Category Archives: Atheist

I wrote this article about fifteen years ago, and it first appeared in the May/June 2007 issue ofThis Rock magazine (now called Catholic Answers Magazine). It was one of three articles on the theological virtues and apologetics, the other two being An Apologetic of Hope (Oct. 2006) and Why Believe? An Apologetic of Faith (Dec. 2007). Consider it a Valentine for all those who believe and all those who are skeptical.

Love and the Skeptic

The greatest of these, wrote the Apostle Paul, is love (1 Cor. 13:13). Many centuries later, in a culture quite foreign to the Apostle to the Gentiles, the singer John Lennon earnestly insisted, All we need is love.

Different men, different intents, different contexts. Even different types of love. You hardly need to subscribe to People magazine or to frequent the cinema to know that love is the singularly insistent subject of movies, songs, novels, television dramas, sitcoms, and talk showsthe nearly monolithic entity known as pop culture. We are obsessed with love. Or love. With or without quotation marks, its obvious that this thing called love occupies the minds, hearts, emotions, lives, and wallets of homo sapiens.

Yet two questions are rarely asked, considered, contemplated: Why love? And, what is love? These arent just good questions for philosophical discussionsthese are important, powerful questions to use in talking to atheists and skeptics, for the question of love will ultimately lead, if pursued far and hard enough, to the answer of God, who is Love.

What is This Thing Called Love?

One man who spent much time and thought considering the why and how of love was Pope John Paul II. Man cannot live without love, he wrote in Redemptor Hominis, his first encyclical. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it (10).

That is a statement both St. Paul and John Lennon could agree with, for it states something that is evident to the thoughtful person, whether Christian or otherwise: I need love. I want to love. I am made for love.

But what is love?

Many profound worksby luminaries including the Church Fathers, Aquinas, John of the Cross, Karol Wojtyla, and Pope Benedict XVIhave considered this question at great length and with intense detail. They have plumbed the depths of the various types of lovefamilial, sexual, and agape. Ill start with the basic brushstrokes of a definition of love between humans. The Thomist Josef Pieper, in his essential book On Love, wrote that this love is personal, active, and evaluating. It gauges what is beautiful, right, andespeciallygood, and affirms that it is such. Love, Pieper states, in articulating a philosophical understanding, is therefore a mode of willing. To confirm and affirm something already accomplishedthat is precisely what is meant by to love (On Love II).

How Wonderful that You Exist!

But what is willed by loving? When we say to another: It is good that you exist, that you are!what do we mean? The question is not nearly as abstract or obtuse as it might sound, for it does serious damage to the flippant claim that man is able to make a meaning, for love is not about making something ex nihilo, but the recognition and affirmation of what already is. Or, put another way, in seeing the good of another, we choose to embrace and treasure that good.

So Pieper makes an essential distinction: For what the lover gazing upon his beloved says and means is not: How good that you are so (so clever, useful, capable, skillful), but: Its good that you are; how wonderful that you exist! (On Love II). This seemingly simple point has profound ramifications, for it is an affirmation of what is. It involves the recognition that something outside of myself is objectively good and worthy of my love. Because reality is knowable and has objective meaningnot shifting, subjective meaninglove is possible and can be known. This, of course, raises the question: Where does the objective meaning of love ultimately originate from if not from myself? It is a question routinely ignored by skeptics, but worth asking of both those who deny Gods existence and those who reject the existence of objective truth: If your love for your spouse or family is subjective and of a here today, gone tomorrow sort, what meaningful, lasting value does it really have?

The true lover, Pieper argues, intuitively understands, even if not with precise logic, that an affirmation of the beloveds goodness would be pointless, were not some other force akin to creation involvedand, moreover, a force not merely preceding his own love but one that is still at work and that he himself, the loving person, participates in and helps along by loving (On Love II).

Human love, therefore, is an imitation, a reflection, of the divine love that created all that is, including each of us. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est, there is a certain relationship between love and the Divine: love promises infinity, eternitya reality far greater and totally other than our everyday existence (5). Even Sartre, who is not known for being happy about much of anything, remarked in Being and Nothingness, This is the basis for the joy of love . . .; we feel that our existence is justified (3.I).

Grateful to No One in Particular

It is here that Pieper makes a significant connection, proffering (as even Sartres remark suggests) that all love must contain some element of gratitude. But gratitude is a reply, he argues, it is knowing that one has been referred to something prior, in this case to a larger frame of universal reference that supersedes the realm of immediate empirical knowledge (On Love II).

