Tennessee barely escapes bible bill.

    Tennessee got one right.. kind of.  Tennessee House votes no to overturn veto The article talks about the Tennessee House vote to overturn the veto on Tennessee's bible bill. The bill would have made the christian bible the official state book.  The vote to overturn the veto was only short 7 votes to get the 50 they would need.  The above article cites diminishing the significance of the bible as the reason for opposition. The bible lost its significance the moment we realized slavery was bad, when women weren't property, and mixed fabrics is a bad reason to kill someone.
  The bill was dead on arrival because it violates both the United States constitution and the Tennessee state constitution.  With Tennessee being a majority evangelical state, it would be safe to say that the poor reasons given were more than merely pandering. Our secular constitution separates the church from state. This separation will serve dual purpose to both protect the religious from a state that forces a belief they don't have, and to protect those with no belief from following religious dogma.
The bible is a terrible book to place in any position of reverence or relevance to anything in today's society. It promotes slavery, rape, incest, and genocide. Why do we even have people trying to make this the official....anything?    Sure you can dig through and pick the lines you happen to agree with, but that is just the secular morality of the modern era forcing you to throw out the atrocious.  With Tennessee's bathroom bill still looming, we have a long road ahead to eliminate big orange bigotry. But as an atheist in east Tennessee, I will take whatever progress I can find.

My path: brief summary

In our lives there are few moments that force us to reevaluate the way we
approach our core beliefs. Whether we can actually control what we believe or
not is in question. I tend to think that we don't actually control what we
believe so much as we control what we do with our beliefs. The average person
either doesn't challenge their own beliefs, or they don't see a reason to
challenge their beliefs. Many can go their entire lives without seeing this as
a necessity. For some we get into a situation where something we see, read, or
experience can cause a moment of self-reflection. If confronted with this
situation some people can find themselves not trusting their own mind. I know
that for me it was very disturbing. I still find myself embarrassed at the way
I saw the world. Many of the things I thought were true, were completely false.
I believed in all sorts of conspiracy theories, magic and above all God.
As I came into adulthood I was slowly letting go of the specific gods of
scripture, and fell into a pseudo deism. It was closer to pantheism. I believed
that all of the god claims were true,but just misunderstood by the rest of the
world. I believed that God was an emergent phenomena of the collective
consciousness of the entire world. I was so completely convinced I had this
right,and the rest of the world held onto scripture because they were unable to
think properly. This to has slowly faded to where now I look back and laugh at
how wrong I was. I had just became very astute at leading the evidence to my
conclusion.

The necessity of secularism

Secularism has become a necessity in a world of such diverse beliefs as ours. These beliefs lead to irreconcilable political differences. The various sects of religion all have expressed a desire to legislate their oppressive doctrines. Secularism solves this by leaving room for all to participate, while preventing any from becoming oppressive. A truly free and open society will thrive only when all are represented, and none are privileged. The theocratic regimes in the world are being seen with a new clarity as the world is shifting toward global communities. People are communicating and connecting with people around the world in ways never before seen in all of human history. And from this global community we are slowly learning to accept people of various cultural backgrounds. In fact, a new culture is forming. An interconnected global culture shifting toward reason, acceptance, and above all equality. It is on the lips of all forward thinking humanists, who desire to make this life here and now the best life possible. After all is that not the true meaning of life, the life your lead, the decisions you make, and the people you help. These are the factors that give our lives purpose.


The laws for any society must be written with pure secularism, reason, and compassion. Any sectarian ideals that are not conducive to equality should be left off the table. Equally any anti-theistic ideals that would suppress the practice of religion should also be dismissed. Now I would like to make this point clear , there is a distinct difference from private citizens and government. Legislators and other government officials should absolutely be restricted from influencing laws on any religious or anti-religious grounds. I would also like to make clear what is meant here by anti-religious. By anti-religious, I mean against or oppressive to private citizens who wish to practice their faith traditions. Lawmakers, however, should be barred from using their faith or lack thereof as a political tool.

In America , people often fail to realize that although we hold democratic elections ,we are a republic. Public servants are chosen to represent everyone in their communities, not just the majority. The constitution outlines the protections that individuals and minority groups are given. Often miss-understood is the first amendment protections for religion. And it is important to understand, that without freedom from religion there is no freedom of religion. Many progressive Christian groups understand this. If one is to interpret it as a freedom to legislate dogma it will lead to oppression of minority religions. The atrocities of bloody Mary alone show the dangers of sectarian leaders. When they implement dogma as the law, reason goes out the window.

