ON THE AVENUES: Godlessness in defense of heathens, infidels, idolaters, atheists, non-theists, irreligious people, agnostics, skeptics, heretics and apostates.

Until someone proves me wrong, I’m operating under the assumption that I am New Albany’s most famous atheist.

Thank you; thank you very much. As absolutely nothing is my witness, this content will remain free and I’ll not be asking you for money.

I've never been shy about it.

I try to be who I am, all of the time, publicly and privately. In part, this is to offer explicit support and solidarity with those who feel they cannot openly embrace their absence of religious belief. In my case, this absence has been lifelong. Once I was in grade school, the concept of "god" stopped making sense to me.

However, being an atheist should not matter, and it does not matter -- except, of course, when it does, as yesterday when the forever culpable News and Buffoon emitted this tweet.

Nothing identifies this link as "opinion," which it most certainly is, as emitting from the prolific evangelical pen of Tom May, who is published so often at this propaganda portal that he surely must possess compromising photos of the publisher reading a book other than the bible.

This and other recent social media utterances serve to remind me that there are occasions during the course of my always eventful existence in Nawbany when otherwise inexplicable behavior on the part of others can be explained only by their disapproval of my atheistic proclivities.

I might go into greater detail, but it’s unnecessary. I'm fairly certain that opportunities have gone by the wayside owing to these instances of disapproval. But also know that no sleep has been lost over them; I'm a contrarian, and a combative and defiant sort. Of course, maybe atheism has nothing to do with it, and they merely dislike the way I roll.

A slim chance, although a chance nonetheless.

All I can do is shrug. Consider today's words to be philosophical musings, nothing more. It wouldn't be the first time that honesty raised hackles or inspired push-back.

---

Following is a letter I wrote to the underachieving Jeffersonville newspaper in 2017.

Subtle bigotry against atheists is still discrimination

Figures vary, but nine of ten Americans might believe in God. At least that’s what they say when asked. Many of these believers are Christian.

If another recent study is accurate, 69% of view a belief in God as necessary to be a genuine American.

This is highly disconcerting. Throughout history, atheists have been subject to criticism, persecution and at times overt eradication at the hands of believers of all faiths.

At the very least, atheists often experience a more subtle form of bigotry. For instance, a survey showed more than 30% of respondents preferring atheists be banned from the teaching profession.

Insecurity, intolerance and outright humbuggery always have been regrettable components of human society, and while majoritarian disapproval of atheism isn’t (yet) comparable to racism, sexism and other forms of institutionalized violence, it represents a form of discrimination characterized by ignorance, and one deserving of periodic counterpoint.

The News and Tribune sees fit to publish not one, but two Christian advocacy columns on a weekly basis. When I made my dismay known in a social media comment, I was told by a reporter that this makes perfect sense because many readers are Christians.

Interestingly, research published in the archive of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science suggests that more Americans (and newspaper readers) are atheists than may seem apparent, perhaps as many as 25 – 30%.

That’s because the stigma of atheism, as perpetuated by believers, causes many atheists to pretend they’re pious.

How very sad, indeed.

Some particularly virulent true believers don’t like heretics even when they’re properly cooked – and indeed, we unbelievers have been fire-roasted oft times throughout history. It’s mighty totalitarian in nature, this stubborn unwillingness on the part of so many “godly” people to compromise on questions that have tended to result in them directing violence against others in the name of their own unknowable deity.

Then again, I’m just one of those contrarian communistic freethinking threats to human decency … and damned proud of it.

Certainly I’m not the first person to place a tattered bookmark in my cherished copy of Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, make an espresso, and proceed to the computer to search for images of Francisco Goya’s "Los Caprichos" series of 18th-century etchings.

That’s because in Chapter 14, Hitchens specifically refers to Plate 43 of Goya’s series. It is called "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters," and shows a "man in defenseless slumber … hag-ridden by bats, owls and other haunters of the darkness."

The author’s actual point in citing this effective visual aid is to take a view contrary the etching’s originally intended symbolic properties, namely, to offer that human reason always is the subject of fear and distrust when viewed through the distorted lens of man’s religious impulse, and that human reason has been derided accordingly throughout mankind’s damaging religious experience.

Damaging? Of course. Just ask the aforementioned "heretic" who was burned for believing what science in due time came to confirm.

One aspect of my upbringing for which I’m eternally grateful was the near complete absence of religious instruction. There was an old book in the house about the lives of the saints, and it included some fairly frightening scary drawings depicting the various ways that these saints were tortured and scourged, though they were not to Goya’s level of artistic proficiency.

I recall another volume of illustrated children’s Bible stories, and of course a Bible itself, presumably awarded my parents on their wedding day, and duly ignored by my parents forever after.

Beyond these three seldom consulted sources, there was nothing else on the topic of religion forced upon me, and I was permitted to grow to maturity with the luxury of making up my own mind, absent indoctrination.

Hitchens reminds us that Blaise Pascal is famous for supporting belief in god by means of a wager, or more appropriately, a conscious effort to cover the spread: If you believe in god and god exists, you win. If you believe in god and god doesn’t exist … well, what does it matter, anyway?

Bertrand Russell is equally famous for refuting this wager by positing that if, after he died, he unexpectedly met a god of one sort or another, he would chide the "supreme being" for providing insufficient evidence of her existence.

Hitchens follows suit by stating his own version of Russell’s words.

My own reply: Imponderable Sir, I presume from some if not all of your many reputations that you might prefer honest and convinced unbelief to the hypocritical and self-interested affectation of faith or the smoking tributes of bloody altars. But I would not count on it.

