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.

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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.

Millennials are leaving religion and that's just fine by me.

And now for some positive news about millennials, but first a plug.

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.

I'm tanned, rested and ready. All that's needed is for the Jeffersonville News and Tribune to get "born" again -- so to speak.

Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back, by Daniel Cox and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux (Five Thirty Eight)

Millennials have earned a reputation for reshaping industries and institutions — shaking up the workplace, transforming dating culture, and rethinking parenthood. They’ve also had a dramatic impact on American religious life. Four in ten millennials now say they are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center. In fact, millennials (those between the ages of 23 and 38) are now almost as likely to say they have no religion as they are to identify as Christian.

For a long time, though, it wasn’t clear whether this youthful defection from religion would be temporary or permanent. It seemed possible that as millennials grew older, at least some would return to a more traditional religious life. But there’s mounting evidence that today’s younger generations may be leaving religion for good.

Social science research has long suggested that Americans’ relationship with religion has a tidal quality — people who were raised religious find themselves drifting away as young adults, only to be drawn back in when they find spouses and begin to raise their own families. Some argued that young adults just hadn’t yet been pulled back into the fold of organized religion, especially since they were hitting major milestones like marriage and parenthood later on.

But now many millennials have spouses, children and mortgages — and there’s little evidence of a corresponding surge in religious interest. A new national survey from the American Enterprise Institute of more than 2,500 Americans found a few reasons why millennials may not return to the religious fold. (One of the authors of this article helped conduct the survey.)

• For one thing, many millennials never had strong ties to religion to begin with, which means they were less likely to develop habits or associations that make it easier to return to a religious community.
• Young adults are also increasingly likely to have a spouse who is nonreligious, which may help reinforce their secular worldview.
• Changing views about the relationship between morality and religion also appear to have convinced many young parents that religious institutions are simply irrelevant or unnecessary for their children.

Harvest Homecoming is the perfect time to ask: "Has Capitalism Become Our Religion?"

We're reminded of the meme quote attributed to "radical philosopher" Miguel D. Lewis.

Capitalism is religion. Banks are churches. Bankers are priests. Wealth is heaven. Poverty is hell. Rich people are saints. Poor people are sinners. Commodities are blessings. Money is god.

Or maybe we're not, given that there seems to be quite little evidence of Lewis' existence apart from here. Still, it's a fine way to introduce the subject matter.

Has Capitalism Become Our Religion? by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins (The Nation)

We talk with historian Eugene McCarraher about the myths and rituals of the market, the lost radicalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the rise of neoliberalism.

One would be hard-pressed to find a form of modern rationalism more extreme than capitalism. The laws of supply and demand and the commodification of goods like health and education strip away the mystery and sense of sacredness that were once a vital part of human life.

Capitalism, Marx observed, tears asunder “all fixed, fast-frozen relations” and “drowns the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor…in the icy water of egotistical calculation.” It wrings out of human life every drop of awe and magic and leaves in their place a hardened world of material interests and accumulation. Or so the story goes.

Eugene McCarraher’s new book, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity, offers a different rendering of our modern age—one in which the mysteries and sacraments of religion were transferred to the way we perceive market forces and economic development.

The new world that capitalism created, McCarraher argues, is characterized not by disenchantment but by a “migration of the holy” to the realm of production and consumption, profit and price, trade and economic tribulation.

Capitalism, in other words, is the new religion, a system full of enchanted superstitions and unfounded beliefs and beholden to its own clerisy of economists and managers, its own iconography of advertising and public relations, and its own political theology—a view of history and politics that is premised on the inevitability of the capitalist system spreading across the world.

McCarraher spoke with The Nation about capitalism’s past and present, the lost radicalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Bernie Sanders’s candidacy, and the rise of a new generation of socialists. The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Just tell me why we should refrain from pointing to the wealth amassed by religious personalities like the late Rev. Berniece Hicks.

The Main Street "house" owned by the late Rev. Hicks is up for sale.

Meanwhile in Indianapolis, I believe Session 5 of the estate auction is scheduled in October.

Even the auctioneer is thunderstruck.

“In nearly 30 years as an auctioneer, I’ve never seen a collection as large as this one”, said Darin Lawson, CAI, President, Wickliff Auctioneers. “Our staff is eager to begin the process of sorting and cataloguing all items, and making them available for worldwide bidding.”

Hicks was a preacher, and she had a church. Maybe she owned the church; maybe it owned her. Obviously she owned lots of stuff. One needn't devote hours of research to grasp that the church Hicks founded has been controversial almost from the beginning, as this front page from 1979 attests.

Note the effort made 40 years ago by the Courier-Journal to get Hicks' and her church's side of the story (naturally the News and Tribune didn't bother in the aftermath of Hicks' death, preferring the usual platitudes), and indeed, even I am compelled to admit there are two sides.

I heard from local residents over the weekend who've lost family members to what they consider is a cult. Others have spoken of love and service to mankind.

And: A million dollar house in New Albany, and a collection of valuable so vast that is makes a luxury auctioneer's head spin.

I'm an atheist, and my skepticism pertaining to religion predates all the other aspects of my life (travel, beer, politics, small business ownership) that readers may know about me.

From mainline mega-churches old and new to Christianity's hundreds of bizarre splinter sects, about the only points of agreement amid the cacophony is derision toward rationalists like me.

I've no desire to proselytize non-belief -- it doesn't even make sense to do so -- but from my perspective as an onlooker, the "prosperity gospel" alibi used to shield personages like Hicks surely is the most cynical P.T. Barnum-like of all notions somehow derived from the figure of Jesus as handed down to us. Even a cursed, filthy, drunken atheist can read desert scrawlings and conclude that the Jesus narrative, real or contrived, had nothing to do with wealth accumulation. 

But didn't all those church members tithe voluntarily?

