Mississippi Atheists

Just in Time for Halloween…Jesus!

2011-10-25T15:44:00.001-05:00

9/11 Ten Years Later

2011-09-11T09:50:00.001-05:00

It is as true today as it was 10 years ago.

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Christians Threaten Atheists After Fox News Interview

2011-08-03T07:29:00.001-05:00

After Blair Scott, Communications Director of American Atheists, was interviewed on Fox "News" about his opposition to a cross at the 9/11 memorial, Christians littered Fox's Facebook page with death threats. Here's some video:

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Why Let a Little Religion Bother You?

2011-07-09T14:17:00.001-05:00

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Evangelicals and Atheists Have Something in Common

2011-05-27T11:12:00.001-05:00

I was at work yesterday when the tornado siren went off. We had a tornado warning in the Hattiesburg area, and people are clearly taking these more seriously after all the damage seen recently in other areas. While searching the web to see what I could find about the likely duration of the warning, I ran across something unexpected on a local TV station website (WDAM): Being 'born-again' linked to more brain atrophy.

Evidently, the same Christian god who was sending tornados my way wanted me to find this article about a scientific study linking religious experiences and atheism to brain dysfunction.

According to the study, people who said they were a "born-again" Protestant or Catholic, or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or "atrophy") compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again.

It sounds like the researchers interpreted the findings as being due to "holding religious beliefs that fall outside of the mainstream." In other words, both evangelical Christians and atheists may experience added stress (known to affect the brain) from holding unconventional beliefs.

"One interpretation of our finding -- that members of majority religious groups seem to have less atrophy compared with minority religious groups -- is that when you feel your beliefs and values are somewhat at odds with those of society as a whole, it may contribute to long-term stress that could have implications for the brain," Amy Owen, lead author of the study and a research associate at Duke University Medical Center, said in a Duke news release.

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Self-Described Christian Patriot Arrested for Public Masturbation

2011-03-05T09:02:00.001-06:00

I had planned to let this one go. I really had. It has been covered on so many other atheist blog that I figured I'd just steer clear of it. But the more I think about it, the more important I think it is to highlight examples of Christian hypocrisy.

Rev. Grant Storms is known around New Orleans for his anti-gay protests. Evidently, the New Orleans Southern Decadence Festival really bothers him. He's turned up again and again with his band of Christian extremist bigots to protest it.

But now Storms will be known for something else: public masturbation. He was arrested in a public park in Metairie near a playground for...well..."worshiping his baby Jesus" (how's that for a euphemism for masturbation?).

We see so much hypocrisy from the loudest Christians that news like this cannot possibly surprise us. Still, I can't help thinking that it is worth highlighting them. After all, there are still plenty of people who believe this nonsense.

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Homeless Family Won't Cross God Off Their Sign for Money

2011-02-15T06:00:00.001-06:00

The following video from the Religious Antagonist is sure to be controversial. Somehow, the idea of offering money to homeless people to do something they don't want to do makes me uncomfortable. And yet, the message is valuable even while being provacative.

I'm still trying to sort out what I think about this. How about you? Good idea, bad idea, what?

H/T to Friendly Atheist

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Baptist Prayer Warriors to Cover Mississippi in Prayer

2011-02-07T06:31:00.001-06:00

The state of Mississippi has a number of problems. Obesity, poverty, illiteracy, anti-intellectualism, Christian extremism, unemployment, teen pregnancy, and so on. You name it, and we seem to have a problem with it. But perhaps the most important problem of all is that our usual solution rarely involves trying anything new. We prefer to meet these challenges by simply doing more of what has been so thoroughly ineffective. As a perfect example, prominent Baptists around our state are now suggesting that Mississippi needs to be "covered in prayer."

According to God Discussion, the theme of the 2011 Mississippi Baptist Evangelists Conference was "Covering Mississippi in Prayer." If that strikes you as silly but not particularly problematic, you'll want to keep reading.

This initiative on the part of the Baptists is not simply about encouraging prayer. No, it is about encouraging public prayer (never mind that their bible says they aren't supposed to do this) in government buildings and other public places. Thus, it isn't just more prayer - it is more in-your-face prayer at the very locations that need far less superstition.

