Atheist Code

The Atheist Code is for participants on atheist newsgroup alt.atheism. Cabrutus mentions creating the code in a message dated 1998-01-02, but mentions that it “hasn’t caught on very much” and that “I might end up removing it.” The canonical location for the spec, to which Cabrutus’s own links page points, is http://www.lcs.net/chris/atheist_code.html; however, that page was not archived.

From users of the code whose messages were archived (1, 2, 3), it appears that the code typically begins with ACv1.0 and contains three-letter group tags, each followed by a number from 0 to 5, that resemble RPG “stat blocks”. These tags include:

• DUR
• STR
• BIT
• ACT
• DEF
• DEB
• CON
• SLM
• XTN
• PUB

Others have observed the lack of an extant spec, so unfortunately this code may be lost to history.

Examples

ACv1.0 DUR4 STR5 BIT5 ACT1 DEF4 DEB5 CON2 SLM4 XTN5 PUB4

ACv1.0 DUR1 STR4 BIT2 ACT1 DEF4 DEB3 CON2 SLM3 XTN4 PUB5

ACv1.0 DUR4 STR5 BIT3 ACT3 DEF4 DEB4 CON1 SLM2 XTN2 PUB2