I'm sure many did, although in any power structure there's a long discussion to be had about the nature of "voluntary," because it's seldom all that simple. Significantly, even if the members tithed "voluntarily," this fact in itself tells us nothing about the manner by which their faith was manipulated and their money spent.

Lifestyles of the ostentatiously rich and pious? Okay, but don't expect me to look the other way. 

Following is an excerpt from Elmer Gantry, the classic satirical novel, which makes this point in gripping fashion.

Elmer Gantry, the traveling evangelist who loved whiskey, women and wealth, was conceived by Sinclair Lewis in a best-selling 1927 novel. Lewis went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Gantry went on to lofty-synonym status: Displays of hypocrisy and showmanship will often evoke his name, especially in reference to preachers — and, increasingly so, to politicians.

In this passage, the garrulous wealth-accumulating charlatan preacher Gantry converses with the humble and impoverished true believer, Pastor Pengilly – and it happens in Indiana, of all places.

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He came with a boom and a flash to the town of Blackfoot Creek, Indiana, and there the local committee permitted the Methodist minister, one Andrew Pengilly, to entertain his renowned brother priest ... when he heard that the Reverend Elmer Gantry was coming, Mr. Pengilly murmured to the local committee that it would be a pleasure to put up Mr. Gantry and save him from the scurfy village hotel.

He had read of Mr. Gantry as an impressive orator, a courageous fighter against Sin. Mr. Pengilly sighed. Himself, somehow, he had never been able to find so very much Sin about. His fault. A silly old dreamer. He rejoiced that he, the mousy village curé, was about to have here, glorifying his cottage, a St. Michael in dazzling armor.

After the evening Chautauqua Elmer sat in Mr. Pengilly’s hovel, and he was graciously condescending.

“You say, Brother Pengilly, that you’ve heard of our work at Wellspring? But do we get so near the hearts of the weak and unfortunate as you here? Oh, no; sometimes I think that my first pastorate, in a town smaller than this, was in many ways more blessed than our tremendous to-do in the great city. And what IS accomplished there is no credit to me. I have such splendid, such touchingly loyal assistants — Mr. Webster, the assistant pastor — such a consecrated worker, and yet right on the job — and Mr. Wink, and Miss Weezeger, the deaconess, and DEAR Miss Bundle, the secretary — SUCH a faithful soul, SO industrious. Oh, yes, I am singularly blessed! But, uh, but — Given these people, who really do the work, we’ve been able to put over some pretty good things — with God’s leading. Why, say, we’ve started the only class in show-window dressing in any church in the United States — and I should suppose England and France! We’ve already seen the most wonderful results, not only in raising the salary of several of the fine young men in our church, but in increasing business throughout the city and improving the appearance of show-windows, and you know how much that adds to the beauty of the down-town streets! And the crowds do seem to be increasing steadily. We had over eleven hundred present on my last Sunday evening in Zenith, and that in summer! And during the season we often have nearly eighteen hundred, in an auditorium that’s only supposed to seat sixteen hundred! And with all modesty — it’s not my doing but the methods we’re working up — I think I may say that every man, woman, and child goes away happy and yet with a message to sustain ’em through the week. You see — oh, of course I give ’em the straight old-time gospel in my sermon — I’m not the least bit afraid of talking right up to ’em and reminding them of the awful consequences of sin and ignorance and spiritual sloth. Yes, sir! No blinking the horrors of the old-time proven Hell, not in any church I’M running! But also we make ’em get together, and their pastor is just one of their own chums, and we sing cheerful, comforting songs, and do they like it? Say! It shows up in the collections!”

“Mr. Gantry,” said Andrew Pengilly, “why don’t you believe in God?”

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.

Long ago I humbly accepted the existence of a redemptive force in my daily life.

It’s called the “music gene,” and I seem to possess it -- or, maybe it possesses me. Unfortunately when the music gene was downloaded it came to me incomplete, and I'm absent commensurate musical ability of any identifiable sort.

Even so, music has spoken to me from the beginning, and as long as my hearing holds out, we’re good. Had my formative years been spent with musicians as role models rather than athletes, perhaps it all would have turned out differently. As it stands, I’ve no complaints.

The innate pleasure to be derived from listening to music is more of an essential heartbeat than an optional amusement, and I can’t imagine life otherwise. If the music in my head ever stops playing, it will be the unmistakable sign of imminent death -- and as all atheists know, death is a symphony without encores.

Speaking of atheists and death, let’s drop into local journalism’s intensive care unit.

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It’s been at least two years since the foundering News and Tribune doubled its column slots for religious advocacy, from one to two – or, approximately two times as many as needed.

In vain, I’ve asked: What about an “equal time for pagans” slot? Even better, perhaps 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 pelting an effigy of Ken Ham with rotten fruit, and fill the space in between with tips on how to make the perfect fried chicken sandwich out of leftover school paste.

But no. We get the same uninspiring inspirational tracts, week in and week out. Management remains AWOL, and it was left to a reporter (now departed to greener any journalistic pastures) to attempt this explanation:

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

Like they'd reply?

This argument from majority rule is drearily predictable, and fallacious. In terms of catering content to pre-existing readership preferences, surely a majority of the newspaper’s steadily dwindling readership base utilize their filthy kitchen microwaves far more often than a featured 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 been an informative regular barbecuing column for a decade or more.

A majority of the newspaper’s readers don’t hunt, fish and trap, preferring their vistas of the great outdoors to come through a handy window somewhere in the vicinity of their incessant televisions … and yet we now have at least one column about efficient creature-stalking.

As an aside, publisher Bill Hanson might be interested in knowing that “pantheists” believe god is to be found in nature, a position with no room for Jesus' teachings, and a stance antithetical to Hanson’s yearning to transform his inexorably fading newspaper into a vehicle for a particular Christian sect's proselytizing.

Verily, as for sports, I enjoy vigorously rebutting proselytizers even as I remind them to #getoffmyporch, using a lighted cigar for pointed emphasis, and the garden hose if necessary.

