As you know, the American Humanist Association is suing Northwest Rankin High School (Flowood, MS) for allegedly forcing students to attend an assembly where members of Pinelake Baptist Church subjected them to proselytizing and sectarian prayer. While most of the mainstream media coverage of the suit has assumed that the plaintiff must be an atheist student, it appears that this is not the case. One of the plaintiffs, Gracie Bedi, has courageously revealed herself in an effort to clear up the misinformation surrounding the motives for the suit.

I abandon anonymity not to call attention to myself, but rather to call attention to the case and better validate its purpose. As a student at the high school, I have been privy to the thoughts and analysis of my peers, and what I’ve heard has been incredibly disheartening. Rather than reviewing the case as one of constitutional rights, I have been written off as an angry atheist, a scorned student, and even as a greedy child looking only for profit. Allow me to defend myself against such harsh conclusions.

I take issue with the fact that my peers and I were forced to attend a preferential religious sermon by a public school administration. The government, and Northwest is indeed a government for all intents and purposes, has no place in dictating the religion of the governed.

Here is Neil Carter of Godless in Dixie being interviewed at the Meadowbrook Church of Christ in Jackson as part of Interview an Atheist at Church Day.

Map of Mississippi highlighting Rankin County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The school has held at least three mandatory assemblies about finding hope in Jesus Christ this month, according to the lawsuit. The assemblies showed a video laced with Christian messages about overcoming personal hardships through Jesus Christ and were allegedly led by local church officials.

English: Mississippi gubernatorial candidate Johnny DuPree at a forum sponsored by the Mississippi Democratic Club (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• The city government’s website is being used to promote the prayer breakfast.
• The prayer breakfast is being held at the Lake Terrace Convention Center.
• Tickets for the event are being sold through the city’s website using a form that instructs attendees to make their check’s payable to the “Mayor’s Community Activity Fund.”
• Those with questions about the event are directed to a city employee at a city telephone number.

Here is what Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny Dupree had to say after the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to his office urging him to cancel a prayer breakfast supported with public money (i.e., our tax dollars):

Hattiesburg is a praying city. We all understand what prayer does, how powerful prayer is. Personally prayer has done so much for my family, and people that I love. So we’ll continue to have the prayer breakfast.

Fellow Mississippi Atheists, it seems we are losing one of our own in the sad announcement of Iain Banks’ late stage gallbladder cancer (He is marrying his longtime love as well).

I had heard of Scottish writer Iain Banks, long recommended by fellow readers, but hadn’t read him yet.  First an interview with him discussing atheism, second is writer Val McDermid’s article in the Guardian.

http://bit.ly/XwB6rt

http://bit.ly/Yi2k2b

—P.K. Atheist

The recent attacks on Sam Harris have given me pause.  I recommend you follow the links and catch up if you haven’t been following this flap.  Nathan Lean’s hit piece may be read here, and Glenn Greenwald’s uncrupulous misrepresentation may be read here.  Sam Harris’ response may be read here.

But the essence is just this:  Harris has been misquoted and misrepresented in a deliberate attempt at defamation, for no other reason than speaking the truth with clarity and precision.

What strikes me about the attacks is that they are unscrupulous and dishonest, but it was this post by Lean that made it clear to me that those who attack the so-called new atheists on ridiculous trumped up and baseless grounds have absolutely no interest in helping the Muslims who are poor victims of “Islamaphobia” (what a ridiculous term).  This is all about defaming the vociferous and brutally honest new atheists. Sam Harris, the face of new atheism, has endured the brunt of those attacks.

Harris is a man I deeply admire because he is an academic in the best sense.  He takes academic honesty, academic integrity, seriously.  In every word he writes, it is clear to me that he lives those values.  Those values are at the core of his identity.  He reminds me of Socrates, who was no respecter of persons, and, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, without the protections afforded by academic freedom, and in the United States the freedom of speech, Socrates always drinks the hemlock.

There is no such thing as god.  Everyone knows this, and I’ve long maintained that view.  No one with a good working brain really believes that the invisible sky-god exists.  No, I find that the truly devout fall into three categories:

1. The stupid
2. The desperate
3. The emotionally stunted

The following post has been cross-posted at Revolutionary Atheist (Tumblr). I thought it was worth sharing since I know there is some interest in what has been happening in the larger atheist community.

I’ve been mired in a bit of a controversy over at Atheist Revolution, and here is a brief summary of what happened:

• I wrote a post in which I examined the legal definitions of harassment and sought to explore some of the common accusations of harassment I have seen in the atheist community to see which ones fit the legal understanding of harassment.
• Someone affiliated with Atheist Alliance International tweeted a link to this post.
• Ophelia Benson and Rebecca Watson expressed their outrage to Atheist Alliance International for promoting a post with which they disagreed.
• The president of Atheist Alliance International posted a public apology for tweeting my post and removed the tweet from the organizations Twitter tread. The apology incorrectly characterized my post as having “trivialised harassment of women in the atheist community.”
• I posted a brief response to the apology in which I pointed out that my original post made no mention of the harassment of women and had not trivialized anything. As a few commenters on my blog noted, my original post actually opposed the trivialization of harassment by those who characterize anything with which they disagree as harassment.
• The president of Atheist Alliance International left a comment on that post in which he explained the contents of his apology.
• Finally, I posted my reaction to his comment and attempted to clear up any remaining misunderstandings.

If any behavior that offends someone or any words with which someone disagrees can be labeled “harassment” solely on the basis of one’s emotional reaction to them, then harassment ceases to have meaning.