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
July 8, 2019
Looking for a Kids’ Camp in Florida or South Carolina?
July 8, 2019 By Neil Carter
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If you have followed Godless in Dixie for long, you know I’ve been a big fan of summer camps aimed at kids looking for non-religious alternatives to the church-sponsored kind that dominate my area of the country. For the last two summers, I’ve taken a week off to be a counselor at Camp Quest (now Camp 42 in the Southeastern United States), and I’d have done it again this summer if my schedule had allowed. But there are still camps… Read more
July 8, 2019
Episode 6: What I Lost When I Lost My Faith
July 8, 2019 By Neil Carter
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I’ve written before about how I can identify with Buzz Lightyear in the movie Toy Story. He came out of the box fully programmed to believe he was an elite intergalactic space ranger when in reality he was only a child’s plaything that ran on batteries. When the reality of his existential situation finally crashed in upon him, he nearly lost the will to live. If he wasn’t a space ranger, then what was he? Just a toy? How utterly… Read more
July 2, 2019
Episode 5: What I Gained When I Lost My Religion
July 2, 2019 By Neil Carter
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People often ask me if my life is better now that I’ve left my religion. My honest answer is that it’s a mixed bag. [ iTunes | spreaker | youtube | pdf ] On the negative side, I have to say that the reactions of people who liked me better when I still had faith have been at times very strong. I become their latest project—a target for re-evangelism for a while—but they soon learn to quit pushing me after they realize… Read more
June 29, 2019
Episode 4: Leaving My Religion Was Nothing Like Entering It
June 29, 2019 By Neil Carter
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People love to say that atheism is a religion. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the smug assertion “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.” I know what they’re trying to do, but I always want to ask them, “Does that mean faith is a bad thing now, or is something you can have too much of?” It seems to me they are using a definition of faith which means “drawing conclusions before collecting enough information to… Read more
June 25, 2019
Episode 3: We Did As We Were Told
June 25, 2019 By Neil Carter
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Those of us who broke up with Jesus (he wouldn’t return our calls) are accustomed to having our motives and our sincerity questioned by those still happy with their faith. We get it all the time. [ spreaker | youtube | googledoc | pdf | mp3 ] We hear that we weren’t authentic enough, or we weren’t fully surrendered to the will of God, or we had some unconfessed sin in our lives, or whatever. Maybe we just didn’t go to the right… Read more
June 22, 2019
Episode 2: The Two Main Reasons I Left My Faith
June 22, 2019 By Neil Carter
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In the last installment, I gave my reasons why I broke up with Jesus. I was being tongue-in-cheek, but if you grew up in evangelical Christianity you know exactly why I put it that way. For us, the Christian message was framed as an invitation to a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe. It wasn’t until after we accepted the invitation that they turned around and shamed us for wanting such a thing. [ spreaker | youtube |… Read more
June 20, 2019
Episode 1: Why I Broke Up with Jesus
June 20, 2019 By Neil Carter
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About nine years ago, I broke up with Jesus. People often ask me why. There were plenty of reasons but one of the main ones was that he wouldn’t return my calls. [ spreaker | youtube | google doc | pdf | mp3 ] Since I couldn’t get in touch with him, I asked some of his friends to explain to me why he wouldn’t get back to me, but their answers were never helpful. Each one had a different explanation and… Read more
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