It’s a shame we can’t have this newspaper failure dialogue publicly; alas, not unlike Jeff Gahan, Hanson is hesitant to share his reasoning with wild-eyed heretics like me (for Hanson, "heretic" is defined as a non-subscriber; for Gahan, it's a non-donor). You’d think Sweet William and I could develop an invigorating “Saintly Christian versus Ghastly Atheist” point-counterpoint shtick, twice monthly.

But no ...

Meanwhile, for atheists like me, the calendar pages may turn, but irrationality rarely changes. It remains the norm that theists respond with annoyance (or worse) whenever an atheist has the unmitigated gall to come out of the closet and seek even the slightest measure of equality in discourse.

That’s just a bit hypocritical, and rather snowflaky as well. Think of every religious adherent who ever came knocking at your door while you were busy eating, drinking, sleeping or fornicating in the privacy of your own damn house.

Think of the transformative zeal of generations of ravenous Christians, traveling overseas for the sanctified purpose of subduing decadent native cultures, and conveniently spreading toxic Western diseases even as they blamed the dying natives for falling sick, urging them to immediately find God as the necessary cure just prior to the sacrificial massacre to follow.

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, think about evangelists from one coin-flip of a sect freely targeting those who ascribe to differing versions of ostensibly the very same supernatural source.

You’d think that believing in any God would do, and yet it’s never enough for them, is it?

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

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Granted, I spent many years evangelizing for good beer, although it isn’t like I’ve ever gone door to door creating a public nuisance. By extension, not once have I positioned myself at the entrance of a Christian church on Sunday morning in protest against the worship therein, or flashed an A’s team pennant at a devout John 3:16-er busily lofting signs at a ballgame.

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 this nonsensical concept.

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 remains quite 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, all known variants of “communism” notwithstanding.

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 typically is wielded, generally resulting in a sad continuation of the 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 segment whose viewpoints differ from his own. Has he considered them, even once?

And exactly how does he know the exact religious fetishes of his dwindling band of subscribers? Atheists pay, too. Shouldn't their needs be considered?

Here's the gospel truth: The $30 George Foreman Grill in our kitchen does a damned fine job, and the $3,369 we saved by rejecting the outdoor Manly Man Model Char-Master is more than enough to enjoy a nice, humanistic European holiday.

---

Once upon a time during a tavern chat, I was asked if I could identify the source of my atheism. Was I rebelling against the religion of my parents?

No. While my childhood was not without general religious assumptions and a nebulous, largely unexamined “faith in something bigger” approach to talking points, there were no onerous obligations or regimented teachings, and overall, both my parents were remarkably open and tolerant.

If rebellion were the only goal, I’d have likely become a fundamentalist owing to the complete absence of instruction. Echoing the music gene, and adding to it my belief that mankind concocts religion to assuage its recognition and fear of death, maybe what I lack is the God gene, a predisposition toward accepting one or more versions of a deity.

I’m only guessing, since I’ve no experience with such a state of consciousness.

In all honestly, I cannot remember a time in my life when such a concept as God seemed plausible to me. Rather, it seemed mythological, a phenomenon best placed on dusty outmoded shelves beside ancient Greek small-case gods, Mayan rituals and Norse sagas.

Only later, in university, did I learn there was a name for the God gene’s absence: Atheism. It was the ultimate in revelations, for it was revealed to me that others felt the same way, and could explain their non-belief rationally. I needn’t embrace the palpably untrue, after all.

A musician like J. S. Bach certainly thought his considerable musical skills were gifts from God, intended to glorify and exalt Him. The simplistic vision of angels cleverly arranged on cloud banks, deploying a phalanx of harps to while away eternity, surely derives from this idea of music intertwined with holiness.

It doesn’t resonate with me. Music may well “have” its own gene, but its manifestation in a tangible, real world is a human construct. When liturgical music strikes a tuneful “holy” chord, it’s because of the meanings we’ve been taught to read into it, not a deity’s intervention in the composition.

Of course, if given the chance to choreograph my final departure, Samuel Barber’s "Adagio for Strings" would be a fine choice for greeting eternity. The music would play through, then end, and on the very next beat so would I. There would be the final silence, and life would continue without me.

Although on second thought the concluding power chord of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” would work just as well. It makes no difference, as I won’t be around to feel it.

---

Recent columns:

August 22: ON THE AVENUES: The 32 most influential books in my life.

August 15: ON THE AVENUES: Breakfast is better with those gorgeous little herrings.

August 8: ON THE AVENUES: Unless you open your eyes, “resistance” is an empty gesture.

August 1: ON THE AVENUES: The whys and wherefores can drive a man to drink; our lives just ARE, and that's that.

"Militarization Has Become Our National Religion."

By means of introduction, The Nation explains.

America’s twenty-first-century wars have been coming home in another way as well: in the increasingly worshipful attitudes of so many Americans (especially those in the seats of power in Washington, D.C.) toward the Pentagon and the U.S. military, as vividly described today by retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, historian, and TomDispatch regular William Astore.

Astore's list of "what we believe" is chilling, and sadly correct.

In Wars and Weapons We Trust: America’s Militarized Profession of Faith, by William J. Astore (Tom Dispatch)

When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I looked to the heavens: to God and Christianity (as arbitrated by the Catholic Church) and to the soaring warbirds of the U.S. military, which I believed kept us safe. To my mind then, they were classic manifestations of American technological superiority over the godless Communists.

With all its scandals, especially when it came to priestly sexual abuse, I lost my faith in the Catholic Church. Indeed, I would later learn that there had been a predatory priest in my own parish when I was young, a grim man who made me uneasy at the time, though back then I couldn’t have told you why. As for those warbirds, like so many Americans, I thrilled to their roar at air shows, but never gave any real thought to the bombs they were dropping in Vietnam and elsewhere, to the lives they were ending, to the destruction they were causing. Nor, at that age, did I ever consider their enormous cost in dollars or just how much Americans collectively sacrificed to have “top cover,” whether of the warplane or godly kind.

