I'd like to share a little more about my history, to elucidate some of the reasons why I remain a closet atheist, besides the financial and familial reasons I've already described on this blog.

I was raised Lutheran, but my parents were not very regular church-goers.  I went through Confirmation, and was a regular church attender and choir member as a teenager.  Then I went to college, and immediately stopped attending church.  So when I got out on my own in my early 20s, I continued…

I was at the library the other day, and decided to check out a book that I had skimmed through several years ago: Carl Sagan's The Varieties of Scientific Experience. The book, published a decade after Sagan's death in 1996, are taken from a series of lectures he gave in 1985, the Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow.  For any theists who accuse atheists of being unable to speak eloquently about matters of "spirituality," I would challenge them to read…

For anyone who hasn't read my blog posts, I am still a "closet atheist": I don't publicly identify as an atheist, and in fact, part of my income comes from church music.  I am Director of Music at a small Methodist church in Nashville, TN.  That's right...the buckle of the Bible belt!  I honestly can't see myself admitting my atheism to anyone in the near future, as my family's harmony and financial security rely partly on my keeping my church job.

Being honest with myself, however, I…

Has anyone seen this article?

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Believes 1st Amendment Only Applies to Christians

What a douchebag!  The dude is wrong in so many different ways, it's ridiculous. Not only does he have very little idea about comparative religion (he apparently thinks Buddhists believe Buddha created everything, and Muslims believe…