Mississippi Atheists

Atheists in Mississippi

2009-07-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

One of the most common reactions I get in response to this blog from those outside our state is surprise. "There are atheists in Mississippi?" It is an understandable question, and I'm quite certain I would be asking it if I wasn't here myself. Yes, there are atheists in Mississippi. As you might expect, many of us remain fairly quiet on the subject of religion, for we have much to lose by expressing our thoughts and even more by identifying ourselves as atheists.

For those who have not spend any significant time in the rural South, it is difficult to convey what it is like to be an atheist here. Religion is more pervasive in Mississippi than I could have imagined without experiencing it for myself. Virtually everyone I know here has a large part of their identity tied up in religion. I sometimes find it even more oppressive than the summer humidity, and there is no question that living here affects me.

To say that there is a social stigma against atheists in Mississippi would be a colossal understatement. As difficult as it must be to be gay here, I suspect that an openly gay Christian would have a somewhat more positive experience than a heterosexual atheist.

Many atheists in Mississippi have had enough bad experiences around revealing their atheism that it is difficult to remember that not all experiences will be negative. This is understandable, but it also serves as an obstacle for atheist equality. As long as we remain invisible, it is easy to demonize us. And yet, it is easy to say that more of us should "come out" without appreciating the price paid by those who do.

What is it like socially for atheists in Mississippi? Of course, our experience is variable. I've written previously about my inner tug-of-war between deception and ostracization. Either I keep my atheism to myself, or I run a fairly high risk of being socially ostracized. It is not easy.

Although there are a handful of small atheist groups active in Mississippi, I know that many atheists here feel socially isolated. I've never been someone with particularly strong social needs, and I suppose that plays a big part in how I can stand to be here. Nevertheless, I can relate to the sense of alienation I have heard many atheists describe. It goes far beyond simply loneliness and involves a sense of not being able to be genuinely oneself in so many situations.

There are many barriers to atheist activism in Mississippi, but I think that the lack of strong communities of support is probably the most important. It is far easier to join in or organize activist efforts when one has a safe community. Too many of the atheists in our state lack any such community, and this makes it much harder to work for meaningful change.

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A Teabagging in Biloxi

2009-07-11T06:34:00.000-05:00

Image by literaghost via Flickr

If you haven't been to a Republican "tea party" yet and are convinced that the White House should be "teabagged," now is your chance to join the misguided protests cloaked in sexual innuendo sufficient to make Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) blush. Y'all Politics has posted an announcement from a group calling itself "Gulf Coast We Surround Them 912 Project" that a tea party will be held in Biloxi on July 18th.

This is proving to be an unbelievably busy month for me, but I am tempted to grab my camera and drive down to Biloxi for this event. As much as I would not want to be counted as contributing to the size of the rally, the opportunity to capture this sort of idiocy on my camera is quite tempting.

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Central MS Atheists July Meetup in Jackson

2009-07-10T13:49:00.000-05:00

Central Mississippi Atheists has scheduled their July meeting for July 22, 2009 at 7:00 pm in Jackson at Sneaky Beans. For more information, check out the group's Meetup.com page.

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We Like Stories

2009-07-09T09:30:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, a dear friend forwarded me a picture with a caption that many of you have probably seen. It shows Michelle Obama serving meals at a soup kitchen, mugging for the camera as a man takes her picture with a camera phone. The Headline over the picture says something like "Michelle Obama Serves Meals at a Federally-Funded Soup Kitchen." Underneath is that ubiquitous paraphrasing of that credit card commercial:

A bowl of soup - $0.00

Having Michelle Obama serve your lunch - $0.00

Taking a picture of a homeless man getting a free meal at a federally-funded soup kitchen taking Michelle Obama's picture with a $500 Blackberry - Priceless!

I have paraphrased the text, but this is the gist of the message. The message of this short, quite effective little picture & text is quite clear and needs no explanation from me.

