This past Sunday I spoke at the Universalist Unitarian Church in Ellisville, Mississippi (and yes, that’s the correct order for the name of this church), and we managed to get a recording of the talk (sorry, audio only). I’m including it here as the next episode in the Godless In Dixie podcast, soon to be followed by the next posts in the blog series. [ iTunes | Spreaker | YouTube ] Stay tuned for more episodes and posts to come!… Read more
September 7, 2019
Are You Godless in Southeast Mississippi?
September 7, 2019 By Neil Carter
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If you live in the Deep South like me, you always want to know when a group of freethinker types are getting together. And as it turns out, tomorrow morning (Sunday the 8th) at 11am I’ll be speaking at Our Home Unitarian Universalist Church in Ellisville, MS. If you’re looking for something to do tomorrow and if you live in the general vicinity of southeast Mississippi, you should come on out and get to know some new folks! I’ll be… Read more
August 23, 2019
Episode 13: What Lot’s Wife Tells Us About the Bible
August 23, 2019 By Neil Carter
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Years ago Robert Fulghum wrote a best-selling book entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It was a clever title, even if a bit hyperbolic. I certainly hope he learned at least a few more things since those first few years of his life, but I still like his title. In fact, I like it so much I’m going to follow his lead and offer a perspective of my own: All I really need to know about the Bible… Read more
August 20, 2019
Episode 12: None of This Really Happened
August 20, 2019 By Neil Carter
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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
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