I wouldn’t, either. It’s interesting to me that in some measure, Goya was right, and my own personal demons spring from my reliance on reason. But that’s encouraging, because it means that reason, properly applied, can scatter and dispel them.

There is no other choice, is there? Here is an excerpt from Hitchens as he summarizes his case.

Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to be able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard – or try to turn back – the measurable advances that we have made. Sometimes, true, it will artfully concede them. But this is to offer itself the choice between irrelevance and obstruction, impotence or outright reaction, and, given this choice, it is programmed to select the worse of the two.

We're seeing this all too clearly in pandemic times, aren't we?

---

As a postscript, let's go back to the local chain newspaper's predominately older white male cast of (in some cases decades ensconced) opinion piece authors. I have no desire to be listed among them again, primarily because I suspect the pay scale is even more abysmal than it was back in 2009 - 2011.

However, strictly as a matter of principle, it's worth repeating that there really should be a weekly column counterpoint to Bill Hanson's thinly-veiled proselytizing -- and weekly, Susan, just like Tom May's evangelism is, not "you can write a letter to the editor any time you like."

Here's my stand, as published last August.

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to "Pagan Life," a weekly column devoted to heathens, infidels, idolaters, atheists, non-theists, irreligious people, agnostics, skeptics, heretics and apostates.

In my experience, atheists generally just want to be left alone, and prefer that religious belief remain a matter of private conscience and not a public policy lever.

It's funny how so many religions make public show of private conscience. Whatever. It's a pandemic holy-holi-day, and this atheist has penitent drinking to do.

---

Recent columns:

May 14: ON THE AVENUES: Food is my friend, but please, I'm no foodie.

May 7: ON THE AVENUES: COVID tolls for thee -- whatever, so hurry and get your ass back into this seat.

April 30: ON THE AVENUES: A week that was wooden like Pinocchio and dry as an unused water park or an unfilled glass.

April 23: ON THE AVENUES: Hemingway in a time of mercifully silent thunder.

God wearily responds to Susan Duncan: "Stop reading Facebook and pay attention to what's happening in New Albany -- and BTW, can you cut the evangelism crap?"

The embarrassment compounds alongside the heightened evangelism, and the newspaper's upper management remains rockheaded to the point of obliviousness.

Jeffersonville News and Tribune hits rock bottom as evangelism columnist Tom May argues for theocratic fascism, Pence-style.

You'll recall that the proselytizer May typically gets not one but two weekly column slots. The columnist was right there yesterday with a potentially interesting "From the Catbird Seat" column about the weekend's mass shootings, but even in this instance he managed to steer it toward Christian advocacy.

From the Catbird Seat: Shots in our darkness

 ... In the midst of researching the horrifying information for this article, the words of Daniel Webster appeared in the Google search. "If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is to become of us as a nation. If the power of the Gospel is not felt through the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end."

There's co-opting headlines to peddle superstition, and then there's just the plainly inane.

COLUMN: God reads Facebook, by Susan Duncan

... The meme personally attacks, albeit in lame fashion, a hardworking, intelligent young woman elected to Congress. Post what you will, but if you want to be more honest and true to your values, be more purposeful in what you share, and more diligent in monitoring comments on your page.

God must be bedeviled by what His followers post on Facebook.

That's right, an editorial expressing outrage about memes on Facebook, in this instance one attacking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Bad things on social media?

Think so?

Now THAT's a revelation (win wink, nudge nudge).

Lots of bad things going on locally, too.

Are we ready yet to talk about the amount of money passing annually from Gahan to the News and Tribune via the city's propaganda contractor?

Wait, what's that?

You say the newspaper is listening and making changes?

Yeah. Thrilled.That'll help, won't it?

It's Sunday, and the "Jeffersonville Good News and Proselytizing Tribune" has lots of content addressing the publisher's narrow version of Christianity.

When we first began exposing the pewspaper's propensity for weekly down home camp meetings (just imagine the Jehovah's Witness heading for your door but tripping on the rolled-up copy of Tom's and Nancy's sermon) one of the staffers replied on Twitter that since some readers are Christian, it's perfectly acceptable to offer two weekly Sunday evangelism columns.

But of course. Other readers are atheists, pagans or Zoroastrians; some ride motorcycles, savor S&M or birdwatch; there are square dancers, vintage automobile fetishists and stamp collectors.

None of THEM get a single column, much less two, but when it comes to advocating for the one true religion, Bill Hanson pulls the strings and employees who know better have little choice except cringing.

Millenarian sects wait patiently for a reign of holiness that never seems to arrive. Me? I just keep waiting for the newspaper to devote as much space to local Democratic Party corruption as it does to scratching the publisher's nonsensical itch.

Jeffersonville News and Tribune hits rock bottom as evangelism columnist Tom May argues for theocratic fascism, Pence-style.

Jeffersonville News and Tribune hits rock bottom as evangelism columnist Tom May argues for theocratic fascism, Pence-style.

Sheer drivel from Bill Hanson’s pastor. 

Does Tom May still rank a second "general interest" column in addition to the Sunday sermon?

When will free thinkers and non-theists get equal time, not with piecemeal "guest column" replies to the newspaper's two resident evangelists, but via a weekly counterpoint of our own?

COLUMN: Freedom, faith and our future by Tom May in the Jeffersonville Hansonian Devotional, soon to be renamed the Tom May Content Aggregation Mechanism

 ... Is there a way that a person of faith can be patriotic today? Across our country, people of the United States are encouraged to show their patriotism – their love for their country and the freedom that it represents – on this special time of the year, but is there a place for my faith to fit it to the celebrations?

