Tag Archives: Religion

Midwest & Red States

Texting with mom other day. Dawned on me that I’ve never fully explained why I can’t stand Indiana and other midwest red states like them. If it wasn’t for family there, I would never return.

I grew up on Army Posts…..I was use to growing up in a multicultural mix. My grade school years, living on APG, MD, being white, I was the minority in our housing and in school. We had Latinos…Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican…..we had Asians….Korean, Vietnamese….but mostly I grew up with African-Americans.

Like most military families, you create your own family with the military. My aunts & uncles were black…we were in military life together.

I knew that racism existed, I was reminded it of it when we visited family in Indiana and my grandfather would use the n-word and other horrible terms for anyone not white or christian. Everything that my parents taught me never to use.

But growing up in Maryland, I didn’t feel it that bluntly.  

I always thought it was the innocent of youth, but the more I reflect back on it, it was probably more of my white privilege not to see the racism that was existing…..the existing tensions. Even though my best friends were people of color…..even though rumors of the KKK activity scared us.

Moved to Alaska my middle school years, with a 1-2 months in Indiana in between, as my dad went on ahead to get housing ready for us to join him at Ft Wainwright.  

Not as culturally mixed as Maryland, but still not all white…..you still had a multicultural. I think, for us, it may have been more to do with rank. Housing it divided by rank and dad had become a NCO, a Master Sgt….when he was lower enlisted our housing was more multicultural. Even though I started to feel more of the differences/division between the races, even though my best friend was black.  

She would tell me of horror stories of living in Texas, how she couldn’t cross the tracks to the other side of town because she was black. I had such a hard time comprehending it.

One set of my grandparents had come up to Alaska, it was one of the few states that they hadn’t been to. During that time, for the first time in years, I was exposed to my grandfather’s racism. I loved my grandfather, but hated that about him. I finally wasn’t scare of him (he had a horrible temper and it use to scare me), and he said the n-word one too many times. And I went off on him about it (my best friend had just left, when he used that term), I was so mad. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but let him know in no certain terms that saying that word around me was not acceptable.  

What I really took away from that day, is that my parents backed me up and said that I was not raised to use that word or find it acceptable. I rarely heard that word in my presence from him after that.

Then we ended up in Indiana. I fully understand why we ended there…..even though I didn’t want to be there.  

Both set of grandfathers had strokes, my uncle was dying of AIDs and was going to move back to Indiana so we can take care of him. One set of grandparents were about to lose everything before they can get any help. You do what you have do for family, and with dad retiring from the Army, it is what we were going to do….we were in the best position to help. But I did not want to be in that state.

The 1-2 months of being at that Jr HS between moves from MD to AK convinced me that I didn’t want to be there. It was all white and no orchestra.

It was huge shock to my system when I was 15 when we moved there. I’ve never seen so many white people in my life in one place. And the town was only 20miles south of Gary, where my dad had been born, but it was another world….a very racist world.


Kids in that school used the n-word freely, teachers didn’t do damn thing about it. I learned more racist terms in that school then anywhere else. I never knew there was so many racist terms.  

Some guys in english class, used the n-word more times then I was able to handle and I exploded. The door to the class was open, so down the hall, people heard me tell them that I’ve known more blacks then whites, have gotten stabbed in the back by whites more then blacks, and I’ve meet more n-word people in this class then I ever did living with black people.  

The class was shocked into quiet, the teacher just looked at me and smiled and people learned quickly not use those terms around me unless they wanted to be punched….which I did as hard as I could.

Due to all that, I’ve never felt comfortable being with all whites. I like it where I go shopping that there is a mix of different people….different languages…. Latinos, blacks, muslims….I feel more at home

**The more I think about it, the more I think it is because when with all white groups, there is going to be a few racists who then assume that you believe the same way and feel free to say the most racist shit……ggrrrr

When I went to college, the majority of my history and political science classes were women studies and African-American studies….I had to expand my mind, get away from the narrow mindness that is the midwest.

My folks believe in god, more spiritual…church wasn’t a focus. Dad is a recovering catholic, when I asked him why we weren’t raised catholic (all of my cousins were), he stated because they rule on guilt and control, they don’t celebrate their beliefs.  