This little gem of propaganda led to an interesting exchange between my friend, who endorses the message, and myself. I want to say at the outset that my friend is one of the most compassionate people I know. She has worked in social services all of her life and is devoted to improving the lives of the disadvantaged.

When she sent the original email, her only comment was "Doesn't this just piss you off?"

My response was short - "No, why should it?"

Her terse response was - "Yeah, I guess it is OK for this guy to eat on my hard earned tax money."

Our back and forth after this involved some discussion of social issues which are not germane to the point I want to make here. The point I want to make here is how easy we are to manipulate.

I wrote her back saying my initial response to the picture/text was to look for some attribution to connect to the photo. I could find none. No attribution of the photo appeared in the post. You don't know who took the picture. I could find no story about the event in any media. The only articles I found were responses to the picture/text itself. I could find no information on who the 'homeless' man was, if indeed he was homeless, no information on whether he was actually there to get a free meal, whether the Blackberry was his or not, nothing on this man's situation.

I was also bothered by the stress on this being a "federally-funded" soup kitchen. I know something about federal food distribution and nutrition programs, and I am pretty sure that the federal government does not fund soup kitchens or food banks. These are routinely all privately funded. We haven't funded soup kitchens with federal money since the Great Depression. I may be wrong about this. I could find no evidence of such funding on a web search, so I researched the particular soup kitchen where this incident took place. I found out it is Miriam's Kitchen, it is in the basement of a Presbyterian church in northern Virginia, and it has run for a couple of decades on private donations.

I made these points to my friend in my next e-mail. She conceded my points, but made some points of her own. One of them was "How do I know the man was NOT as presented in the picture/text?" Her other point was that even if this particular story was not true, it does nothing to alter the basic truth of the message it makes. She goes on to draw on her experience in social work to say that she has known hundreds of people who are living on government hand outs and we should be working to empower them instead of giving them things.

It is here that I saw the parallels between her arguments and those of so many of the theists I have engaged in conversations about god(s)/goddess(es), faith and religion over the years.

I responded that I don't know if the guy was what the pic/text said he was. I had done my research, found one glaring deception which really destroys the whole point it attempts to make, and nothing about the man himself. Based on the one big deception, I have good reason to doubt that the man is what the pic/text says he is, but I can't say for sure because I could find no reliable information on him. No information, in fact, except what the pic/text provides. Sound familiar? I went on to note that the burden of proof is not on me, I am not making any definitive claim about the man's existence. I can't prove a negative. The burden of proof is on those who are making a positive claim as to the man's situation, not on me.

Also familiar from my encounters with theists was her defense of the main point of the pic/text even if it was a fiction. There is something about a story that resonates with our pre-existing ideas of how the world works, even if the story has no basis in real events. We like stories more than we like statistics, evidence, and reason. Her claim about all the people she has worked with who were jacking the system at her (and their) expense is no doubt true. I have worked with the same type of people for a long time. I asked her if she had any hard stats on how many people jack the system as compared to the ones that are truly disadvantaged and legitimately need help. This is a hard area to get hard stats on. I suspect that it is a continuum that would be hard to set definite borders around. This does not change the fact that her view is based on personal, anecdotal evidence, and I can make counter arguments based on a different perspective on the situation.

The main idea I was trying to make is that she likes the story's message, even if it is fiction, because it fits with her experience and world view, and I don't like the story because it is evidently false and is an attempt to manipulate opinion. It is not that I don't like stories, too, but I try to base my world view on fact, evidence, and reason. I don't know how successful I am at this, but I try. It is hard, because we all like stories more than statistics. We evolved that way. We all like stories that confirm our world view more than we like evidence that contradicts it.
Recent neurological experiments back up this claim.

As Stephen Jay Gould and others have noted, it is not religion itself which is our enemy, it is irrationality.

Mims

Mississippi Atheists on Twitter

2009-07-07T07:42:00.000-05:00

Mississippi Atheists is now on Twitter (@msatheists)! I held off on this mostly because I wasn't sure that it made sense for a team blog to have one Twitter account. However, Twitter is becoming so popular that I realized that we were missing out on a great marketing tool by not getting on board. Besides, I've set it up so that any post written here by any of our authors will automatically be distributed on our Twitter account.

