When I first started writing and speaking to groups about my departure from the faith, I spent the bulk of my time trying to make the still-devout realize how dehumanizing is their image of apostates. I talked about the ways Christians misunderstand us, putting words into our mouths and motives into our hearts that we are not willing to own. [ iTunes | spreaker | youtube | pdf ] But these are all highly subjective discussions and, while they serve a… Read more
August 9, 2019
It’s Not Just a Phase, Mom!
August 9, 2019 By Neil Carter
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Anyone with the nerve to “come out” as an atheist to religious friends and family knows how much it grates to be told: “We all go through periods of doubt. It’s just a phase. You’ll come back around.” When you look up the word “patronize” in the dictionary, this comment should be one of the first examples they give. But then again, Christianity has never been very good at respecting personal boundaries. Why would they value the opinions of a… Read more
July 28, 2019
Help Me Do What I Do
July 28, 2019 By Neil Carter
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The school year is fast approaching, and for my day job I teach high school Algebra. Then I write in my “spare time” when I probably should be doing something else to help pay the bills (have you ever seen what teachers in Mississippi make?). Aside from a full panel of Daddy duties, I try to use any free time I get to catch up on the writing I haven’t had the time to do during the rest of the… Read more
July 26, 2019
Episode 11: The Absurdity of a Perfect Bible
July 26, 2019 By Neil Carter
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Even on its own terms, an inerrant Bible is an absurdity. I’ll explain what I mean in just a second. [ iTunes | spreaker | youtube | pdf ] First, not everyone feels obligated to give the Bible the benefit of the doubt. They will first look at the external evidence, and when they do they will find that major elements of the biblical narrative go astray from the facts as we know them. For them, that’s enough to warn them… Read more
July 24, 2019
Twenty One Pilots and the Evolution of Evangelism
July 24, 2019 By Neil Carter
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Last week, an excellent Q&A post about evangelism got widely passed around which came from, of all places, Quora. Someone asked: “Why do people get angry when I try to share the word of God with them?” Doug Robertson from Florida left an excellent reply, excerpted below: The entire process is not what you think it is. It is specifically designed to be uncomfortable for the other person because it isn’t about converting them to your religion. It is about manipulating… Read more
July 21, 2019
Episode 10: Why Smart People Believe Nonsense
July 21, 2019 By Neil Carter
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Over dinner one night, I found myself explaining to someone raised outside of a devoutly religious environment that religious people are not stupid simply because they believe nonsensical things. [ iTunes | spreaker | youtube | pdf ] I’ve had this same conversation several times now, each time with a different person whose professional life has increasingly come to focus on critiquing religion. Each time I’ve encountered the same bewilderment, and each time I’ve covered the same ground in an attempt… Read more
July 19, 2019
Episode 9: How Faith Breaks Your Feeler
July 19, 2019 By Neil Carter
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In my last post, I enumerated about a dozen ways faith normalizes bad thinking, teaching us to view what the rest of the world deems logical fallacies as simply “the way you’re supposed to think.” My contention is that growing up in church diminishes your capacity to detect and question factual inconsistencies, effectively breaking your irony meter and ultimately rendering an entire voting bloc susceptible to con artists and charlatans of every kind. [ iTunes | spreaker | youtube | pdf… Read more
July 17, 2019
Episode 8: How Faith Breaks Your Thinker
July 17, 2019 By Neil Carter
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Someone wrote me recently to ask: What drives you to be so adamant in sharing your atheistic beliefs? What is the driving force behind you? To influence others to be nonbelievers?? I have so much to say about this it will take more than one post to get it all out, and this one won’t be short. [ iTunes | spreaker | youtube | pdf ] Two Reasons Why I Write First of all, to me this question implies that,… Read more
July 14, 2019
Episode 7: How Christianity Teaches You to Hate Yourself
July 14, 2019 By Neil Carter
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One of the great joys of living in the Bible Belt is that you can hear Christian music played overhead almost anywhere you go. One day not to long ago I had to make stops at a coffee shop, a gym, a doughnut place (I know, the irony), a fried chicken place, a clinic office, and a pharmacy, and every single one of those places was playing Christian music. [ iTunes | spreaker | youtube | pdf ] There are banks in my… Read more
July 10, 2019
Saints and Sinners: An Arbitrary Distinction
July 10, 2019 By Neil Carter
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Last week in a Chicago suburb, a Baptist pastor’s wife was charged with sexual assault of a minor as well as solicitation of child pornography. Students recall that Shannon Griffin, who taught kindergarten at the unaccredited school associated with her husband’s church, would often reprimand young women for their lack of modesty in dress, making it all the more ironic that investigators found evidence she shared nude videos of herself with students from the school. Subsequent discussion of this discovery followed… Read more
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