There were good and devoted priests in my Catholic diocese. There were good and devoted public servants in the U.S. military. Admittedly, I never seriously considered the priesthood, but I did sign up for the Air Force, surprising myself by serving in it for 20 years. Still, both institutions were then, and remain, deeply flawed. Both seek, in a phrase the Air Force has long used, “global reach, global power.” Both remain hierarchies that regularly promote true believers to positions of authority. Both demand ultimate obedience. Both sweep their sins under the rug. Neither can pass an audit. Both are characterized by secrecy. Both seem remarkably immune to serious efforts at reform. And both, above all, know how to preserve their own power, even as they posture and proselytize about serving a higher one.

However, let me not focus here on the one “holy catholic and apostolic church,” words taken from the “profession of faith” I recited during Mass each week in my youth. I’d prefer to focus instead on that other American holy church, the U.S. military, with all its wars and weapons, its worshipers and wingmen, together with its vision of global dominance that just happens to include end-of-world scenarios as apocalyptic as those of any imaginable church of true believers. I’m referring, of course, to our country’s staggeringly large arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, just now being updated -- the term seems to be “modernized” -- to the tune of something like $1.7 trillion over the decades to come ...

The 'Bune made me do it -- or, the late George Carlin on religion.

Last week a friend sent me links to the preceding videos. They gave me a few dozen gut laughs just when irreverent humor was needed most, and probably saved my whole day.

Then a sense of déjà vu gripped me. Sure enough, we'd all been here before -- specifically, on June 21, 2015. I've no recollection of why the week was bad, and so it goes.

---

George Carlin, or a temporary antidote to the thoroughly depressing week that was.

By Friday afternoon, I'd just about had it with the humanoids occupying this continent. Fortuitously, I caught a Facebook posting by my friend BM, pointing to a collection of video clips by the late George Carlin.

I sat on the porch with my iPhone, beer in hand, and watched the clips, one after the other. It would be an understatement for the ages to refer to the experience as cathartic.

Curmudgeons unite: I laughed until I cried. It may not work for you, but verily, I needed that.

Remembering George Carlin’s Most Important Jokes, by Johnny Sugar (Uproxx)

George Carlin would have been 78 years old (May 12), and this seems like a great time to look back on some of his best routines. He was a revolutionary comic whose sharp critiques of censorship and organized religion have influenced political and comedic thought for decades. He targeted the orthodoxy and the establishment, always with remarkable success. These Carlin routines showcase him at his best …

Christmas 2018: From Munich to New (and Old) Albania, with Vietnam Kitchen to follow.

Chinesischer Turm in Englischer Garten, Munich.

Give or take a few beers, we completed the 10,000 mile loop back to Louisville at 9:45 p.m. on Christmas Eve. The sheer awesomeness of Bavaria still was throbbing in the rear-view mirror.

It was a bittersweet homecoming, as we already knew the amazing Miss Nadia had used up her ninth life during our absence. Nadia's passing was unexpected, if not surprising at the age of 16. There'll be more to say about this, but not quite yet, apart from expressing eternal thanks to the Bluegill family for care-giving in our absence.

The year 2018 was Diana's first visit to Munich. Our days were spent wandering Christmas markets and pausing frequently for principled refreshments. It's hard to imagine better "together" time.

I hadn't been to Munich in 14 years, and found myself reflecting about the way things were in 1985, and my initial experience with hoisting steins in the city's amazing traditional beer palaces (and equally enjoyable tiny nooks). There have been a zillion changes during 33 years, and yet the combo of cool lager and steaming pork remains wonderfully timeless.

Now it's Christmas Day, and it would be futile to attempt to deal with the jumble of emotions crowding my noggin. I may have to chip away at them over the coming days, knowing all the while that the year to come probably is going to be even more exhausting than the one about to pass.

But there are a few billion people out there who have it worse off than us, and I try never to forget it -- whether a holiday or any other day when we roll out of bed and seek yet again to finesse the rough edges of the existential dilemma.

The following thoughts are a variation of ones previously posted.

---

Often I’m asked: Roger, why not relent and embrace the Christmas spirit?

Would it be so hard to be human, just for once?

Contrary to popular perception, I do relent – after a fashion – and in spite of my best efforts, Vulcan-caliber logic continues to elude me. It is enjoyable to have a (relatively) work-free day, to spend time with loved ones, to plan parties, to eat and drink, and to do what anyone else does on a holiday.

But you see, as an unbeliever, I simply cannot indulge the Christian aspect of the day as it pertains to my sphere of individual conscience. For the same reason, I cannot support Christian displays in the sphere of public property. There is secular rule of law in America, and it reaffirms and protects an individual’s religious or non-religious conscience, whether it speaks to no gods or many.

Without this fine line, theocrats like Mike Pence really will try to tell me which church to attend – or else.

At Christmas time, I respect the wants and needs of the genuinely devout, for whom the day is an expression of deeply held belief. More grudgingly, I acknowledge with deep groans the annual recitation by Ayn Rand fetishists of a belief in hyper-consumerism and pervasive materialism as a capitalistic manifestation of self, one worth glorifying in priestly fashion.

Maybe, but only up to a point. In 2015, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi contributed a thoughtful essay linking consumer Christmas to the stoking of irrational fears: This Christmas, Tune It All Out.

As for the rest of that shopaholic, mall-rushing craziness that can make this holiday so stressful, it turns out that it's optional. Switch off the wi-fi for a few days, turn off the TV, and it's amazing how much more reasonable the world instantly seems.

Supernaturally, just know that you can count me out. Perhaps religion remains the preferred opiate because too much of the profit from consumerism remains in the hands of the 1 per cent.

---

In fact, I do have a favorite Christmas story.