Mississippi Constitution Discriminates Against Atheists

2009-07-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Image by Jim Frazier via Flickr

A reader, John, recently reminded me of something I've been meaning to address for some time. The Constitution of the State of Mississippi discriminates against atheists by explicitly stating that we are disqualified from holding office.

SECTION 265.
No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.

SOURCES: 1817 art VI §6; 1832 art VII §5; 1869 art XII §3.

Mississippi is not the only state engaging in this form of discrimination, but we are one of a shrinking number.

Given that the United States Constitution expressly forbids religious tests for qualification for office (Article VI, Clause 3), I would guess that legal challenges to our state law would be successful in federal court. Until then, we have the distinction of living in a state where discrimination is not merely legal but legally mandated.

My Brother: The Making of an Agnostic

2009-07-05T12:42:00.001-05:00

Image by Djuliet via Flickr

The following post was written by Mims H. Carter

My older brother is one of the nicest, kindest people I have ever known. He is over a dozen years older than me, so he grew up in the pre-counterculture era while I came of age in the middle of it. This may be partially responsible for the way our lives took such different courses. Until recently, I would have said also that it may be responsible for how our world views differed significantly. Now I find an interesting convergence coming on, especially in terms of our views on religion.

Without going in to great detail, and greatly simplifying things, Fred has always been what I would call a mainstream, middle-class, salt-of-the-earth member of society. He was a teacher and a coach. He lives in the mid-west, he married his high school sweetheart while he was still in college, has three grown children and a bunch of grandchildren, and has resided in the same little town for almost fifty years. He was never particularly interested in political issues, unless it intersected with his job security, and has been what could be called a pillar of his community all his adult life. He is the kind of guy everyone calls 'Coach'. He has been a respected member of his mainstream Protestant church since he was married in it, and until recently attended services every Sunday.

Over the last decade, particularly since he retired, he has started paying attention to things a little more closely. As I said, he was never particularly political, but he had an inherently conservative world view, and voted Republican most of the time. The only exception would be if the Republican candidate for governor in his state said anything negative about teacher's unions. We have lived in different parts of the country, or even different countries, for many years, and our phone conversations usually avoided talk of politics and religion and concentrated on what our families were up to and other such things, as he knew I was politically more left-wing than he was and also that I was an atheist.

As I said, recently he has changed. He started getting interested in politics. At first, he started talking about how his opinion of conservative commentators has changed. Before, he was the type of guy who would listen to Rush Limbaugh and get a kick out of him. Then he started really listening and discovered he did not like what the man was saying. He turned against Fox News, which used to compete with ESPN for his TV's default position. He started out just disliking the negativity of the commentary, then he started to question the whole conservative ideology. Now he calls me to ask if I saw the Rachel Maddow show the night before. With religion, he started to talk to me about some of the discomfort he felt with conservative christianity. He had some personal encounters with more fundamentalist and evangelical members of his community that made him a bit angry. He started to side with me against the religious whackos, whereas before, he was like the mainstream christians Harris and other rail against for failing to call these folks on their radical ideas. His church is, as I said, more mainstream Protestant. He has always believe in the god of his church, but has never been prone to thinking too deeply on theological issues. He believes in god, he goes to his church, and he has always enjoyed the church community.