Ominously, May continues.

When it comes to the general public, the majority of Americans affirm the belief of this definition. “True religious freedom means that all citizens must have freedom of conscience, which means being able to believe and practice the core commitments and values of your faith.” A slight majority of 55 percent held to this opinion. This definition is down from almost 70 percent in a similar survey in 2012. It appears that while most still agree, Americans are feeling less certain about the definition.

You just know what's coming.

We are not sure about what faith means in our culture. We are even less sure of how to live that faith each day. Perhaps it is because we are not doing as clear a job teaching our faith, handing the mantel to the next generation.

What should a person of faith do? Foremost the person of faith should not be silent. Tom Minnery, in his book, “Why You Can’t Stay Silent: A Biblical Mandate to Shape Our Culture,” writes, “Being salt and light in this age means contending responsibly for godly standards. There is no escaping the mixture of religion and politics, because nearly every law is the result of somebody’s judgment about what is good and what is bad.”

Famous evangelist Billy Graham’s son Franklin writes on his father’s website, “While followers of the Lord Jesus Christ should never resort to violence, we must do all we can to resist evil. As Mr. Pence has said, we are not to remain silent when moral anarchists are attempting to extinguish any influence of Biblical morality in our government, schools and businesses.”

May then relates a tired Red Skelton anecdote about the Pledge of Allegiance -- no, seriously.

But don't take this pagan's word for it. There was an impeccably faith-based reply at the pews-paper web site, and it's a powerful rejoinder.

As a pastor in town I'm very cautious in writing to the newspaper to share my opinions on religion. I use extreme caution so as not to offend people. I firmly believe in everyone's freedom of religion and their opinions.

I read Tom May pretty much every week. Our religious and theological traditions are very different and I find myself often disagreeing with him. Having said that, he is entitled to his perspective and I applaud his willingness to share his faith with others. He seems like a fine person and while I often disagree with him, it's just a simply different perspective.

His most recent article, however, crosses a line. Faith, freedom, and culture are, of course, worthy of conversation. In his observation on freedom of religion, I would agree that we are free to practice our religion without interference from the government. Yes. Absolutely. I would also say that religious freedom also accommodates people who are not people of faith. People of faith are free to practice their faith; people who are not people of faith have a right to not practice faith. The United States does not have an official religion and that is, I believe, a good thing. I don't know if we are in agreement to the right of people not to practice faith but we certainly agree that people should have the freedom to practice their faith as they so choose.

All of my education has been in seminaries----I entered the seminary at age 18. I am a person of faith and have always been. My entire adult life has been focused on different aspects of ministry. My faith is something I take seriously. Mr. May included this passage in his article that was very irritating. He wrote:

"Famous evangelist Billy Graham’s son Franklin writes on his father’s website, 'While followers of the Lord Jesus Christ should never resort to violence, we must do all we can to resist evil. As Mr. Pence has said, we are not to remain silent when moral anarchists are attempting to extinguish any influence of Biblical morality in our government, schools and businesses.' "

First, Mr. Pence is a politician. He is not a religious leader. He is not a person who has expressed a great deal of support for religious freedom. His verbiage 'any influence of Biblical morality,' is exclusive terminology. By Bible is he referring to both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament? If his concept includes the New Testament, he's leaving out people who are Jewish. Is he including the Koran? The Book of Mormon? Buddhism? Hinduism? When Mr. Pence was the Governor of Indiana his religious freedom bill was not about allowing people freedom of religion, but allowing religious people the right to discriminate against people whose lifestyles he found morally wrong. He was called out for it and had to backtrack. Having said all of this, Mr. Pence is a politician. As a minister I have found many politician's religious convictions to be as plentiful and reliable as $9 shoes. He shouldn't be cited as a religious leader.

And Franklin Graham. I didn't criticize is father. I think Billy Graham was an honorable man who found himself burned by may of his political connections. Badly burned. But Billy tried, really hard, to stay above the fray. Franklin has jumped into the fray and is more interested in political ideology than he is with God. He loves to quote Scripture----often grotesquely out of context----to make his point of view sound like Christianity. For many of us, Franklin Graham is the prototype preacher to NOT become.

As a person of faith, I really do believe people faith can and should attempt to influence ethical conversations and I am a profound fan of the religious liberty we have. This article, in my opinion, has lowered a rich, theological, ethical conversation into the partisan political morass our nation is currently wallowing in. Please know there are people of faith with differing perspectives who are willing to talk about their faith, share their ethical perspectives, and live patriotically, without falling into the partisan game of Mr. Pence and Mr. Graham.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. John Manzo

Ah, that dreary fraud Frankin Graham.

When theists and atheists alike agree that something smells, maybe it's time for Bill and Susan to re-examine a few of their faulty premises. Why is the local newspaper shilling for one variation of organized religion to the exclusion of others -- or none at all?

ON THE AVENUES: May, Kennedy, wigs and prayers, but where's the delightful infidel gardening column?

ON THE AVENUES: May, Kennedy, wigs and prayers, but where's the delightful infidel gardening column?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Lacking time on Thursday to complete the weekly column, I took to Facebook to apologize, vowing not to resort to encore performances.

But then it was Sunday morning, and the dander rose as I viewed my Twitter feed and saw the local chain newspaper's weekly touts for Christianity.

Today’s headlines cry out the burden, don’t they? If God is good, why is there evil in the world? And if there has to be evil, then why does it have to prosper? What is God thinking in allowing all of this to happen? Why doesn’t He do something? Why doesn’t He stop it?