When faced with Mississippi's list of problems, these Mississippi Baptists prefer to ignore them and focus on increasing the membership of their churches. God Discussion quotes Executive Director, Steve Stone as saying,

I believe the greatest challenge facing our 2,058 churches is "how are we going to reach the unchurched people in Mississippi?” On any given Sunday, two million people are not attending any church in our state. Over the past years, Southern Baptist churches have not grown numerically in proportion to the growth of our state. To meet this challenge, every Mississippi Baptist must embrace the concept of church growth. Each person must grow spiritually and help their church grow numerically.

See what I mean about just doing more of the same things that got us in this mess in the first place?

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Haunted Cemeteries in Mississippi

2010-12-25T08:04:00.001-06:00

The Hattiesburg American just ran a story about haunted cemeteries in Pearl River County. As I read the first few paragraphs of the article, I found myself thinking that this was an odd story to print on Christmas. I soon realized that this is exactly the sort of thing we should expect on slow news days. And besides, how is all this Christian zombie worship really that different from believing in ghosts?

But if the title of the article was what caught my attention, it was really the last sentence that stuck with me:

Investigating the paranormal has gained popularity these days, with several reality ghost shows currently airing on TV.

Slow news day plus subject of great public interest equals this story. Now I get it. But why has investigating the so-called paranormal become increasingly popular?

Perhaps this is another indication that traditional religion is losing at least some of its appeal. Maybe interest in ghost hunting and the like reflects a growing desire to experience the supernatural entities which religion insists are real but provides no way to access. Could it be that those who are drawn to such "investigations" are merely trying to validate what they have been told to believe?

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A Small Christian Parade

2010-09-24T13:24:00.001-05:00

I had to run some errands around town today. To conserve fuel, I always try to let my errands pile up so that I can do many of them on the same trip. What made this particular trip worth blogging about was what I saw while pulling out of a parking lot and merging into heavy traffic on the main drag.

As I looked to my left before turning right to merge, I saw a man dressed in shorts, a t-shirt that was way too small for him, and a baseball cap. He was carrying a gigantic cross made of what appeared to be plastic over his shoulder and appeared to be straining from the weight. I'd estimate the height of the cross as at least 15-20 feet. The man was accompanied by one other person, the gender of whom I could not determine from my viewing angle.

The first thought that went through my head was, "Only in Mississippi." Here was a man carrying a giant cross down the side of the busiest street in town on a hot summer day for no apparent reason.

I really wish I had the time to grab my phone and take a picture, but I had already started to pull out when I saw him, and there was simply no way to stop.

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Meet Pastor Steve Gaines

2010-07-09T13:44:00.001-05:00

Pastor Gaines (Bellevue Baptist Church, Memphis, TN) has been in the news recently after he outed a softball coach for being gay and then banned her from coaching. But as Unreasonable Faith points out, this is the same Pastor Gaines who learned that one of his fellow clergymen had molested his own child and did nothing about it.

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Christian Bigots Vandalize North Carolina Billboard

2010-07-01T06:53:00.001-05:00

A billboard placed along the Billy Graham Parkway by the North Carolina Secular Association was vandalized. What was so offensive about the billboard? It contained a phrase from America's original pledge of allegiance: "One nation, indivisible." Evidently, these Christian bigots hate traditional America.

As most educated people know, "under god" was not added until 1954, the result of a campaign by a Roman Catholic organization, the Knights of Columbus. It was an effort to distinguish the U.S. from godless Communism and marked an important point along the path to equating atheism and Communism in the minds of most Americans.

Louisiana State Senators Call for Prayer to Stop Gulf Oil Spill

2010-06-20T09:38:00.001-05:00

If you have been listening to Mississippi's Gov. Haley Barbour (R), you may think that BP's massive Gulf oil spill is no big deal and that it will have zero impact on our state. For some perspective on how bad the situation really is, consider this: Louisiana state senators have designated today a day of prayer and are asking all of us who live in this region to join them in begging the Christian god to end the disaster.

I'm not sure why they didn't think of that sooner. Now that the entire spill will magically vanish and the coastal environment will be instantly restored, I guess we don't have anything to worry about.

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BP and the Catholic Church

2010-05-26T05:50:00.001-05:00

Every day I drive past at least one BP station on my way to and from work. I rarely use it because others are more convenient along my route, and I've never given it much thought until this week. Now I find myself curious to see how many cars are there when I pass the station. Does it appear any more or less crowded than other nearby stations? No, I haven't been able to detect any difference. I suppose I'm a little surprised by this, given that most of us in South Mississippi know at least someone who has been negatively affected by the oil spill.