Last week he called me and said that he has started to change his ideas of even mainstream christianity, due to an incident that happened in his church. His pastor invited a young woman, who had been an active member of the church's youth community for years until she went off to college, to speak to the church during its regular Sunday service. This young woman had graduated from college and had gone abroad in a humanitarian service role for an international non-profit agency, and was visiting her home town for a while. During her talk to the congregation, she made a point of mentioning she was a lesbian. Many members of the church were outraged, and it led in the end to the pastor's removal. My brother was outraged. He started to look at his fellow church goers a little differently.. His conversations with me now sound like someone starting to question the whole thing. He says he doesn't attend the church as much anymore, and when he does, he feels uncomfortable. I think he is just showing his face there occasionally because he does not want to make a statement with his total absence. He is not the kind of guy who makes statements. He has generalized his doubts from his own church to all churches. He is starting to question whether organized religion is a valuable thing for society. He says he still believes in god, that he won't change that, but he is more and more seeing my point on religion. He was defensive with me about the god thing at first, wanting me to know he hasn't come all the way over the fence to my side. I explained to him that I was not opposed to the belief in god, it was actions like the one his church took with the pastor, and the knee-jerk opposition to a homosexual woman even speaking in their church, that I objected to.

It will be interesting to see how this evolves. He has climbed to the top of the fence to see what the other side looks like, and he sees that it isn't the wasteland he had always thought it was. In fact, there are a lot of familiar looking things over there, as his little brother has always told him there were. Whether his next step is to sit on the fence for a while is something I don't know, but I know that even if he decides to stay on the side where he has always lived, he won't look at it the same way from now on.

Mims

Something Else to Celebrate

2009-07-04T07:42:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

It looks like we are due for a hot and dry July 4th here in Mississippi. The hot part is to be expected this time of year, but it seems like forever since we've had any rain (at least here in Hattiesburg). I fear that my neighbors' excessive use of fireworks will not be deterred by what has to be extreme fire danger.

Amidst whatever celebrating you plan to do today, I just wanted to call your attention to something else worth celebrating. According to an article by Katrina vanden Huevel in the most recent edition of The Nation,

...there are now more nontheists in America than Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Mormons and Jews combined...

I'm sure you've probably heard this before. But have you stopped for a moment and really let it sink in? I'm not sure I have, but that is one of the things on my to-do list for today.

H/T to Friendly Atheist

Most Americans Do Not Believe In Evolution

2009-07-03T06:54:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Pharyngula reports the results of an international survey conducted by the British Council assessing people's opinions about evolution. The results are not surprising, but they certainly aren't encouraging either. More than half of Americans do not believe in evolution. I desperately want to believe that we can do better, but I recognize that considerable effort will be required.

Anyone in Jackson Willing to Scout Billboard Locations?

2009-07-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

I think it would be great to have an atheist billboard in Mississippi. It looks like the Freedom From Religion Foundation is interested in placing a billboard in every state and is especially interested in state capitals. According to their web page on the subject, this is what they need from us:

1. When you're out and about, take note of promising billboard sites and locations. Contact the billboard company (whose name is on the bottom of the board) to ask about availability and costs. Most companies will shoot you an email with a photograph, estimated daily traffic figures, and monthly costs. This information can be forwarded to Annie Laurie Gaylor.

If the board you're interested in isn't available, ask the company for suggestions of promising sites. FFRF relies on a local contact to scope out billboard locations and confirm they are in a good spot, that trees, etc., aren't obscuring their view, etc.

Once a location is agreed on, FFRF asks for a nonprofit rate (sometimes extended), and signs the contract directly.

What's a good site? As a nonprofit, FFRF has managed to find moderately priced billboards, but some have been less expensive in rural areas and a few flashy boards in urban areas far more expensive. A smaller "poster" billboard by the side of a downtown building in a nice area may actually be better than a high-priced billboard on a freeway. It's a bonus if the billboard location permits easy access for photographs by media (and souvenir photographs by members!).

Accessibility and visibility of a billboard site is probably more important than traffic estimates for FFRF purposes. Thousands may zoom past a billboard on the highway without heeding our sign. But a smaller billboard in a pleasant, well-known urban location (particularly by state capitols or courthouses, landmarks or tourist sites) may attract more media attention.

2. You may donate toward the billboard campaign. Some of the billboards placed in the past year by FFRF have been suggested and paid for entirely or partly by generous local members. Others have been paid for via the Billboard Fund, a pool of contributions collected for this purpose. (Just earmark your check or Paypal contribution for the "Billboard Fund.") All donations to the Foundation are deductible for income-tax purposes.