-- News and Tribune religion columnist Tom May

And the bookend.

The Bible says that while we were still sinners, while we were still God’s enemies, actively opposing him, willingly disobeying his laws, even while we were refusing his grace, he sent his son to die for us. That man, Jesus, God in the flesh, loves us. It’s good to be reminded that he continues to go out of his way, as far as it takes, to demonstrate his love, all in an effort to bring those he loves safely home.

-- News and Tribune religion columnist Nancy Kennedy

I had no idea local churches contributed such a high volume of advertising revenue to the state of Alabama's fashionable Bobby Jones golf courses, thinking to myself, haven't I already written the rebuttal?

And if so, don't the readers of this blog have a right to my opinion?

Consider the answers a commandment: Thou shalt uncomplainingly endure a repeat of this column from last year. 

---

ON THE AVENUES: On a wig and a prayer, or where's the infidel gardening column?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor (August 31, 2017)

Lately I’ve been giving the News and Tribune a hard time about the newspaper's recent doubling of column slots for religious advocacy, from one to two – or, approximately two times as many as needed.

What about an “equal time for pagans” weekly bell ringer, or even better, the long overdue humanist food column, as suggested by the estimable Goliath?

Guys, I’m tanned, rested and ready -- and unlike Nancy Kennedy, I actually reside here.

Each week, I’d begin by refuting a theist’s fallacy, end by laughing at an effigy of Ken Ham, and fill space with tips on how to make the perfect Reuben sandwich out of leftover Tex-Mex.

But no. Instead, we get the same dreary inspirational tracts. In the customary absence of newspaper management participation on Twitter in any substantive give and take, one of the reporters offered this:

A large portion of our readers are Christian. If you have specific questions or complaints, I would advise you contact our editors via email.

(Arms folded ... me, complain?)

In terms of catering content to pre-existing conditions, probably a large portion of newspaper readers use their kitchen microwaves far more often than a Lynx Sedona 42-Inch Built-In Natural Gas Grill With One Infrared ProSear Burner And Rotisserie L700PSR, now only $3,399 at BBQGuys.com … and yet, there’s an informative regular barbecuing column, isn't there?

Besides, why can’t we have the column conversation in public? You know, the new give-and-take, not the old five-and-dime. Amid the secrecy, it's just frustrating imagining what might be possible with just a dollop of creativity.

Bill Hanson seems intent on transforming his fading newspaper into a vehicle for Christian proselytizing, while I enjoy rebutting proselytizers even as I remind them to #getoffmyporch, using a lighted cigar for pointed emphasis.

You’d think Bill and I could develop a nice Saintly Christian versus Ghastly Atheist shtick, but alas, the publisher’s sense of humor simply doesn’t approach that of Rollen Stewart’s – at least before the voices in Stewart’s head began outnumbering the ones cascading from the heavenly firmament.

"God wants me to block your view of this play."

Older readers may recall Stewart’s brief, shining career of athletic venue-style religious advocacy. For a decade or more, you couldn’t watch a major sporting event on your rabbit-eared, non-digital television set without seeing the man with the crazy rainbow Afro, always seated somewhere near the middle of the most prominent camera angle (behind home plate, under the basket, in the end zone), and always holding a sign touting John 3:16.

For the blessedly uninitiated, this name and number refer to a Bible verse that provides a handily terse defense of Christian doctrine, one designed to encourage all of us to sign on the dotted line and begin Osteen Vision Level tithing.

But the Afro was a mere wig, and Stewart himself proved to be even more of a nut job than most lucre-vangelists. In due time, his fanatical religious fervor regressed to the point of stink bomb attacks on the ungodly, and in 1992 – presumably in celebration of one or the other impending raptures – he was ingloriously arrested after an attempted kidnapping.

Because of this and other less-than-holy offenses, Stewart currently resides in prison, perhaps in California, but more likely on Fantasy Island. As one wag observed, “Jesus saves, but he can’t get Rollen Stewart out of jail.”

Just for old times’ sake, I’m considering an official Rollen Stewart model rainbow Afro for the next city council meeting, along with a placard espousing a random passage selected from the wit and wisdom of Robert’s Rules of Order. I’m serenely confident that the increasingly pious (or is it porous?) Dan Coffey won’t recognize what he’s never so much as once risked reading.

Except the third floor lacks television cameras.

If the meetings were filmed and Coffey’s antics disseminated to the world at large, at least Rollen Stewart’s religious dysfunction would be supplanted by the equally frustrating political variety celebrated within the friendly confines of the Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness.

---

Meanwhile, for atheists like me, the calendar pages may turn, but the conversation rarely changes.

It still surprises me when my theistic friends respond with annoyance whenever an atheist has the unmitigated gall to come out of the closet and seek equality in discourse.

That’s just a bit hypocritical, isn’t it?

Think of every religious adherent who has ever come knocking at your door while you’re busy eating, drinking, sleeping or fornicating in the privacy of our home.

Think of the transformational zeal of generations of ravenous Christians, traveling overseas for the sanctified purpose of subduing decadent native cultures, and conveniently spreading Western diseases even as they blamed the dying natives for falling sick, and urged them to immediately find God as the cure.

Think of how so much of the history of organized western religion is one of evangelical outreach, and by its very nature, how evangelism is invasive and intrusive with regard to the physical and intellectual space of non-believers.

Not only that, but in the ever widening search for market share, evangelists from one sect freely target those who ascribe to differing versions of ostensibly the same supernatural. You’d think that believing in any God would do, and yet it’s never enough for them.