My sole “corporate” day job lasted from 1988 to 1989, with a solitary Christmas in between. So it was that in 1988, management at our office in downtown Louisville declared a contest for best work station decoration.

With entirely uncharacteristic zeal, my friend and co-worker Jeff Price, who was well-connected within local radical leftist circles and later would meet me in East Germany to take part in the “summer of ‘89” volunteer student brigade, went to work toward his stated goal of winning first prize.

He soon appeared with scissors, glue, armloads of construction paper and dusty old copies of the English-language edition of the “New Albania” propaganda magazine, as borrowed from a socialist workers group somewhere in town.

Who even knew Louisville had such an organization?

Come the day of judgment, Jeff had transformed his pod into a veritable showplace of dully-colored agitprop, with a few bright red placards bearing impenetrable phrases in the Albanian language, photocopies of stiffly posed Communist leaders like Enver Hoxha and Ramiz Alia, and a genuinely demented final touch, which I’ll never forget.

Snaking along the tops of the dull gray office partitions stretched strands of coiled barbed wire fashioned from silver holiday tinsel.

Jeff’s display was dubbed Christmas in Albania – at the time, the world’s only officially atheist state – and while the judges could not quite bring themselves to give him the top prize, second place was decreed his, from sheer perverse creativity alone.

In short, exactly my kind of Christmas, but please, feel perfectly free to enjoy yours.

Christmas Day means Vietnam Kitchen, which will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. We'll be there.

In the absence of farm-raised Slovak carp, it'll have to do. To refresh your memory about this hallowed yuletide practice, go here: Carp in a bathtub.

Photo credit: Peter Dedina, in Košice, Slovakia.

"Rev. Bernice Hicks, founder of Christ Gospel Church, dies."

I have neither the time nor the energy to devote to a detailed rendering of the religious quackery embodied by Bernice Hicks, who died a few days ago. However, we all deserve an obituary, even if it avoids the controversial bits.

LEGACY OF LOVE: Rev. Bernice Hicks, founder of Christ Gospel Church, dies, by Chris Morris (Tom May Sidestepped This One)

 ... Rev. Hicks, who founded the Christ Gospel Churches International, which has its headquarters on 10th Street in Jeffersonville, died Sunday. She was 99 years old.

A letter dated Aug. 12 from the Rev. Allen Conway to members of the church confirmed her passing.

"It is with great sorrow to share that our mother, and our Beloved Pastor and Spiritual Guide, Rev. Bernice R. Hicks, has passed from this life to eternity. She went to her Heavenly Home earlier this afternoon."

Under her leadership, Christ Gospel Church has more than 2,000 members at its Jeffersonville church, and more than 1,000 congregations throughout the world. She also wrote more than 120 books during her ministry.

Andrew Takami, a longtime member of the church, called the religious leader a "mentor" and said the two had a deep friendship.

"She had a lot to do with my spiritual growth," Takami said. "We were very close."

It should be noted that for an inveterate skeptic like me, religion is quackery by definition, and so I'm not singling out the late Sister Hicks as an exemplar.

Far more importantly, it strikes me that younger readers might not even know that for almost as long as Christ Gospel Church has existed, it has battled accusations of being a cult. Can it be denied that Hicks herself was the object of a personality cult?

Gahan had to get the idea from somewhere, and Warren isn't Pentecostal.

Deep Study: Berniece Hicks, Christ Gospel Church International

Of all the sub-cults inspired by, affiliated with, or created by Rev. William Marrion Branham, the Christ Gospel Church International (CGC) followers of Rev. Berniece Hicks is most interesting by proximity. Its headquarters is also located in Jeffersonville, Indiana, less than three miles from the Branham Tabernacle. When asking the locals if they were familiar with the religious cult in Jeffersonville, it is not surprising that the answer given is often "which one?"

Of course to me, they're all cult-like to lesser or greater degrees, but specifically, the legendary Courier-Journal expose in 1979 served as a coming-out for Hicks' critics.

At a website called Seek the Truth, cult survivor John Collins elaborates.

Deep Study: Berniece Hicks, Christ Gospel Church International

Of all the sub-cults inspired by, affiliated with, or created by Rev. William Marrion Branham, the Christ Gospel Church International (CGC) followers of Rev. Berniece Hicks is most interesting by proximity. Its headquarters is also located in Jeffersonville, Indiana, less than three miles from the Branham Tabernacle. When asking the locals if they were familiar with the religious cult in Jeffersonville, it is not surprising that the answer given is often "which one?"

When new escapees of the CGC group first contact us, they are often surprised to learn how many of their "sacred teachings" were so similar to that of William Branham's teachings.

Collins quotes the 1979 C-J piece.

... Those who escape give similar testimonies of undue influence, further supporting the studies of mindcontrol in the "Message". But these stories are nothing new. Apparently, Christ Gospel Church International has been under examination for several years as members escape and give testimony.

The former members said that Mrs. Hicks controls the lives of her church members, that she delves into their sexual habits, that she tape-records conversation she has with members. They say that she is given large sums of money, that she has a valuable collection of antiques bought with church money, that she has an unlimited expense account.
Courier Journal, April 12, 1979

Investigative reporters have looked into the financial allegations of the CGC sect for years, concerned that donations to the church were being used for personal gain.

"There is so much money involved here ... We talked with people who gave their refrigerators, their TVs, even their houses, to the church. I think when you're talking about large amounts of money, it takes the subject out of the private sector and into the public sector."
Courier Journal, April 15, 1979

In recent years, it seems that a new generation of Christ Gospel adherents has made a conscious effort to main-stream-line the experience. However, dissidents remain.

The link to the featured website is broken in this NA Confidential post from September 18, 2016, making a point that these dissidents come and go, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a "hot" propaganda war is being fought all of the time between the church and its recovering former members.

Whither Sister Hicks and the Christ Gospel Church?