What do you think? Anyone in the Jackson area willing to do some scouting?

How Do We Get an Atheist Billboard in Mississippi?

2009-06-30T18:23:00.000-05:00

Arkansas has one. So does Louisiana. Florida just got one. Where is Mississippi's atheist billboard? I'd sure like to see one in our state. We have plenty of crazy billboards, and it would be nice to see one promoting reality. I wonder what would be involved in getting an atheist billboard in Mississippi. I also wonder if raising the money for one would be the primary obstacle or whether we would even find a company in our state that would rent the necessary ad space.

I suppose we might not yet have the infrastructure in terms of organized atheist groups in our state to pull something like this off. Maybe that is the goal we should be working toward now.

Barbour Considering GOP Presidential Run?

2009-06-26T07:25:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Could our own Haley Barbour be considering a presidential run in 2012? Gulf South Free Press notes that that he's been in Iowa and New Hampshire recently and may be laying the groundwork for just such a run. As appealing as it might be to get him out of Mississippi, I cannot imagine wanting to inflict him on the rest of the U.S.

As I said in a recent comment I left on Gulf South Free Press, I really hope that Barbour leaves politics behind. I want to make sure he is available when those casting for the next Dukes of Hazzard film are looking for their Boss Hogg. He'd be perfect.

Promoting Atheism in Mississippi

2009-06-19T07:59:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Friendly Atheist recently addressed an article by Crystal Dervetski of the Minnesota Atheists on the subject of promoting atheism. I found myself wondering how some of the suggestions might or might not apply here in Mississippi. I tend to think that the intensity of public hostility toward atheist might vary somewhat between Minnesota and Mississippi, but I have not spend enough time in Minnesota to do more than speculate.

Crystal's first tip certainly seems to apply:

First, be positive! There’s nothing worse than a negative atheist, mostly because that is exactly the atheist stereotype: doom and gloom, mean-spirited, angry with the world. So don’t be!

I'd argue that atheists should be angry about anti-atheist bigotry, threats to church-state separation, and the like. Of course, the trick is turning that anger into effective activism and not merely sinking into passive bitterness.

Be open-minded and willing. You won’t ever learn new things or meet new people without, at least at times, just going for it.

Absolutely! By remaining open to new experiences, we open ourselves up to all sorts of positive experiences. Of course, I'd suggest doing this because it will make us more effective and not because I am worried about confirming some sort of "lonely atheist" stereotype.

It seems to me that one of the best initial steps one can take to promote atheism in a place like Mississippi is simply to recognize that other atheists are here. I know it often feels like you are alone, but there are others with the same thoughts about gods who may feel just as alone. The bulk of Crystal's article deals with starting local atheist groups, and she has some good suggestions.

Undoubtedly, there are obstacles to forming local atheist groups. There may even be some that pose greater barriers in Mississippi compared with Minnesota. Still, the few atheist groups in our state prove that it is not impossible.

Growing Right-Wing Hate?

2009-06-13T09:24:00.000-05:00

Image by Philipp Klinger (in US & CDN 14/06 till 04/07) via Flickr

What do you think about the media's sudden interest in reporting on right-wing hate? Is it just a passing fancy, or is it really getting worse? Are those of you in Mississippi seeing any sort of shift in local attitudes or the expression of those attitudes? I am still trying to figure out if the fact that we are hearing more about it is merely an effect of the recent high-profile acts of domestic terrorism or if things really are getting worse.

Until recently, I found myself thinking that increased media coverage is primarily a result of the recent domestic terrorism and not any real increase in right-wing extremism. But now it sounds like some of the groups who monitor this sort of thing are reporting increased extremist chatter. You can find the Homeland Security report here.

In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Paul Krugman noted,

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

It strikes me that this is a potentially dangerous time, not only for those of us who live in particularly conservative regions but also for those of us who vale free speech and want to make sure it is preserved. No easy answers here.