But then, something else occurs to me. I don't notice any fewer cars in the parking lots of local Catholic churches following each abuse scandal. I hear people discussing the latest abuse scandal sometimes, so it isn't that they are just unaware of it. But it certainly doesn't seem to translate into anything I can readily observe.

I suspect BP will be fine, just like Exxon is fine and just like the Catholic church is fine. It seems to take far more than catastrophe to produce meaningful behavior change.

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Draw Mohammed Day

2010-05-20T11:00:00.001-05:00

The argument against Draw Mohammed Day, being celebrated today, is quite simple. Deliberately offending religious believers, Muslims in this case, accomplishes nothing positive and is just mean. And yet, I think that it is a positive act to stand up and say, "We will not be intimidated by your religiously-motivated threats." Draw Mohammed Day is not just about agitating Muslims; it is about highlighting a particular form of religious idiocy. Drawing someone is not off limits simply because some religion wants to make it so.

To be sure, some misguided Christians will participate in Draw Mohammed Day without realizing that they suffer from the very religious idiocy being criticized here. If you don't believe that, remember how upset Christians became over "piss Christ" and chocolate Jesus displays.

Draw Mohammed Day reminds us that nothing is sacred. Not images of Mohammed, not depictions of Jesus, nothing. Cloaking something in religious garb does not render it immune to criticism. In fact, a brief examination of what religion has led and continues to lead people to do demands criticism.

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Segregation

2010-03-06T14:13:00.002-06:00

When I moved to Mississippi, one of the things I was most curious about was race relations. Never having lived in this part of the country before, I knew that I was basing my impressions largely on stereotypes and media distortions. I wanted to know the reality on the ground. What I found was that many of the stereotypes regarding race were inaccurate. However, I wasn't prepared for the kind of segregation - a different sort of segregation from what we usually mean - that I found.

It did not take me long to discover that Blacks usually associated with other Blacks and that White usually hung out with other Whites. This was not the surprise, as I have encountered this sort of grouping taking place everywhere I've lived. I've always found it unfortunate that there isn't more intermingling, but this seems to be the norm.

The surprise involves the sort of religious segregation I encountered. Members of the predominate religion in this area, Southern Baptist, tended to associate primarily with members of their own churches. It was as if they had a society within a society. Church was not just for Sundays; many families base their entire social lives around their church. Even if they only attended services every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, nearly all their friends were members of their own church.

I also noticed similar patterns among some minority religions. Catholics did the same, albeit to a somewhat milder degree, as did Jews. This was something new for me, something different from what I have encountered in other regions.

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I Hear You Don't Have a Religion...

2010-02-28T11:38:00.001-06:00

Hope Owens-Wilson has an interesting article in the Jackson Free Press that you might enjoy. I'm not sure if she would call herself an atheist or not, but it is nice to see more Mississippians expressing the sentiment she's expressing here, regardless of their exact take on religion. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that might help our neighbors think before speaking.

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More on the Personhood Amendment

2010-02-16T13:03:00.001-06:00

From what I've been able to gather, the purpose of the Personhood Mississippi group I mentioned yesterday is to amend our state constitution to ban abortion. The manner in which they are going about this involves at least a few steps. First, they need to get enough signatures to get their proposal on the ballot. It sounds like they have probably already done so. Second, there will likely involve a statewide vote in 2011. Assuming the measure passes, the goal would be to set up a challenge to overturn Roe v. Wade. So obviously, they are hoping that the effects of this will extend far beyond Mississippi.

Similar efforts are underway in Colorado. The difference appears to be that Christian extremists in Colorado tried this in 2008 only to see their proposal fail at the polls.

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Sorry, Saints Fans

2010-02-14T07:55:00.001-06:00

If you are a fan of the New Orleans Saints and are thrilled that they had such a good season, culminating in a Super Bowl victory, I've got some bad news for you. They didn't win because they were talented, worked hard, were well-coached, or anything of their sort. In fact, they deserve no praise or credit for their winning season at all. Why? You see, Goddidit! That's right, their Super Bowl win happened only because the Christian god made it happen.

Skeptical Monkey has a great post on the idiocy of many Saints players. My favorite part is the observation that the Christian god was involved in human affairs enough to care who won the game while practically destroying Haiti (or at least allowing it to happen).