Either way, if an atheist dares to attempt an explanation of why he or she doesn’t believe in any of it, out comes the fear-mongering rhetoric – and sometimes worse.

Granted, in some senses I spent many years evangelizing for good beer. If my pal Fred in Michigan hadn’t already taken the name, I’d probably call myself a beervangelist, though whether non-believer or beervangelist, it isn’t like I’ve ever gone door to door creating a public nuisance.

Not once have I posted myself at the entrance of a Christian church on Sunday morning in protest the worship therein, or flashed a team pennant at a devout John 3:16-er.

Never have I sneaked up into the cathedral balcony and menacingly waved my portrait of Bertrand Russell at the minister, demanding that he repent from sin -- or whatever Nancy Kennedy and Tom May insist on calling it.

That’s why, in the final reckoning, it would be somewhat hard to write an “atheism column,” because atheists are rationalists, offering no positive claims with respect to knowledge derived from outside the realm of human experience and perception.

We’ve got nothing to sell, and that’s the whole point.

In the absence of verifiable evidence, atheism is a negation. It is the theist who is obliged to prove that God exists – not the other way around.

Perhaps it’s true that some atheists go a step further and proselytize in the manner of the religionist, but the percentage surely is small.

During the past two thousand years, far more people have been asked to convert to religion at the point of a bayonet, routinely dying as a result of their refusal, than have been forcibly “converted” to atheism.

In my experience, atheists generally just want to be left alone, and prefer that religious belief remain a matter of private conscience and not a public policy lever.

They respect a separation of church and state precisely because history makes it abundantly clear against whom this public policy stick is wielded, generally resulting in a sad continuation of war, violence and strife accompanying organized religion throughout human history.

It’s too bad, albeit perfectly in keeping with past practices, that Hanson isn’t interested in his readers hearing another side of the story. It’s a shame he doesn’t grasp the interests of the smaller portion whose viewpoints differ. Have the portions even been counted?

These readers pay, right? If so, shouldn't their needs be considered?

In closing, here's the gospel truth: that $30 George Foreman Grill in our kitchen does a damned fine job, and the $3,369 we saved is more than enough to enjoy a nice, humanistic European holiday.

(Portions of this column were previously published in 2009 and 2012)

---

Recent columns:

August 30: ON THE AVENUES: From Baltic to Mediterranean, the diary of an unrepentant New Albanian Europhile.

August 23: ON THE AVENUES: The "downfall" occurs when we all fall down.

August 20: Non-learning curve: This ON THE AVENUES column repeat reveals that since 2011, we've been discussing the safety hazards on Spring Street between 10th and 9th. Too bad City Hall is deaf.

August 9: ON THE AVENUES: There's only one way to cure City Hall's institutional bias against non-automotive street grid users, and that's to #FlushTheClique.

ON THE AVENUES: On a wig and a prayer, or where's the infidel gardening column?

ON THE AVENUES: On a wig and a prayer, or where's the infidel gardening column?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Lately I’ve been giving the News and Tribune a hard time about the newspaper's recent doubling of column slots for religious advocacy, from one to two – or, approximately two times as many as needed.

What about an “equal time for pagans” weekly bell ringer, or even better, the long overdue humanist food column, as suggested by the estimable Goliath?

Guys, I’m tanned, rested and ready -- and unlike Nancy Kennedy, I actually reside here.

Each week, I’d begin by refuting a theist’s fallacy, end by laughing at an effigy of Ken Ham, and fill space with tips on how to make the perfect Reuben sandwich out of leftover Tex-Mex.

But no. Instead, we get the same dreary inspirational tracts. In the customary absence of newspaper management participation on Twitter in any substantive give and take, one of the reporters offered this:

A large portion of our readers are Christian. If you have specific questions or complaints, I would advise you contact our editors via email.

(Arms folded ... me, complain?)

In terms of catering content to pre-existing conditions, probably a large portion of newspaper readers use their kitchen microwaves far more often than a Lynx Sedona 42-Inch Built-In Natural Gas Grill With One Infrared ProSear Burner And Rotisserie L700PSR, now only $3,399 at BBQGuys.com … and yet, there’s a regular barbecuing column, isn't there?

Besides, why can’t we have the column conversation in public? You know, the new give-and-take, not the old five-and-dime. Amid the secrecy, it's just frustrating imagining what might be possible with just a dollop of creativity.

Bill Hanson seems intent on transforming his fading newspaper into a vehicle for Christian proselytizing, while I enjoy rebutting proselytizers even as I remind them to #getoffmyporch, using a lighted cigar for emphasis.

You’d think Bill and I could develop a nice Saintly Christian versus Ghastly Atheist shtick, but alas, the publisher’s sense of humor simply doesn’t approach that of Rollen Stewart’s – at least before the voices in Stewart’s head began outnumbering the ones cascading from the heavenly firmament.

"God wants me to block your view of this play."

Older readers may recall Stewart’s brief, shining career of athletic venue-style religious advocacy. For a decade or more, you couldn’t watch a major sporting event on your rabbit-eared, non-digital television set without seeing the man with the crazy rainbow Afro, always seated somewhere near the middle of the most prominent camera angle (behind home plate, under the basket, in the end zone), always holding a sign touting John 3:16.

For the blessedly uninitiated, this name and number refer to a Bible verse that provides a handily terse defense of Christian doctrine, one designed to encourage all of us to sign on the dotted line and begin Osteen Vision Level tithing.