Atheists More Peaceful

2009-06-08T21:08:00.004-05:00

"The 2009 Global Peace Index has just been released. It's basically a ranking of how turbulent and warlike a country is.

They put it together by assessing 23 criteria, including foreign wars, internal conflicts, respect for human rights, the number of murders, the number of people in jail, the arms trade, and degrees of democracy (Guardian).

You can see a world map of peace at the Vision of Humanity website, and also take a look at country rankings for 2009, as well as earlier years.

New Zealand came top this year. Hmm, New Zealand is a pretty secular country. In fact, if you eyeball the rankings, the top few countries are all pretty secular."

I checked with a reliable source in NZ who flatly states that the statistics are a bit skewed because Kiwis are actually just more lazy and find all that sitting, kneeling, praying and singing dodgy songs business on a gorgeous Sunday morning quite problematic. I can buy that.

Anyway, take heart all of you atheists and meek and mild misfits that don't believe in any of the God(s)ess(es), turns out we don't have to bomb those waffling agnostics after all!

This calls for a peace anthem!

Americans United Applauds Court Decision on 10 Commandments

2009-06-08T18:35:00.007-05:00

"Americans United for Separation of Church and State today praised a federal appeals court for striking down a government display of the Ten Commandments in Haskell County, Okla.

Reversing a lower court, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously declared unconstitutional the eight-foot-tall religious display, which was erected at the local courthouse in 2004 after a campaign by a local minister and his supporters."

This is outstanding news for religious adherents of assorted perspectives along with atheists, secular humanists and those who cherish liberty and freedom of conscience.

I'm aware that there will possibly be some backlash from the evangelicals opining for their Christian Nationalism and promoting the downfall of our great country as it backslides into godless chaos and tyranny.

That said, is there an actual Christian foundation (aka teachings from Jesus) for imposing idols, graven images and religious ideology via governmental authority?

I don't think that there can never be such a thing as a “Christian Nation” because such a place would have to be imposed by legislative decree.

After many years of comparative religious study, my understanding is that being “Christian” is based on an individual spiritual and personal decision which would directly conflict with the concept of a Christian governing body issuing dictates by compelling statute, symbolic inference and force of arms.

Piece be with you always

2009-06-07T08:58:00.009-05:00

"As a Christian pastor I believe that without a deep-seeded belief in God and firearms that this country would not be here," Pagano told ABCNews.com. "I'm not ashamed of that fact. I'm proud of it."

With these words and efforts, Kentucky Pastor Ken Pagano, hopes to sow the seeds of patriotism and pride by encouraging Christians to bring their guns to church.

This, in my view, is the latest example of the flaws inherent in stirring religious rhetoric with political goals and the trend of turning the bully pulpit sermon and homily into a stump speech.

Granted, this emotive rhetoric does an efficient job of making the flock fearful and angry enough to go wherever they're pointed to defeat "evil" as soldiers in the red blooded American Army of God party.

That said, I have to ask, is Pastor Pagano actually correct in his scriptural interpretation and call to action?

Is the Christian church the right venue for promoting God and guns?

The Next Governor of Alabama?

2009-06-06T11:23:00.002-05:00

Could this be the next governor of Alabama?

H/T to Dispatches from the Culture Wars

MS Gulf Coast Atheist and Freethinking Association June Meeting

2009-06-02T14:18:00.000-05:00

The Mississippi Gulf Coast Atheist and Freethinking Association is planning their June meeting for Sunday, June 14, 2009, at 3:00 PM in Gulfport. For details, see their Meetup.com page.

Atheist Billboard in New Orleans

2009-05-29T12:27:00.003-05:00

I am thinking I might have to drive down to New Orleans just to see this new billboard on I-10. From WDSU.com:

"The point of the billboard campaign is to reach out to the millions of humanists, atheists and agnostics living in the United States," said Fred Edwords, head of the United Coalition of Reason. "Nontheists sometimes don't realize there's a community out there for them because they're inundated with religious messages at every corner."

