I’ve seen questions about the origin of the term “Gnu Atheist,” so I thought it would be worthwhile to commemorate the birth of the term:
It seems that it was coined by Hamilton Jacobi in a comment that (ironically?) was not allowed through moderation at The Intersection, but was reposted at Butterflies and Wheels. It was then picked up by Jerry Coyne, and it took off.
(Gnu atheist symbol stolen from Aratina Cage.)
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Update: Five minutes after posting this, Jerry Coyne makes AC’s logo official. Strange synchronicity, or has Jerry subscribed to my posts? (Yes, I backdated this post from 11 Oct to 30 Sep. because I didn’t want it at the top of the blog. Let that be a lesson about messing with the time continuum.) [edit: Or perhaps the WordPress pingbacks deserve credit? Can you tell that I'm not a skilled member of the blogosphere?]
I missed this completely (The ‘exhibit A firestorm’)
I thought Jerry had primarily gotten rid of the poxy font A invented by J.T. whose intellectual(?) property it is.
..and that that the Gnu-meme-asploder was a secondary.
My impression is that it’s merely a coincidence that the development of the horned A roughly coincided with the revelations about Josh Timonen. It doesn’t seem that Arantina Cage had Timonen in mind.
Of course, it already has a facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gnu-Atheism/