not-for-mail Thu Aug 25 10:22:00 1994
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Path: solano.community.net!uunet!pipex!mantis!mantis!not-for-mail
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From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
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Newsgroups: alt.atheism,alt.atheism.moderated,news.answers,alt.answers
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Subject: Alt.Atheism FAQ: Overview for New Readers
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Supersedes: <overview_776509205@news.mantis.co.uk>
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Followup-To: alt.atheism
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Date: 18 Aug 1994 10:00:12 +0100
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Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.
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Lines: 213
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Approved: news-answers-request@mit.edu
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Expires: 8 Sep 1994 09:00:04 GMT
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Message-ID: <overview_777200404@news.mantis.co.uk>
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NNTP-Posting-Host: sunforest.mantis.co.uk
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Mime-Version: 1.0
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
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Summary: Hi. Please read this before you post.
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Keywords: FAQ, atheism
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Xref: solano.community.net alt.atheism:125583 alt.atheism.moderated:4887 news.answers:27035 alt.answers:3997
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Archive-name: atheism/overview
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Alt-atheism-archive-name: overview
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Last-modified: 6 July 1994
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Version: 2.1
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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THE ALT.ATHEISM FAQ WEB
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Overview
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This is the ASCII version of the FAQ files for the Usenet newsgroups
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alt.atheism and alt.atheism.moderated. The FAQ files are regular
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postings aimed at new readers of the newsgroups.
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The hypertext version of the FAQ files is available on the World Wide
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Web at the following addresses:
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* http://www.mantis.co.uk/atheism/
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* http://bigdipper.umd.edu/atheism/
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All sites should contain the same documents, so pick whichever is
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nearest.
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For information about WWW, try the FAQ for the newsgroup
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comp.infosystems.www.
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Many newsgroups of a 'controversial' nature have noticed that new
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readers often come up with the same questions, mis-statements or
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misconceptions and post them to the net. In addition, people often
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request information which has been posted time and time again. In
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order to try and cut down on this, the alt.atheism groups have a
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series of five FAQ documents:
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1. Overview for New Readers
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2. Introduction to Atheism
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3. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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4. Constructing a Logical Argument
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5. Atheist Resources
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Each item is reposted to the newsgroups at least once a month, with
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"Alt.Atheism FAQ" at the start of the subject line.
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This is Part 1, the Overview. Please read Sections 2 and 3 before
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posting to the newsgroups. The others are entirely optional.
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You might be impatient to post, and you might not want to read a
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lengthy document. If that's the case, take a look at the Quick Index
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of FAQ topics to see if your posting is covered somewhere.
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If you are new to Usenet, you may also find it helpful to read the
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newsgroup news.announce.newusers. The articles titled "A Primer on How
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to Work With the Usenet Community", "Answers to Frequently Asked
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Questions about Usenet" and "Hints on writing style for Usenet" are
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particularly relevant. Questions concerning how news works are best
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asked in news.newusers.questions.
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Credits, corrections and copyrights
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Please send any changes or corrections to mathew
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<mathew@mantis.co.uk>.
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The plain ASCII text versions of the alt.atheism FAQ files are free;
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you may distribute them to anyone you wish. The hypertext (HTML)
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versions are not free (yet), so please ask before distributing
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copies or mirroring them.
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Please do not re-post copies of the ASCII documents to alt.atheism; it
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does nobody any good to have multiple versions of the same document
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floating around the network.
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People sometimes ask whether the FAQ documents are original, and if
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so, who wrote them. It's not an easy question to answer. Some parts I
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wrote myself; many others were contributed by the readers of
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alt.atheism and of other Usenet newsgroups. The articles are therefore
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a massive collaborative effort, of a sort which would not have been
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possible without electronic networking.