Central MS Atheists to Hold June Meeting in Jackson

2009-05-28T06:57:00.000-05:00

The Central MS Atheist Meetup Group plans to hold their next meeting on June 24, 2009, at 7:00 PM in Jackson. For the location of the meeting, see their Meetup.com page. It sounds like they are expecting this one to be fairly well attended.

Advice for Atheists New to Mississippi

2009-05-23T06:17:00.000-05:00

I have received some e-mails from atheists who have recently moved to Mississippi from outside the deep South. Some simply want to know what to expect from an area that seems quite inhospitable to atheists. Others are looking for specific coping strategies, the most common of which involves where to find like-minded people to reduce feelings of isolation. I do my best to respond to all such queries and provide as much information as I can. However, such correspondence has led me to acknowledge that my limitations in these areas are many and my answers few. I thought it would be helpful for those of us contributing to Mississippi Atheists to do what we can to address such questions.

As someone who moved to Mississippi as an adult (and an atheist), I am in a decent position to address some of the issues involved with making the transition. At the same time, I am poorly equipped to address some of the social aspects of life in Mississippi as an atheist. I've never had a particularly strong need for affiliation, and many of my favorite activities are solitary pursuits. In this area, I can convey information reasonably well, but most of it does not come from personal experience.

I'm an Atheist Moving to Mississippi. What Can I Expect?

If you are relocating to Mississippi from outside the deep South, here are some things to expect:

Religion is an extremely important part of the daily lives of most Mississippians. Our state scores at the top of surveys asking respondents to rate the importance of religion in their daily lives. Note that this is very different from asking respondents about the importance of religion in some abstract way. This means that you can expect to be exposed to religion every day. This even holds true of the workplace.
Fundamentalist Christianity reigns supreme here. The Southern Baptists are very influential, and protestant denominations that might have been fairly liberal in other regions of the U.S. are so much more conservative as to almost be unrecognizable here.
When meeting someone for the first time, you can expect to be asked where you attend church within the first couple minutes. If you have been here more than a couple of days, you have probably already experienced this. If not, it is just a matter of time. I have found that nearly any response you give will be followed by the other party inviting you to attend their church.
Door-to-door proselytizing is an extremely frequent occurrence. Before adopting countermeasures, I could count on visits every week or two.
Anti-atheist bigotry is widespread. You can expect to hear atheist-bashing regularly, and it is not uncommon for Christians to either actively try to convert you or cut off all communication with you upon learning of your atheism.
There are other atheists in Mississippi. It may not be easy to find us, as most of us do not go around broadcasting it, but we are here.

This is Lonely. How Do I Find Other Atheists?

This is an area which I'd particularly like my co-authors to help me expand. Like I said, it is not my strength. Still, here is what I'd suggest:

Check out Meetup.com and see if there are any active groups in your area. Do not limit yourself by searching only for atheists. Look for humanists, skeptics, freethinkers, and the like. If you have an active group in your area, this is a great place to start.
How far are you from the nearest university? Most universities, even those in Mississippi, will have a higher concentration of atheists than you'll find in the community. Most universities also host a variety of public events. Some even have secular student groups that may periodically sponsor public events.
Visit the website of the local newspaper in your town. If they have any sort of online forum where people can post comments, you may well find other atheists there.
Check out Atheist Nexus and/or Think Atheist. Both have groups for Mississippi atheists (In fact, I think I created both of them). Again, this can be an effective way to connect with others in your area.
Leave comments here at Mississippi Atheists introducing yourself. Even if the authors don't know anyone in your area, other visitors might.
Above all, don't give up. I know it can be rough, but even having one person around whom you can be yourself makes such a difference.

Now, I invite my co-authors, visitors to the site, etc. to help me expand this in any way you see fit. Together, we can make a difference. And yes, please feel free to continue to e-mail me directly if you'd prefer. I don't have all the answers, but I'll certainly try to help.