Mom used to read the Xmas store on Xmas eve. When visiting our grandparents, I went to lutheran services with one grandmother and catholic services with the other. I would take the “bible bus” that picked up kids in MD to go to church….looking back, I dogged a big bullet…it was pentecostal. 

So I was christian….but not a regular church goer. I would’ve become atheist regardless…..but Indiana pushed me quicker then it would’ve came to me.

Living in Indiana, also taught me, how hateful “christians” are. They couldn’t be good “christians” until they “judge” you and find you lacking. They believed that gays deserved to die of AIDs…..I’ve never meet such a hateful group of people.  


This is the late 80s/90s when AIDs was exploding to the forefront.

They hated people that thought differently, expressed individuality, who dared to be different……a girl/woman who demanded control of their own bodies….who didn’t believe in their bigotry/racism.

With what I dealt with in Indiana…..you can see why I’m still surprised I married a white guy from Indiana…lol  But what really got us together was that we shared same beliefs on racism, sexism and religion

My folks, my not have always understood or agreed with my sister and my decisions, but they have always accepted and loved us. What I was taught that being christian was suppose to be……not what I saw in the midwest.

I know that this just doesn’t exist in the midwest, but when I see the fascist laws they are passing, there is no way I would ever move to a place where I can’t be myself. Living there for 15yrs was more then enough for me.

Thoughts of the Day

“In Philadelphia, I inadvertently came upon an edition of Robert Ingersoll’s Essays and Lectures. This was an exciting discovery; his atheism confirmed my own belief that the horrific cruelty of the Old Testament was degrading to the human spirit.”
— Charlie Chaplain, My Autobiography (1964), cited in Who’s Who in Hell by Warren Allen Smith

“The thoughts of the gods are not more unchangeable than those of the men who interpret them. They advance—but they always lag behind the thoughts of men. . . . The Christian God was once a Jew. Now he is an anti-Semite.”
— Anatole France, letter to the Freethought Congress at Paris (1905), cited by Joseph McCabe, Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists

http://ffrf.org/day/view/04/16/

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. . . . Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find inducements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.”
— Thomas Jefferson’s letter to nephew Peter Carr, written from Paris, Aug. 10, 1787
“Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does not alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not authority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he is under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law, nor custom, nor pulpits, nor society—whose opinion appals so many. He who has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save the fear of error.”
— George Jacob Holyoake, The Origin and Nature of Secularism, Ch. 3 (1896)

“Gullibility and credulity are considered undesirable qualities in every department of human life—except religion . . . Why are we praised by godly men for surrendering our ‘godly gift’ of reason when we cross their mental thresholds? . . . Atheism strikes me as morally superior, as well as intellectually superior, to religion. Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.”
— Christopher Hitchens, “The Lord and the Intellectuals,” Harper’s (July 1982), cited by James A. Haught in 2,000 Years of Disbelief (1996)

http://ffrf.org/day/view/04/13/

“When one guy sees an invisible man he’s a nut case. Ten people see him it’s a cult. Ten million people see him it’s a respected religion.”
— Richard Jeni, from richardjeni.com

“That’s all religion is — some principle you believe in . . . man has accomplished far more miracles than the God he invented. What a tragedy it is to invent a God and then suffer to keep him King.”
— Rod Steiger, in Playboy magazine (July interview, 1969)

http://ffrf.org/day/view/04/14/

Thoughts of the Day

Do Unto Others?

‘Love thy neighbor as thyself?’
Hide that motto on the shelf!
Let it lie there, keep it idle
Especially if you’re suicidal.

Realist

‘For what we are about to receive,
Oh Lord, ’tis Thee we thank,’
Said the Cannibal as he cut a slice
Of the missionary’s shank.

— Yip Harburg, Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965). His two rhymebooks are available for sale from FFRF at our bookstore.

“I look forward to receiving 20 emails saying, ‘Hey, I noticed you’re not religious. Look at your fingerprint. Doesn’t that prove that there is a creator, because your fingerprint is completely unique.’ Um, no. Doesn’t.”

— “The Atheist’s Puzzle,” Oct. 19, 2010, youtube.com/alexday

http://ffrf.org/day/view/04/08/

“Universalists believe in a god which I do not; but believe that their god, with all his moral attributes, (aside from nature itself,) is nothing more than a chimera of their own imagination.”