Interestingly, the book Christ Gospel Church and Sister Hicks Revealed: A Critique of the Bride's Message, which is mentioned at the web site (below), was published only three months ago.

In turn, these critiques remain topical after 37 years. According to the math in the newspaper article from 1979, Sister Hicks now is somewhere around the age of 97.

Has her Main Street domicile ever been included on the Historic Home Tour?

Whoa.

Christ Gospel Church and Sister Hicks Revealed

This site was created for those who wish to know of or have ever been associated with Christ Gospel Church and Sister Hicks and provide them an in-depth review of her doctrinal teachings, specifically her own fabrication of the Bride's doctrine. In it, we will layout a clear and fair judgment of Hicks and her teachings. Bernice Hicks, better known as Sister Hicks, makes prolific claims for herself and the "message" she espouses. That message is called the "Bride's message." Hicks claims that God personally gave her this teaching. When Hicks states that Jesus Christ speaks to her, she does not mean it as most would say, allegorically, but as in the flesh. By analyzing her claims and weighing her teachings against the writings of the apostles this site will attempt to show that Hicks' doctrine has no support from the scriptures and should be considered an inferred fabrication. Her persistence to falsely proclaim and uphold a special prophet status with her congregation would eventually be her undoing.

Previously:

Praise the Lord and pass the Hoptimus, it's a miracle! Sister Hicks' sidewalk escapes Rosenbarger's (wrecking) Balls.

The sense of “default Christianity” is vanishing in Europe.

The topic is a steadily diminishing "sense of being Christian by default" in Europe. We're seeing the beginnings of this in America, but at far lower levels.

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%.

As we await in utter futility for a balancing column slot ("Thirsty Pagan's Corner"?), over to the continent.

As French Catholics hail a martyr, the faith is fading in Europe (Erasmus; The Economist)

The sense of “default Christianity” is vanishing

 ... Arnaud Beltrame, a police colonel, died of his injuries over the weekend after voluntarily taking the place of one of the hostages seized by a fanatical Islamist in a small French town. As it happens he was a devout Catholic who devoted much spare time to pilgrimages and helping with religious instruction ...

A French priest who had been preparing to solemnise the policeman’s marriage (he was already married civilly) instead found himself sitting at his friend’s bedside, conducting the last rites. With understandable emotion, the cleric described Beltrame as a man who “had a passion for France, her greatness, her history and her Christian roots which he rediscovered with his conversion.”

SNIP

But whatever the truth of that statement about cultural roots, how much longer will such language be comprehensible, let alone appealing, to people growing up on the continent? A study of religious attitudes and practice among Europe’s young adults, published a few days ago, found that faith was shrinking almost to vanishing point in several countries, although there was huge variation across the continent. Europe’s secularisation, reflecting a break-up of traditional communities and more materialist attitudes, is familiar to sociologists. But its impact is highlighted in recent numbers.

The researcher's numbers are reviewed.

He concluded that the sense of being Christian by default was vanishing across much of Europe, though loyalty to Catholicism remains quite robust in certain countries. In some places (like Poland and Portugal) Catholic allegiance was accompanied by comparatively high church attendance, whereas in others (Lithuania, Austria) many had a cultural loyalty to Catholicism but only a minority seriously practised. Generally, loyalty to Catholicism was holding up better than loyalty to what he called state-affiliated Protestant bodies, such as the national churches of Scandinavia. And Europe has no equivalent to America’s zealous evangelicals.

Again: "Europe has no equivalent to America’s zealous evangelicals."

That's a relief.

From 2015, "Fairytale of New Albania" ... including my favorite Christmas story.

I fixed it.

From December 24, 2015. Lightly edited and updated.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Fairytale of New Albania (2015 mashup).

I had intended to take the day off from the rigors of column composition, but with such a beautiful spring day outside in the aftermath of flash floods and tornadoes on December 23 -- Festivus, no less -- why not huddle indoors a bit longer on Christmas Eve, and plagiarize a previous effort?

After all, there is a legitimately important news item to report.

First, there is you. As a regular reader, you already know that I publish my ON THE AVENUES column on Thursday, a slot inherited from the pre-merger Tribune.

However, you may not be aware of your curious non-existence as a regular reader. Upon closer examination, it seems the page views and hit counts recorded here are entirely figments of my imagination, and the curiously timed denunciations and rebuttals emanating from purportedly non-reading public officials and functionaries merely an Orwellian coincidence.

There is no dissent in the Hermetic Dixiecratic Disney Republic(an) of New Albany, where the referendum of support for Mayor Jeff Gahan Presents the Doggie Doo Doo Fun Park and Canine Water Slide passed muster with 98.6% tally in favor, but disclaimers aside, I am informed that tomorrow is a religious holiday of some vague sort – a forever confusing proposition for an atheist like me – so I’ll try and keep it short.

Let’s begin with Great and Wonderful Tidings.

In 2014, I wrote these words:

"In spite of Indiana’s flagrantly fascistic proclivities, substantial progress has been made in freeing innocent tipplers from the oppressive yoke of the preacher man’s hellfire and damnation, and yet we retain at least one world-class example of prohibitionist backwash.

"It remains illegal to sell any alcoholic beverages on Christmas Day, a ban that violates church-state separation so openly and brazenly that I’m surprised the ACLU hasn’t parachuted into Indianapolis to help save us from ourselves."

See what I did there? That's right: The law finally changed in 2015.

Just a bit related to the topic at hand.

It's about time, isn't it? Maybe the Freedom from Religion Foundation intervened. After all, the prohibition of alcohol sales on Christmas Day was a blatant imposition of selective religious blue law on what should be secular tippling.

Indiana may be a basket case, but at least this one's finally right.

Hoosiers can buy alcohol on Christmas for the first time since Prohibition (Fox59)

The Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission (ATC) announced today you can buy alcohol on Christmas.

Although many businesses are closed on Christmas, restaurants, bars, liquor stores and grocery stores that are open will be allowed to sell alcohol to you.