Theocratic Divisiveness in a Secular World

We live in an increasingly divided world, and the Secular Ethos strives to bring an end to that. Or to simply stop theocratic influences in governance. The justifications given for most of the discriminatory laws or practices are primarily doctrinal. Religious leaders persuade their congregations to fight against what their “holy books” call abominations. In turn, the congregates will go out and lobby for politicians and vote for discriminatory laws. The congregates and various religious organizations do these things believing they are doing “good works”. Overshadowing these good works, are the voices of the more extreme groups. Yet, the moderate stay in silence, and passively allow the division to continue. The moderates still support theocracy with their dollars through tithing's. Every time a check is written to a religious group or church their arguments receive political weight. The religious leaders then take these tithing's and finance campaigns to shift the blame.

The Pope shifts blame to Secularism

The Pope said in a bishops conference in Latvia,

“The Lord has chosen to work in a company that, after having long been oppressed by regimes founded on ideologies contrary to the dignity and human freedom, today is called to compete with other dangerous pitfalls, such as secularism and relativism.” Source: Vatican press office

He is stating that secularism is “dangerous” , and is placing it in-line with ideologies “contrary to dignity and human freedom” . Yet, the message from secular communities is in favor of freedom. The secular society, particularly in America, is fighting for equality and to remove discrimination. The secular communities have a dedication to equality and human well-being. Secular humanist and atheist organizations constantly support charity and campaigns for equal rights. One such organization is the Foundation Beyond Belief working toward helping those in need and improving communities. Secularism is not about division in any way. It is about helping others, giving a voice to the voiceless, and fighting for equality in a divided world.

Tennessee - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics

     The Pew Research Centers data on religion in Tennessee shows a disjoint between the number of religious non-affiliated (none's) and those willing to come out as atheist. The data found at, Tennessee - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics , shows that with 14% identifying as none, only 1% were comfortable calling themselves atheist. Tennessee is a difficult place to be openly secular. I realize that there are other places around the world where being an atheist would be more dangerous. Yet, in Tennessee being an atheist or openly secular can have some serious repercussions. Although it failed to pass, Tennessee legislators have been pushing to have the bible the official state book.( NPR  RT)  The Tennessee constitution even gives a biblical definition of marriage( Tennessee Marriage Protection Amendment) The interesting thing about this vote is that it was 81.25% for the amendment and 18.75% against. The Pew research data shows that Tennessee is also 81% Christian.
   
     The Roane county Tennessee county commission put up "in God we Trust" in the courthouse with only a single person in opposition.( Patheos) Tennessee has another bill introduced to allow counselors to discriminate based on their "sincerely" held religious beliefs.(Tennessee Equality Project) Tennessee isn't the only state with this types of laws. Yet, Tennessee appears to have only evangelical protestants controlling the government.  Tennessee also allows creationism in public schools under the guise of "teach the controversy". Included in Tennessee's "teach the controversy" law, is a legal blanket to teach climate change denial. Tennessee law makers need to "evolve" and teach factual science and leave the pseudoscience up to the churches.

Atheist Nones

     The “none's” are on the rise in the United States. The Pew Research Center shows that the religious non-affiliated has risen 6.7% since 2007. The data also shows that Christianity has dropped 7.8% . In the same time period the number of violent crimes dropped 18.26%, according to the F.B.I Crime Statistics report. The statistics here do not show a causal relationship, but it does show that religion is not necessary to be moral. This goes counter to what many religious leaders would lead their congregations to believe. Atheists aren't necessarily more moral than the religious, but many atheists also identify as Secular Humanists.

     Secular Humanism is a philosophy of consequential ethics relating to human action. Secular Humanism does have a broader definition, but within the confines of this post the one given is sufficient. Secular Humanists do not have any doctrinal or dogmatic beliefs in innate good or evil of any particular person or group.

     Another effect of the rise of secularism, is that more people become aware of the oppressive nature of many religious doctrines. It is important to note that just being secular does not automatically make you the most moral or rational. However, secularism does give people an identity to rally behind in the fight for equality and rational governance.

        The growing number of non-believers becoming more open and active is also giving the LGBT community an ally in the struggle for acceptance and equal rights. Religious doctrine is the

main, if not only, reason for discrimination against the LGBT community.

      The religious are now pushing for more laws to allow discrimination under the guise of religious freedom. Every step we take toward theocracy is a step away from freedom and rationality.