Introducing the Jackson Skeptical Society

2009-05-21T07:37:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

The Jackson Skeptical Society is not exactly a new organization. They were formed in January of 2009. However, since I just found out about them, I figured it was as good a time as any to announce their presence. Their goal is simple:

We aim to provide the city of Jackson and the area at large with a resource for critical thinking to allay the superstition of our times.

This is exactly what we need in our state. I just added their blog, Living Better Skeptically, to our list of Southern blogs worth reading.

What I've learned from Mississippi Churches about Community

2009-05-17T12:01:00.008-05:00

PZ Myers talks about the lack of correlation between religion and intelligence.
Journeyman Philosopher talks about the lack of correlation between religion and morality.

So... religion isn't the key to intelligence nor is it the key to morality. And you already know that I think Christianity is strange. And yet thousands of Mississippians are going to wake up on Sunday morning, find a church, sit through the service, praise a god, and then find something to eat afterward.

With the exception of "praise a god", I'm going to do the same thing, just like I've done every weekend for the past few years. I find a Mississippi church and sit through the service. In the back of my mind, I say, "This will be the service that convinces me that there's a god above." It's my effort to keep an open mind on supernatural matters. Each week I walk away having learned more about the church that I visited than anything supernatural. In two years of actively visiting churches, interviewing preachers and reading Christian apologetics books, I have found nothing that requires me to conclude that supernatural forces exist. I've blogged about many of those experiences here at Mississippi Atheists. There was one church that I attended that I've yet to blog about. Just for the record, I visited the local Oxford Church of the Nazarene but never wrote a post about them. I reached a point where there was nothing new to say.

If there is one positive aspect to religion, it's this: religion provides a unified community framework. Sure, the basis for that religion may be mythology, but the unified community framework is still there. Despite no interest in worshiping mythology, atheists, agnostics and freethinkers still seek that sense of community. I now know a handful of nonbelievers who attend the local Episcopalian church because they are tolerant to the views of others. I've started attending the local Unitarian congregation where I am encouraged to be open about my non-belief. It really is like having my cake and eating it too. I get the community involvement where I can openly discuss spiritual matters without having to worship mythology. I also visit The Orchard, a local Methodist affiliation. They have an active community outreach program that focuses on service.

But let's not forget the negatives. I think back to my visit to the Yellow Leaf Baptist Church. Here's a church that is warm and hospitable, and yet they have a warped view of history. This church wants us to believe that the United States was founded as an exclusively Christian nation. One of the things the pastor warned me about was people trying to rewrite the history of our country when it was he who lacked the understanding of basic US history. Their religion supports this strange viewpoint, so I doubt they will ever change. I also think back to my second visit to the First Baptist Church. I blogged about them once and they personally invited me back. The second time around, the pastor had an anti-homosexual, anti-secular subtext to his sermon that I found to be offensive. If this view is representative of the entire church, then I certainly don't want to be part of that congregation. I want to tell the pastor that if he keeps preaching an anti-secular message, he'll never win a new convert. Better yet, I shouldn't tell him anything.

Michael Shermer once said, "Religion is good when it does good, and bad when it does bad." From what I've seen in almost 20 Mississippi churches, I can vouch for that remark. There's a book titled, "They Like Jesus But Not the Church." It's a series of interviews with people who don't attend church and why they do not. Here's a message that I would like to tell to Christians: I'm no longer interested in your Jesus, but I am interested in your church. What do you have to show us? Where do you get community right and where have you been wrong? The one thing that I feel the freethought community in Mississippi lacks is a real presence in the greater community.

One last thing: three different members from the Oxford Church of the Nazarene have sent me personal e-mails asking me to return. They are certainly an example of positive community.

Olive Branch Atheists Has Closed

2009-05-12T07:08:00.000-05:00

I just received word from Meetup.com that the Olive Branch Atheists Meetup Group has closed due to lack of an organizer. I suppose it is also possible that the group simply decided to ditch Meetup.com. If this is the case and the group would like me to continue to post announcements about meetings on this blog, please feel free to email them to me at atheistrevolutionATgmail.com.