I'm told that Kansai Japanese Steakhouse in Clarksville will be open on Christmas Day, is cognizant of the change (many probably aren't), and will be serving adult beverages. Surely Horseshoe Casino will be, as well. Anyone else? Let me know, and I'll spread the word on social media.

(Let's assume that by now, two years down the road, everyone knows the drill.)

---

Often I’m asked: Roger, why not relent and embrace the Christmas spirit?

Would it be so hard to be human, just for once?

Contrary to popular perception, I do relent – after a fashion – and in spite of my best efforts, Vulcan-caliber logic continues to elude me. It is enjoyable to have a (relatively) work-free day, to spend time with loved ones, to plan parties, to eat and drink, and to do what anyone else does on a holiday.

But you see, as an unbeliever, I simply cannot indulge the Christian aspect of the day as it pertains to my sphere of individual conscience. For the same reason, I cannot support Christian displays in the sphere of public property. There is secular rule of law in America, and it reaffirms and protects an individual’s religious or non-religious conscience, whether it speaks to no gods or many.

Without this fine line, Mike Pence really will try to tell me which church to attend – or else.

At Christmas time, I respect the wants and needs of the genuinely devout, for whom the day is an expression of deeply held belief. More grudgingly, I acknowledge with deep groans the annual recitation by Ayn Rand fetishists of a belief in hyper-consumerism and pervasive materialism as a capitalistic manifestation of self, one worth glorifying in priestly fashion.

Maybe, but only up to a point. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has contributed a thoughtful essay linking consumer Christmas to the stoking of irrational fears: This Christmas, Tune It All Out.

As for the rest of that shopaholic, mall-rushing craziness that can make this holiday so stressful, it turns out that it's optional. Switch off the wi-fi for a few days, turn off the TV, and it's amazing how much more reasonable the world instantly seems.

In the main, just know that you can count me out. Perhaps religion remains the preferred opiate because too much of the profit from consumerism remains in the hands of the 1 per cent.

---

In fact, I do have a favorite Christmas story.

My sole “corporate” day job lasted from 1988 to 1989, with a solitary Christmas in between. So it was that in 1988, management at our office in downtown Louisville declared a contest for best work station decoration.

With entirely uncharacteristic zeal, my friend and co-worker Jeff Price, who was well-connected within local radical leftist circles and later would meet me in East Germany to take part in the “summer of ‘89” volunteer student brigade, went to work toward his stated goal of winning first prize.

He soon appeared with scissors, glue, armloads of construction paper and dusty old copies of the English-language edition of the “New Albania” propaganda magazine, as borrowed from a socialist workers group somewhere in town.

Who even knew Louisville had such an organization?

Come the day of judgment, Jeff had transformed his pod into a veritable showplace of dully-colored agitprop, with a few bright red placards bearing impenetrable phrases in the Albanian language, photocopies of stiffly posed Communist leaders like Enver Hoxha and Ramiz Alia, and a genuinely demented final touch, which I’ll never forget.

Snaking along the tops of the dull gray office partitions stretched strands of coiled barbed wire fashioned from silver holiday tinsel.

Jeff’s display was dubbed Christmas in Albania – at the time, the world’s only officially atheist state – and while the judges could not quite bring themselves to give him the top prize, second place was decreed his, from sheer perverse creativity alone.

In short, exactly my kind of Christmas, but please, feel perfectly free to enjoy yours. Usually we spend Christmas Day eating egg rolls, Singapore rice noodles and Happy Family, but in 2015 comes another banner headline: Vietnam Kitchen is open on Christmas Day. Again in 2017, VK is open on Christmas Day from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and we'll be there.

The very best Christmases are the ones that come and go with nary a trace, but this tiding truly is special. Clay pot catfish and beer?

In the absence of Slovak carp, it'll have to do.

(Addendum: My friend Peter Dedina evidently is visiting his hometown of Košice, Slovakia, and posted this photo of yuletide carp.)

"The study concludes that roughly one-quarter (26 percent) of Americans likely do not believe in God."

It's like I've been saying. Why go out and annoy folks by proselytizing when Big Mo's on your side, anyway?

Of course, the flip side is that one needn't believe in god to practice religion. Even Torquemada understood that.

Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought, by Daniel Cox (FiveThirtyEight)

... The authors of the study, published earlier this year, adopted a novel way to measure atheist identity. Instead of asking about belief in God directly, they provided a list of seemingly innocuous statements and then asked: “How many of these statements are true of you?” Respondents in a control group were given a list of nine statements, such as “I own a dog” and “I am a vegetarian.” The test group received all the same statements plus one that read, “I do not believe in God.” The totals from the test group were then compared to those from the control group, allowing researchers to estimate the number of people who identify as atheists without requiring any of the respondents to directly state that they don’t believe in God. The study concludes that roughly one-quarter (26 percent) of Americans likely do not believe in God.

While this result is fairly stunning and not consistent with any published survey results, there is good reason to suspect that more direct measures significantly underestimate the number of atheists.

"Why Millennial Women Are Embracing Atheism" -- because there's no better day than Sunday to be a gadfly.

I wrote the following in 2006.

---

A few weeks back, as Tribune syndicated religion columnist David Yount wrote carefully erected a straw man out of atheism before predictably and delightedly bashing it to bits, he ventured, “It is no more credible that there is no God than that God indeed exists.”

I submit that this statement is at best an example of logical sleight of hand, and at worst, downright nonsensical.

If I were to write, “It is no more credible that there is no Blue Speckled Hungadunga than that a Blue Speckled Hungadunga indeed exists,” it is quite likely that any rational person would demand an immediate definition of a Blue Speckled Hungadunga in order to proceed with the discussion.

