Reading Time: 8 minutes Today the movie God’s Not Dead comes out on DVD, and thousands of church leaders will dutifully run out to purchase their copies to show to their churches sometime in the coming weeks. They will enthusiastically watch it and gush about how wonderful the film is and how beautifully it captures their faith. Because movies like this […]
Neil Carter
Neil Carter is a high school teacher, a father of four, and a skeptic living in the Bible Belt. A former church elder with a seminary education, Neil now writes mostly about the struggles of former evangelicals living in the midst of a highly religious subculture. Follow him @godlessindixie
Posted inGeneral
Oh Great, Yet Another Atheist Blog
Reading Time: 6 minutes Just what the world needed, right? I feel ya. I promise I do. To be honest, I get as tired as you get reading the same stories and the same memes over and over again ad nauseam. I’m in a lot of groups and over time you see the same stuff get repeated a lot. […]
Posted inGeneral, Parenting & Family, The Secular
Please Don’t Hold Me at Arm’s Length
Reading Time: 5 minutes Dear (family member), I’d like to talk to you for a minute about this…thing…that’s come between us. Because we are family, our conversations remain warm and our mutual love is authentic. For that I am grateful. But amidst the warmth there remains an uncomfortable tension—an emotional distance—that wasn’t there before. Things between us were pretty […]
Posted inGeneral
Is It Loving to Warn People about Hell?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Fritz is an odd fellow. Patriotism runs deep in his family but he takes it to the next level, enjoining his children to faithfully recite the pledge of allegiance and sing the national anthem once a day every day of their lives. Loyalty to the United States of America is extremely important to him, and […]
Posted inGeneral, The Secular
Southern Atheists Unite!
Reading Time: 2 minutes I could use your help with something. David Silverman over at American Atheists has announced that next year’s big national convention will be held in Memphis, TN, which is Deep South territory. But I’m discovering that getting the word out to groups of skeptics around this region is really difficult! For one thing, “freethinkers” don’t […]
Posted inGeneral
Letters to My Daughters #8: “The Silver Lining in Your Situation”
Reading Time: 3 minutes As you girls wrestle with the realization that I no longer agree with or accept so many things which I was taught to believe, and which you yourselves are being taught to believe, at some point you may feel a bit like you’ve been cheated out of a more harmonious family situation. It would be […]
Posted inGeneral, The Secular
The No God Cast Podcast Interviews Godless In Dixie
Reading Time: 2 minutes This week, Tanner Campbell interviewed me about life as an atheist in the Deep South. I tell a little bit of my story and I tell some of the struggles that have come with being who I am and where I am. Evidently the video was so awesome that it fried his computer, so unfortunately […]
Posted inGeneral, The Secular
Upcoming Podcast & a Godless Assembly in Tennesseee
Reading Time: 2 minutes If you’re interested, I’ve got a couple of upcoming public appearances, one of which can be caught online and another which will happen in Chattanooga, Tennessee. First, I’ll be interviewed for an upcoming episode of The No God Cast podcast airing Tuesday, April 8th at 7pm. The No God Cast is a part of the […]
Posted inFilm/TV, General
My Life in Movies: Groundhog Day
Reading Time: 10 minutes In honor of the late Harold Ramis, the next movie to illustrate my deconversion has to be Groundhog Day. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time, as I know it is for many others, and few movies have stimulated as much philosophical and theological debate. There’s so much that could be said—and already […]
Posted inFilm/TV, General
My Life in Movies: A Beautiful Mind, Watchmen, and Castaway
Reading Time: 11 minutes People assume that because I self-identify as an atheist, I must consider opposing all religion a valid goal and a worthwhile use of my time. My response to that is always that it depends on which species of religion we’re discussing. I’ve said many times that I oppose fundamentalism because I see it doing real […]