But the Afro was a mere wig, and Stewart himself proved to be even more of a nut job than most lucre-vangelists. In due time, his fanatical religious fervor regressed to the point of stink bomb attacks on the ungodly, and in 1992 – presumably in celebration of one or the other impending raptures – he was ingloriously arrested after an attempted kidnapping.

Because of this and other less-than-holy offenses, Stewart currently resides in prison, perhaps in California, but more likely on Fantasy Island. As one wag observed, “Jesus saves, but he can’t get Rollen Stewart out of jail.”

Just for old times’ sake, I’m considering an official Rollen Stewart model rainbow Afro for the next city council meeting, along with a placard espousing a random passage selected from the wit and wisdom of Robert’s Rules of Order. I’m serenely confident that the increasingly pious (or is it porous?) Dan Coffey won’t recognize what he’s never so much as once risked reading.

Except the third floor lacks television cameras.

If the meetings were filmed and Coffey’s antics disseminated to the world at large, at least Rollen Stewart’s religious dysfunction would be supplanted by the equally frustrating political variety celebrated within the friendly confines of the Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness.

---

Meanwhile, for atheists like me, the calendar pages may turn, but the conversation rarely changes.

It still surprises me when my theistic friends respond with annoyance whenever an atheist has the unmitigated gall to come out of the closet and seek equality in discourse. That’s just a bit hypocritical, isn’t it?

Think of every religious adherent who has ever come knocking at your door while you’re busy eating, drinking, sleeping or fornicating in the privacy of our home.

Think of the transformational zeal of generations of ravenous Christians, traveling overseas for the sanctified purpose of subduing decadent native cultures, and conveniently spreading Western diseases even as they blamed the dying natives for falling sick, and urged them to immediately find God as the cure.

Think of how so much of the history of organized western religion is one of evangelical outreach, and by its very nature, how evangelism is invasive and intrusive with regard to the physical and intellectual space of non-believers.

Not only that, but in the ever widening search for market share, evangelists from one sect freely target those who ascribe to differing versions of ostensibly the same supernatural. You’d think that believing in any God would do, and yet it’s never enough for them.

Either way, if an atheist dares to attempt an explanation of why he or she doesn’t believe in any of it, out comes the fear-mongering rhetoric – and sometimes worse.

Granted, in some senses I spent many years evangelizing for good beer. If my pal Fred in Michigan hadn’t already taken the name, I’d probably call myself a beervangelist, though whether non-believer or beervangelist, it isn’t like I’ve ever gone door to door creating a public nuisance.

Not once have I posted myself at the entrance of a Christian church on Sunday morning in protest the worship therein, or flashed a team pennant at a devout John 3:16-er.

Never have I sneaked up into the cathedral balcony and menacingly waved my portrait of Bertrand Russell at the minister, demanding that he repent from sin -- or whatever Nancy Kennedy and Tom May insist on calling it.

That’s why, in the final reckoning, it would be somewhat hard to write an “atheism column,” because atheists offer no positive claims with respect to knowledge derived from outside the realm of human experience and perception. We’ve got nothing to sell, and that’s the whole point.

In the absence of verifiable evidence, atheism is a negation. It is the theist who is obliged to prove that God exists – not the other way around.

Perhaps it’s true that some atheists go a step further and proselytize in the manner of the religionist, but the percentage surely is small.

During the past two thousand years, far more people have been asked to convert to religion at the point of a bayonet, routinely dying as a result of their refusal, than have been forcibly “converted” to atheism.

In my experience, atheists generally just want to be left alone, and prefer that religious belief remain a matter of private conscience and not a public policy lever.

They respect a separation of church and state precisely because history makes it abundantly clear against whom this public policy stick is wielded, generally resulting in a sad continuation of war, violence and strife accompanying organized religion throughout human history.

It’s too bad, albeit perfectly in keeping with past practices, that Hanson isn’t interested in his readers hearing another side of the story. It’s a shame he doesn’t grasp the interests of the smaller portion whose viewpoints differ. Have the portions even been counted?

These readers pay, right? If so, shouldn't their needs be considered?

In closing, here's the gospel truth: that $30 George Foreman Grill in our kitchen does a damned fine job, and the $3,369 we saved is more than enough to enjoy a nice, humanistic European holiday.

(Portions of this column were previously published in 2009 and 2012)

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Recent columns:

August 26: ON THE AVENUES SATURDAY SPECIAL: One-ways on the way out, because with downtown at a crossroads, they simply had to be exterminated.

August 24: ON THE AVENUES: PourGate (the Great Beer Pour War of 2013) and Dr. Tom's prescription: "Kneel and Kiss My Ring, You Degraded Alcoholic."

August 17: ON THE AVENUES: Love in the time of choleric Coffey, though it's nice of Deaf Gahan to support the K of C's political agenda.

August 10: ON THE AVENUES: Super Tuesday shrapnel – or, tiptoeing through the tulips with Dan Coffey, now THE face of historic preservation in New Albany.

August 3: ON THE AVENUES: On the importance of being ancient.

"To claim (Christopher) Hitchens posthumously for evangelical Christianity is to defame a man who was a champion of the Enlightenment."

One is tempted to read no further than "Alabamian evangelist."

Christopher Hitchens and the Christian conversion that wasn’t, by Matthew d'Ancona (The Guardian)

 ... The religious knew that it was worth claiming the spiritual scalps of the founding father of evolution theory and of Italy’s pre-eminent Marxist. In our own era, a resourceful Alabamian evangelist is exploiting his friendship with Hitchens, who died in 2011, to allege that the author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was, in fact, on a secret spiritual journey and halfway to embracing Jesus ...