Moreover, lacking persuasive proof for the existence of the Blue Speckled Hungadunga, there would be no need for further debate, and subsequently no need for a syndicated religion columnist to utter a statement that is at base invalid, for it assumes the existence of a conjectured entity, then uses this assumed (and as yet unproven) existence to impugn the allegedly faulty perception of those who insist in pointing to the obvious nature of the theist’s logical fallacy.

In fact, atheists don’t “believe” there is no God; rather, they are absent such a belief. As with the Blue Speckled Hungadunga, the responsibility for proving the existence of God lies with the one advancing a positive belief in the conjectured deity, not with the one who has no belief.

Atheists offer no positive claims with respect to knowledge presumed to derive from outside the realm of human experience and perception. As Yount correctly notes, some atheists go a step further and proselytize in the manner of the religionist, but it’s a very safe bet that 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.

After all, if religious belief really remains a matter of heart and soul, isn’t it impossible to “convert” anyone to atheism? Outward symbols and pageantry are superfluous with regard to inner feeling, aren’t they?

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. We respect a separation of church and state and take such a division at face value precisely because we’ve studied history, and we know against whom that public policy stick inevitably is wielded – against us, to be sure, but far more often against other religionists who believe in their variant of the supernatural entity just as much as the ones shooting at them from a nearby trench.

The result is a sad continuation of the war, violence and strife that has accompanied religion throughout human history.

To summarize, atheism is a negation in the absence of verifiable evidence, and it is the theist who is obliged to prove that God exists – not the other way around.

---

Ten years later, an excellent link -- and what better day for it?

Why Millennial Women Are Embracing Atheism, by Kyle Fitzpatrick (Pop Sugar)

Danielle Schacter never thought she would become an un-Christian. "I slowly became more and more disgusted by the way I saw people treating others," says the 32-year-old, who was raised Baptist. "I didn't want to be associated with a religion that preached so much hate."

Schacter, like so many millennials, has chosen a secular life, and she's not alone: according to the Pew Research Center, only four in 10 millennials say that religion is very important to them, compared with six in 10 Baby Boomers.

The numbers of religiously unaffiliated support this, too: 23 percent of the population identifies with no religion. This number is up from 2007, when it was only 16 percent. Of older millennials, 35 percent are religiously unaffiliated — and they're driving the overall growth of the nonreligiously affiliated in America.

And this:

What's fascinating is that while millennials are moving away from religion, they are moving toward spirituality. This demographic considers itself just as spiritual as older demographics, even as they represent an exodus out of organized religion and into the throes of secularism. When you consider the issues facing young people today, the reasons for the exodus are easy to understand. In rejecting religion, millennials are asserting their progressive attitudes and passion for social justice. They're committed to the idea that they don't need religion to know the difference between right and wrong.

Perhaps no one represents this cultural shift better than millennial atheist women. While they may sit at the most extreme side of the nonreligious spectrum, atheist women are fueled by the same concerns plaguing millennials in general: a quest for independence and a rejection of the status quo.

Me? I'm praying that the newspaper improves. Nothing else seems to work.

This reader comment wins the Internet:

Should have prayed for better weather.

The article is credited to "NEWS AND TRIBUNE," suggesting that it has been contributed from an outside source.

Shouldn't this be identified clearly as a press release or submission?

For me, not doing so is a unmistakable sign of intellectual dishonesty, though Bill Hanson probably reckons it helps him sell ads to churchgoers.

It's striking to see Mayor Jeff Gahan vowing his attendance. Just last week he didn't bother showing up to the meeting of the New Albany Housing Authority's new board, one composed entirely of scentless sycophants Gahan himself appointed, as they voted to approve their paymaster's annexation of public housing.

Gahan can't look public housing residents in the eye, but he can attend religious observances on government time.

His priorities are tragically skewed, as always. Speaking of which, did the newspaper have a reporter at last evening's city council meeting?

Maybe they'll cover the prayer meeting.

New Albany moves National Day of Prayer service indoors

NEW ALBANY — This Thursday is predicted to be the worst day of this week, weather-wise, with rain and cold temperatures. So New Albany’s annual National Day of Prayer commemoration, which has always been held outside the City-County Building downtown, will now take place in the gym at the Salvation Army, 2300 Green Valley Road.

The time remains the same — at noon here and across the country. The public is invited to attend the brief program of music, Scripture reading and prayer involving a variety of groups within the community. The service will last no later than 12:40 p.m.

Officials with the sponsoring Salvation Army of Southern Indiana urge people to help spread the word about the venue change. They now expect that each year’s event will be held inside at this site with plenty of seating.

Whither Sister Hicks and the Christ Gospel Church?

Interestingly, the book Christ Gospel Church and Sister Hicks Revealed: A Critique of the Bride's Message, which is mentioned at the web site (below), was published only three months ago.

In turn, these critiques remain topical after 37 years. According to the math in the newspaper article from 1979, Sister Hicks now is somewhere around the age of 97.

Has her Main Street domicile ever been included on the Historic Home Tour?

Whoa.

Christ Gospel Church and Sister Hicks Revealed

This site was created for those who wish to know of or have ever been associated with Christ Gospel Church and Sister Hicks and provide them an in-depth review of her doctrinal teachings, specifically her own fabrication of the Bride's doctrine. In it, we will layout a clear and fair judgment of Hicks and her teachings. Bernice Hicks, better known as Sister Hicks, makes prolific claims for herself and the "message" she espouses. That message is called the "Bride's message." Hicks claims that God personally gave her this teaching. When Hicks states that Jesus Christ speaks to her, she does not mean it as most would say, allegorically, but as in the flesh. By analyzing her claims and weighing her teachings against the writings of the apostles this site will attempt to show that Hicks' doctrine has no support from the scriptures and should be considered an inferred fabrication. Her persistence to falsely proclaim and uphold a special prophet status with her congregation would eventually be her undoing.

Praise the Lord and pass the Hoptimus, it's a miracle! Sister Hicks' sidewalk escapes Rosenbarger's (wrecking) Balls.