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I have written, rewritten and edited a great deal of material, but
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these FAQ files would not have been possible without the efforts of
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hundreds of people. In particular, I'd like to thank the following
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people for their contributions (in no particular order):
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kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge)
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perry@dsinc.com (Jim Perry)
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NETOPRWA@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu (Wayne Aiken)
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chpetk@gdr.bath.ac.uk (Toby Kelsey)
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jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
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geoff.arnold@East.Sun.COM (Geoff Arnold)
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torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
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kmldorf@utdallas.edu (George Kimeldorf)
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roe2@quads.uchicago.edu (Greg Roelofs)
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arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
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madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann)
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J5J@psuvm.psu.edu (John A. Johnson)
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dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham)
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mayne@open.cs.fsu.edu (William Mayne)
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ajr@bigbird.hri.com (Andy Rosen)
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stoesser@ira.uka.de (Achim Stoesser)
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bosullvn@unix1.tcd.ie (Bryan O'Sullivan)
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lippard@ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
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s1b3832@rigel.tamu.edu (S. Baum)
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ydobyns@phoenix.princeton.edu (York H. Dobyns)
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schroede@sdsc.edu (Wayne Schroeder)
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baldwin@csservera.usna.navy.mil (J.D. Baldwin)
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D_NIBBY@unhh.unh.edu (Dana Nibby)
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dempsey@Kodak.COM (Richard C. Dempsey)
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jmunch@hertz,elee.calpoly.edu (John David Munch)
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pdc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley)
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rz@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Richard Zach)
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tycchow@math.mit.edu (Tim Chow)
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simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
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PHIMANEN@cc.helsinki.fi (Pekka Himanen)
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MINER@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Ken Miner)
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mayoff@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Rob Mayoff)
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hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen)
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mmwang@mv.us.adobe.com (Michael Wang)
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lwloen+@rchland.ibm.com (Larry Loen)
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pmt6jrp@leeds.ac.uk (Dr J. R. Partington)
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Andrew.Martin@prg.ox.ac.uk (Andrew Martin)
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dpw@sei.cmu.edu (David Wood)
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mmestern@cs.uct.ac.za (Mark Mestern)
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roorda@cs.rug.nl (Dirk Roorda)
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ai815@freenet.carleton.ca (greg erwin)
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edis@eta.pha.jhu.edu (Taner Edis)
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dt650@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (David J. Mullenix)
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adept@yar.cs.wisc.edu (Mark McCullough)
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jpinto@speedway.net (John Pinto)
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jss@lucid.com (Jerry Schwarz)
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s2361905@techst02.technion.ac.il (Sharon Roy)
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eeinma@eeiuc.ericsson.se (Niall McAuley)
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mbarry@u.washington.edu (Matt Barry)
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...and countless others I've forgotten.
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Disclaimer
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The editor of these FAQ documents has attempted to verify the accuracy
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and correctness of the information contained in them, as far as is
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metaphysically possible. Mistakes can and do happen, and so far it
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seems no omnipotent beings have intervened to correct them. If you use
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the information in these FAQ documents, you do so at your own risk.
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However, the editor hereby guarantees that reading these documents
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will not cause your soul to perish in eternal damnation. Offer void
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where prohibited by natural law.
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Finding Stuff
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If you are on Usenet, the ASCII versions of all the FAQ files should
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be somewhere on your news system. Here are some suggestions on what to
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do if you can't find them:
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1. Check the newsgroup alt.atheism. Look for subject lines starting
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with "Alt.Atheism FAQ:".
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2. Check the newsgroups alt.answers and news.answers for the same
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subject lines.
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3. If you don't find anything in Steps 1 and 2, your news system
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isn't set up correctly, and you may wish to tell your system
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administrator about the problem.
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4. If you have anonymous FTP access, connect to rtfm.mit.edu
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[18.181.0.24]. Go to the directory /pub/usenet/alt.atheism, and
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you'll find the latest ASCII versions of the FAQ files there.
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FTP is a a way of copying files between networked computers. If
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you need help in using or getting started with FTP, send e-mail to
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mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
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send usenet/news.answers/ftp-list/faq
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in the body.
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5. There are other sites which also carry news.answers postings. The
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article "Introduction to the news.answers newsgroup" carries a
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list of these sites; the article is posted regularly to
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news.answers.
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6. If you don't have FTP, send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
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consisting of the following lines:
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send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources
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send usenet/alt.atheism/faq
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send usenet/alt.atheism/introduction
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send usenet/alt.atheism/logic
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send usenet/alt.atheism/resources
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7. There's a small FTP site at ftp.mantis.co.uk [193.129.10.1] which
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carries articles relating to alt.atheism. Look in the directory
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/pub/alt.atheism/faqs, and please READ THE README FILE.
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8. (Last resort) Mail mathew@mantis.co.uk, or post an article to the
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newsgroup asking how you can get the FAQ files. You should only do
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this if you've tried the above methods and they've failed; it's
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not nice to clutter the newsgroup or people's mailboxes with
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requests for files. It's better than posting without reading the
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FAQ, though! For instance, people whose email addresses get
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mangled in transit and who don't have FTP will probably need
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assistance obtaining the FAQ files.
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mathew
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<mathew@mantis.co.uk>
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For information about PGP, send a blank mail message to pgpinfo@mantis.co.uk.
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--
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http://www.mantis.co.uk/~mathew/
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Seeking: Bug-tracking systems for UNIX, DOS and Windows which aren't GNATS.
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Information on Uniplex e-mail. Information on construction of
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housing using geodesic domes. Reasonably priced recumbant bikes.
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