Apparently, god takes a vested interest in who wins the Super Bowl, but he couldn’t be bothered to spare the lives hundreds of thousands of Haitian citizens.

You don't get to have it both ways, Christians. Your god is involved, or it isn't.

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Kidnapping For Jesus

2010-02-05T19:40:00.009-06:00

By now everyone has heard about Laura Silsby, the grifter facing several civil lawsuits through her internet business riddled with deceptive practices facing several civil suits, and her group of doe-eyed Christian Fundamentalist Protestants that believe they are on a mission from God to do whatever they want regardless of secular laws.

Well, today they were denied release and any special treatment despite their pleas regarding their perfect and divine plan to take children from a sovereign country without so much as a "praise Jesus, we're taking these babies" to the legal authority, both Haitian and international.

Their attorney and even the Southern Baptist Convention are now pulling out all of the stops to convince the world that these 10 folks were just simpletons, naive in the ways of the world by just doing what the Big Guy demanded them to do.

Of course, the truth is that grown men and women decided to travel into a disaster zone and work with a local Haitian pastor who had convinced (sold) families of children (not orphans) on the idea that they were taking them to a temporary club for kids in the Dominican Republic and that the families could later come and visit. We've since learned that they were told by Dominican and UN authorities ahead of time that they would be committing an illegal act if they were to persist...and they did so anyway.

This Baptist group asserts plainly that they went there to "adopt orphans", convert them to the Protestant religious sect of Christianity (as is their stated foundational mission) and farm them out to others of their own faith.

Silsby's Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, had begun planning last year to build an orphanage, school and church in Magante, on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Their plan was to work with U.S. adoption agencies to find "loving Christian parents" for Haitian and Dominican children. When the quake struck, the church members decided to act immediately, renting a hotel in a nearby Dominican beach resort and hiring a bus to collect children from the disaster area.

They not only didn't "complete the paperwork", they had none, and felt that they could just walk in and skip over everyone else who has been participating in the correct adoption processes in place to ensure the safety and well-being of children.

They were duplicitous because their intent was to eventually take these children and present them to other Christians for adoption, not keep them in the region or to keep families and traditions intact.

The bottom line is that this group didn't go to Haiti to simply provide humanitarian aid or to protect the sanctity of families and ancestral culture.

They went there to take children from their lands in the midst of chaos, proselytize and attempt to convert them to their own brand of religion at a time when ordinary "checks and balances" were down for the count.

Certainly they present a "physical mission", but it is merely a cover for the "real mission", which is to convert children to their own particular religious affiliation when these poor families are suffering and most open to the subtlety of emotional pressure.

The sect violated international law, Haitian law and the laws of common sense and promoting themselves now as victims of persecution by the forces of Satan in need of special legal consideration is the most cynical and slick use of religion there is and always has been.

The leader of this fiasco, Laura Silsby, will be put under the microscope soon and will no doubt further and continuously raise the specter of Christian persecution to dodge culpability for these actions (among others).

Expect more petitions to keep these Christian victims in prayers for special deliverance and much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth demanding instant and default dismissal on the grounds that to not do so would be a Satanic conspiracy of historical proportions.

Never has there been a more stark and glaring example of both the hubris and irresponsible use of religion than right now.

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Mississippi Celebrates Ignorance and Superstition

2010-01-01T11:12:00.001-06:00

The state of Mississippi topped the list of most religious states according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. On worship attendance, frequency of prayer, and god belief, we are #1. Of all the responses to this ranking I have encountered, one stands out to me as demanding attention.

After noting that "...generations of Mississippians have learned time and time again just how bad the state is in comparison with other states in the union," the Editorial Board of The Natchez Democrat had this to say:

But last week, just before the nation paused to celebrate the birth of Christ, Mississippi made a No. 1 appearance on perhaps the only list that will ultimately matter.

While acknowledging that Mississippi leads the nation in poverty, obesity, illiteracy, and heart disease, the board saw fit to write an article titled "Mississippi focuses on what matters."

As refreshing as it is for the humble people of Mississippi to be No. 1 in something, Mississippians certainly won’t gloat. The majority of them — the study confirms — takes their lead and example from the humble son of a Jewish carpenter.

They really don't get it, do they? How can we expect to improve our state when we celebrate ignorance and superstition?

H/T to StateStreetPosts.com

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Importance of Religion Declining in U.S.