 ... There is so much wrong with this book that one hardly knows where to start. But its fundamental error concerns the nature of intellectual inquiry itself. For Taunton, there is only one such pursuit, and it is unidirectional: if you are interested in morality, you are, axiomatically, interested in religion – which, for a southern evangelical, means the gospels. When Hitchens observes that a child and a piglet are morally different, Taunton says that “this was unambiguous theism, as he well knew”.

Of course, Hitchens knew no such thing. For him, as for any atheist, morality did not need the framework of religion. Philosophy did not depend upon the supernatural, and ethics did not require a godhead to be worth discussing – a discussion that can be traced back at least as far as Socrates in Plato’s Euthyphro.

ReSubstantiated: Get off my porch, evangelist.

This means I have to give my whole damned front porch a shower.

I don't stuff circulars into YOUR mailbox, do I?

Wouldn't it be easier if you just stayed away?

Albert Mohler's transparent theocratic leanings, and why he should stay off all our porches.

Election results have Albert Mohler quite concerned.

We are rightly and deeply concerned. We must pray that God will change President Obama’s heart on a host of issues, ranging from the sanctity of unborn life to the integrity of marriage. We must push back against his contraception mandate that tramples upon religious liberty. Given the trajectory of his first term in office, we are urgently concerned about a second term, knowing that the President will never again face the electorate.

Because Mohler is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, we're unfortunately compelled to be smitten by his voluminous wind far more often than those residing in civilized portions of the country. However, he still is considered a quoteworthy ayatollah of sorts among the nation's evangelicals in need of "leadership", sacred or profane. Not coincidentally, some of you will recall the time in December, 2006, when Mohler was engaged as the keynote speaker at a breakfast session of the organization ironically known as Leadership Southern Indiana, and I observed the rampant incongruities therein.

Will gays, Catholics, the childless, Muslims and artists if all marred stripes actually be allowed to attend this questionable exercise in the enhancement of their "quality of life" by means of the theocratic version of “leadership?”

Just curious.

From that moment forward, LSI's relevance has disappeared from view faster than a midwinter's smudgy sun, but this isn't my point today. On Wednesday, Mohler's "holy father, now what?" web column contained these actionable thoughts:

Clearly, we face a new moral landscape in America, and huge challenge to those of us who care passionately about these issues. We face a worldview challenge that is far greater than any political challenge, as we must learn how to winsomely convince Americans to share our moral convictions about marriage, sex, the sanctity of life, and a range of moral issues. This will not be easy. It is, however, an urgent call to action ...

 ... Christians must never see political action as an end, but only as a means. We can never seek salvation through the voting booth, and we must never look for a political messiah. Nevertheless, Christians do bear a political responsibility, established in love of God and love of neighbor. We are rightly concerned about this world, but only to a limited extent. Our main concern is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Which is it to be? Is the "call to action" political, or not? If this moral action bears fruit at the voting booth, how is it not political? And if it is inescapably political (surely it is, or Mohler would not be expending this many words to obfuscate the issue), then how is this NOT advocacy of a theocracy, defined as:

A form of government in which God is the Civil Ruler and the official policy is governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or is pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religion or religious group.

I certainly hope Mohler's various organizations are on the tax rolls.

REWIND: Has anybody here seen my old friend Rollen?

As long as I'm on such a good, old-fashioned, heathen roll, let's pull another one up from the archives for reposting. In this instance, it's a News and Tribune column of mine from November 19, 2009.

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On a wig and a prayer

I was watching an NBA game the other night when suddenly, in blinding and revelatory Technicolor, I had a vision recalling Rollen Stewart’s career of religious advocacy.

It used to be that you couldn’t watch a major sporting event on your rabbit-eared, non-digital television set without seeing Stewart, the man with a crazy rainbow Afro, always seated somewhere in proximity to the most prominent camera angle, and holding a sign touting John 3:16.

For the blessedly uninitiated, this number refers to a Bible verse that provides a handily terse defense of Christian doctrine, one designed to encourage all of us to sign on the dotted line and begin tithing.

Alas, the Afro was a mere wig, and Stewart himself proved to be a nut job. In due time, his fanatical religious fervor regressed to the point of stink bomb attacks on the ungodly, and in 1992 – presumably in celebration of one or the other impending raptures – he was ingloriously arrested after an attempted kidnapping. Because of this and other less-than-holy offenses, Stewart currently resides in prison, perhaps in California, but more likely on Fantasy Island.

Just for old times’ sake, I’m considering an official Rollen Stewart model rainbow Afro for the next city council meeting, along with a placard espousing a random passage selected from the wit and wisdom of Robert’s Rules of Order. I’m serenely confident that council president Dan Coffey won’t recognize what he’s never risked reading.

But the third floor lacks television cameras. If the meetings were filmed, and if Coffey’s antics were disseminated to the world at large, at least Rollen Stewart’s religious dysfunction would be supplanted by the equally frustrating political variety native to the Open Air Museum, although without Stewart’s mystical excuse.

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Meanwhile, for atheists like me, it’s been interesting lately. Numerous books “devoted” to the topic of our principled absence of belief have been published, and much discussion engendered. It still surprises me that my theistic friends respond with annoyance whenever atheists have the unmitigated gall to come out of the closet and explain themselves.