— Letter by Abner Kneeland to Universalist editor Thomas Whittemore, Dec. 20, 1833, published by Abner Kneeland in the Investigator, for which he was tried and convicted of blasphemy

“Another important doctrine of the Christian religion, is the atonement supposed to have been made by the death and sufferings of the pretended Saviour of the world; and this is grounded upon principles as regardless of justice as the doctrine of original sin. It exhibits a spectacle truly distressing to the feelings of the benevolent mind, it calls innocence and virtue into a scene of suffering, and reputed guilt, in order to destroy the injurious effects of real vice. It pretends to free the world from the fatal effects of a primary apostacy, by the sacrifice of an innocent being. Evil has already been introduced into the world, and in order to remove it, a fresh accumulation of crimes becomes necessary. In plain terms, to destroy one evil, another must be committed.”

— Elihu Palmer, Principles of Nature; or, A Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery among the Human Species, 1801

http://ffrf.org/day/view/04/07/

“Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. . . .

[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.”

— Dr. James Watson, London Telegraph, March 22, 2003

“How have so-called psychics been able to mystify representative scientists such as Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, William James, and the French physiologist, Charles Richet — men of supposedly straight-thinking, analytical minds? To say nothing of such eminent writers as the sincere, though deluded, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.

“I believe the kernel of the matter is that scientists, philosophers, and psychologists live in circles where honesty is taken for granted. It is inconceivable to them that such gross deception could be practiced. They fail to realize that they’re working hand in glove with members of one of the most unclean professions in the world.”

— Harry Houdini, “Tricks of Fake Mediums,” Liberty magazine, April 25, 1925

http://ffrf.org/day/view/04/06/

“I’d been on patrol, and I went to church that evening. It was an Anglican church, quite high church (I always liked the ceremony) and I was standing up, reciting the Apostles’ Creed (which to this day I could recite word for word) and suddenly I realized I didn’t believe a word of it, and probably never had. And I never went back to church after that, except for the occasional funeral.”

— Arthur Hailey, in Walden Book Report, July 1998

“Seeing there are no signs nor fruit of religion but in man only, there is no cause to doubt but that the seed of religion is also only in man. . .”

“Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publicly allowed, RELIGION; not allowed, SUPERSTITION.”

“They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that mislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.”

— Sir Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

http://ffrf.org/day/view/04/05/

Thoughts of the Day

“I brought the case because I wanted to encourage toleration among my children. I certainly did not want teachers who have control over my children for at least eight hours over the day to . . . program them into any religious philosophy.”

— Ishmael Jaffree, acceptance speech for “Freethinker of the Year 1985,” awarded by the Freedom From Religion Foundation

“The greatest difference between the Humanist ethic and that of Christianity and the traditional religions is that it is entirely based on happiness in this one and only life and not concerned with a realm of supernatural immortality and the glory of God. Humanism denies the philosophical and psychological dualism of soul and body and contends that a human being is a oneness of mind, personality, and physical organism. Christian insistence on the resurrection of the body and personal immortality has often cut the nerve of effective action here and now, and has led to the neglect of present human welfare and happiness.”

— Corliss Lamont, “The Affirmative Ethics of Humanism,” The Humanist, March/April 1980

“I’m a nonbeliever. I don’t believe in the existence of a God. I don’t believe in the Christian dogma. I find it horrifyingly silly.The intolerance that flows from organized religion is the most dangerous thing on the planet.”

— Jane Rule, Brave Souls: Writers and Artists Wrestle with God, Love, Death and the Things that Matter by Douglas Todd (1996), cited by Celebrity Atheists website.

http://ffrf.org/day/view/03/28/

“Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation.”
— John Fowles, quoted in The New York Times Book Review (May 31, 1998)

http://ffrf.org/day/view/03/31/

Thought of The Day

“My respect for the Abrahamic religions went up in the smoke and choking dust of September 11th. The last vestige of respect for the taboo disappeared as I watched the ‘Day of Prayer’ in Washington Cathedral, where people of mutually incompatible faiths united in homage to the very force that caused the problem in the first place: religion. It is time for people of intellect, as opposed to people of faith, to stand up and say ‘Enough!’ Let our tribute to the dead be a new resolve: to respect people for what they individually think, rather than respect groups for what they were collectively brought up to believe.”

— “Time to Stand Up,” written for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Sept. 2001. See Dawkins’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award.

http://ffrf.org/day/view/03/26/