2009-12-26T11:19:00.001-06:00

According to a recent Gallup poll, the number of Americans reporting that religion is "out of date," that they have no religious preference, or that religion is not very important in their lives has recently increased. The number identifying themselves as Christian has dropped to 78%.

According to The Raw Story,

Over the last nine years, the number with no religious preference has grown from a level of around 8% to 13%. The number for whom religion is not very important has climbed from just over 10% to 19%. And the number who believe religion is out of date and has no answers for today's problems has jumped from slightly more than 20% to 29%.

Now that's what I call progress! Sure, we still have a very long way to go, but it is nice to see some movement in a positive direction.

Southern Baptists and Alcohol

2009-12-24T06:06:00.001-06:00

I know that Mormons are not supposed to consume alcoholic beverages on religious grounds. Do Southern Baptists, the largest Christian denomination here in Mississippi, have a similar prohibition regarding alcohol? I know Methodists do not, but I cannot remember about Southern Baptists. Do any of you who grew up here have any idea, and if not, is there another large Christian denomination around here that has such a prohibition with which I might be confusing Southern Baptists?

Mississippi Baptists Hold "Blessing of the Hunt"

2009-11-16T09:30:00.001-06:00

The Coshocton Tribune is reporting that the Goss Baptist Church (Columbia) is hoping for a record turnout for Thursday's annual "Blessing of the Hunt." I've never heard of this tradition, but it they evidently do this every year in Mississippi right before deer season. They even host vendors who give away door prizes and cook jambalaya, all "as a way to reach people who might otherwise not go to church."

As worrisome as I find the image of heavily armed Christians prowling the woods, I am encouraged to see how much work is required to get people to go to church these days. And hell, at least they aren't hunting atheists.

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Allahu Akbar - In God We Trust

2009-11-06T09:37:00.005-06:00

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and every off-shoot, sect, denomination, etc.) are each and all founded upon the same ideological mind trap clothed within a commonly asserted divine authority that is beyond contention by virtue of costume, incense, bell ringing and lots of repetitive chanting.

Plus, "Mom and Dad and Preacher Man told me so" and they would never lie.

It should be readily apparent that these myths and behavioral instructions from “on high” via allegorical prose evolve over time due to the shifting interpretations of cultural standards.

In other words, they are fictional narratives that human beings derive, craft, invent and re-invent to maintain power and authority for better or worse through the concept of ancestral tradition and childhood indoctrination.

Admittedly, these stories are obviously some of the most psychologically powerful bonding agents for a successful communal and cooperative society.

Of course, this can be very "heartfelt, good and comforting” for many holding these same traditions, until there is interaction with the other societies that have conflicting narratives.

We can all be critical and derogatory about these “extremist” interpretations that cause so much suffering and despair, as reflected in the recent human massacre at the Ft. Hood Army Base, and then fully expect to be accused of unjustly painting with a broad brush to include those with more “liberal” and “peace loving” interpretations of exactly the same narratives.

The bottom line is that the moderates and liberals of all religious traditions should be taken to task for not being more pro-actively critical of the darker, more violent and absolutist brands of their own religion (cultural narratives) and not just pipe up to critique the criticism when one of their own goes “Old Testament” on folks.

Some moderates and liberals explain away these violent events by claiming that the “true” interpretations derived from each of these religions is firmly and universally founded upon “love, compassion, caring, empathy and reciprocity”, aka "many flowing rivers leading to one shimmering ocean of understanding", no matter the obvious violence and despair that some adherents promote due to their mythic bonds and purported special relationships with a God who never appears, but is most often just an expression of their own human desires and cravings.

My question for both rigid fundamentalist and liberal mystic continues to be this:

Why do we as a species hold onto these archaic myths, legends and lore to provide us directives on how to love and care for each other in this good life when they are inescapably polluted with the contradictions of brutal deities, prophets and teachers promoting “their way or the highway to Hell”?

Do we not know how to be good without them?

Do we not know how to love without them?

I believe that all humans do, in fact, know the importance of the deep and abiding human values of love, empathy and reciprocity without such primitive religious narratives about burning bushes and assorted winged angels visiting special men walking alone to tell us what a deity beyond space and time thinks about women, other gods, pigs, oysters and foreskins or which tribe is his favorite deserving of a particular patch of desert and a glorious reward in the afterlife magic kingdom.

Given all of the empirical evidence we may currently have to the contrary, however, that claim might just make me the real faithful believer after all.