That’s just a bit hypocritical, isn’t it? Think of every religious adherent who has ever come knocking at my door while I’m busy eating, drinking, sleeping or fornicating in the privacy of my home. Think of the transformational zeal of generations of ravenous Christians, traveling overseas for the sanctified purpose of subduing decadent native cultures, and conveniently spreading Western diseases even as they blamed the dying natives for falling sick and urging them to immediately find God as a cure.

Much of the history of organized western religion is one of evangelical outreach, and by its very nature, evangelism is invasive and intrusive with regard to the physical and intellectual space of non-believers. Not only that, but in the ever widening search for market share, evangelists from one sect also freely target those who ascribe to differing versions of the supernatural. You’d think that believing in any God would do, and yet it isn’t enough for them.

Either way, if an atheist dares to attempt an explanation of why he or she doesn’t believe in any of it, out comes the fear-mongering rhetoric – and sometimes worse.

Granted, I suppose that in some sense, I evangelize for good beer, and if my pal Fred in Michigan hadn’t already taken the name, I’d call myself a beervangelist. Whether non-believer or beervangelist, it isn’t like I go door to door creating a public nuisance.

Never have I posted myself at the entrance of a Christian church on Sunday morning to decry the worship therein. Not once have I sneaked up into the cathedral balcony and unfurled my Oakland A’s pennant or menacingly waved my portrait of Bertrand Russell at the minister, demanding that he repent from sin -- or whatever my fellow columnist, the Rev. Johnson, insists on calling it.

Come to think of it, maybe Rev. Johnson can help with two questions that keep haunting me:

First, is it fair to say that those convicted of drug dealing got into it for the monies?

Second, do they let prisoners have Internet access?

Private joke. Take care. No offense. Just my opinion.

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The way I see it, atheists offer no positive claims with respect to knowledge deriving from outside the realm of human experience and perception. In the absence of verifiable evidence, atheism is a negation. It is the theist who is obliged to prove that God exists – not the other way around.

Perhaps it’s true that some atheists go a step further and proselytize in the manner of the religionist, but the percentage surely is small. During the past two thousand years, far more people have been asked to convert to religion at the point of a bayonet, and died as a result of their refusal, than have been forcibly “converted” to atheism.

In my experience, atheists generally just want to be left alone, and prefer that religious belief remain a matter of private conscience and not a public policy stick. They respect a separation of church and state precisely because history makes it abundantly clear who that public policy stick usually is wielded against, resulting in a sad continuation of the war, violence and strife that has accompanied organized religion throughout human history.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, no more about nothing. I have a block watch meeting to catch.

Tribune columnist Johnson's "heart condition" belongs on the religion page.

Why does the Tribune’s local guest columnist Richard Johnson receive editorial page placement for pieces that amount to religious sermons?

It seems to me that the newspaper should relocate the prison pastor’s testimonials to the weekly religion page, where they’d be more at home. After all, in the past, Johnson has explicitly rejected church-state separation when it comes to issues of crime and punishment.

Moreover, not since the mercifully concluded heyday of bizarrely outdated Tribune syndicated columnist Dr. George Crane, he of the relentlessly right-wing Worry Clinic and unintentionally hilarious frequent references to “boudoir cheesecake,” has there been anything on the Tribune’s editorial page to compare to Johnson’s oft-repeated “heart condition” analogy, which effectively mocks any contemporary explanation of criminal behavior that does not spring from the pages of an ancient scroll.

JOHNSON: The truth is out there, by RICHARD JOHNSON, Local Columnist (October 19, 2008)

If you have been reading my column for a while, you may remember that not long ago, I wrote about the root cause of crime. As a follower of Christ and a minister of the gospel, I believe that the cause of crime is a universal heart condition that the Bible calls sin.

From my perspective, the inner process that leads someone to break the law looks something like this; first, if our hearts are wrong, we will harbor evil. Next, the presence of evil in our hearts will affect our thinking; we will rehearse, or plan evil. Finally, because our hearts are wrong, and our thinking is wrong, our behavior will be influenced; we will commit a crime.

I'm a longtime proponent of fair and balanced, even before the television network started abusing the phrase, so just for the fun of it I searched for a non-Biblical explanation for crime.

Throughout history people have tried to explain what causes abnormal social behavior, including crime. Efforts to control "bad" behavior go back to ancient Babylon's Code of Hammurabi some 3,700 years ago. Later in the seventeenth century European colonists in North America considered crime and sin the same thing. They believed evil spirits possessed those who did not conform to social norms or follow rules. To maintain social order in the settlements, persons who exhibited antisocial behavior had to be dealt with swiftly and often harshly.

By the twenty-first century criminologists looked to a wide range of factors to explain why a person would commit crimes. These included biological, psychological, social, and economic factors. Usually a combination of these factors is behind a person who commits a crime.

"Sin" isn't required to make sense of this explanation. As I've noted previously, the concept of sin is undoubtedly a religious construct. Without sin’s purely conditional aspect of disobedience to God’s “word” – according to whatever “God” means within the framework of a specific religious worldview – the concept of sin is just about meaningless. Johnson assumes the truth of the religious construct, subtly linking it to social science as though the latter must spring from the former. Shine a spotlight on the veracity of the religious construct, and the argument crumbles.

In fairness, Johnson’s column today makes more sense, but only barely.

Crime is a family affair, and the business is being handed down from one generation to the next.

In my opinion, the redefinition of marriage, and the breakdown of the traditional family unit, are making our crime problem worse.

Alas, Johnson can’t get through 900 words without including a plug for the handbook of his particular religious perspective.

“We took the Bible out of our schools, and now our prisons are full!”

I’d like to see him prove this assertion … on the religion page, where his thinly veiled evangelical tracts truly belong.