This is noteworthy because there are atheists and skeptics who insist that it is perfectly logical, even laudable, to be grateful. Recently, The Philosophers Magazine ran a piece titled, Thank Who Very Much?, written by Ronald Aronson, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Wayne State University. It opened with a rather honest and blunt assessment of the situation faced by atheists and agnostics:

Living without God today means facing life and death as no generation before us has done. It entails giving meaning to our lives not only in the absence of a supreme being, but now without the forces and trends that gave hope to the past several generations of secularists. . . . By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the modern faith that human life is heading in a positive direction has been undone, giving way to the earlier religious faith it replaced, or to no faith at all.

So, what to do? Aronson maintains a stiff upper lip, exhorting his fellow disbelievers to shape a satisfying way of living in relation to what we can know and what we cannot know and so forth. Noting that Christianity and Judaism tend to be filled with gratitude since they believe in a personal God, he offers a rather startling suggestion, worth considering at length:

But there is an alternative to thanking God on the one hand and seeing the universe as a cosmic lottery or as absurd on the other. An alternative to being grateful to a deity or to ignoring such feelings altogether. Think of the suns warmth. After all, the sun is one of those forces that make possible the natural world, plant life, indeed our very existence. It may not mean anything to us personally, but the warmth on our face means, tells us, and gives us a great deal. All of life on Earth has evolved in relation to this source of heat and light, we human beings included. We are because of, and in our own millennial adaptation to, the sun and other fundamental forces. My moment of gratitude was far more than a moments pleasure. It is a way of acknowledging one of our most intimate if impersonal relationships, with the cosmic and natural forces that make us possible.

Why Does It All Exist?

We can be grateful, I suppose, for Aronsons suggestion but still find it unconvincing. His notion of an intimate if impersonal relationship is, at best, paradoxical, and at worst, illogical. It is an attempt to assign meaning to something (creation) whose value has already been denied (since the world and our lives are the accidental offspring of molecular chaos). If I understand his proposition correctly, man should extend personal, relational reaction in response to a reality that is not only impersonal, but possessing no personal basis or value. And then we are stop there, without contemplating, Where did all of this come from? Why does it even exist?

Aronson recognizes this problem and appeals not only to our gratitude to larger and impersonal forces, but to mans dependence on the cosmos, the sun, nature, past generations of people, and human society. Which still does not explain why the cosmos, the sun, and nature exist, or why they exist so as to sustain human life. Strip away the sincere intentions and we are still left with a simple fact: Its not enough. The vast majority of people down through time have never found it enough to extend an intimate and personal note of gratitude to impersonal, biological forces that do not care about us or love us. Responding in gratitude to the sun, the fallow earth, the dewy meadow, the complexity of DNA is either sentimental neo-paganism or points to mans natural knowledge that Someone must be responsible for those lovelyand love-revealingrealities. Here, then, is another possible point of discussion with skeptics of every stripe and type: Are you grateful to be alive? If so, does it make sense to be grateful to immaterial forces and objects that dont care at all about your existence?

The novelist and essayist Walker Percy, a former atheist who believed in his youth that science would provide the answers to all questions and problems, impatiently dismissed the grateful, but to no one position in his rollicking self-interview, Questions They Never Asked Me:

This life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, Scientific humanism. That wont do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight; i.e., God. In fact, I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything else. (417)

Aronson, like many skeptics, puts on a brave face, but ultimately settles for too little. His philosophical approach is merely a more sophisticated version of the skeptics crude belief: Create your own meaning. Yes, he essentially says, I readily admit that the universe is diverse and full of unbelievable phenomena, but at the end of the day I conclude it still has no meaning other than that which I give it. Ironically, it is the skeptic who takes an illogical leap of faith. Fortunatelyor rather, providentiallyfaith does not have to be the enemy of reason, as long as it is faith in the right Person.

Love is of God

The most convincing explanation for human love is divine love. As Benedict explains so well in Deus Caritas Est, Christianity carefully distinguishes between divine love and human love, but also recognizes that the latter results from the former. On one hand, man cannot know and grasp the theological virtue of love by his natural powers. Yet by his nature man is drawn toward God even through human loveespecially through human love. And it is the Christian storythe Christ storythat makes sense of mans hunger to love and to be loved. The great surprise is that Gods love is most fully revealed in the death of the God-man, Jesus Christ, on a cross, which was the culmination of the great scandal of the Incarnation and was validated by the great mystery of the Resurrection.

In the mystery of the Cross love is at work, wrote Pope John Paul II in Dominum et Vivificantem, that love which brings man back again to share in the life that is in God himself (41). This love allows man to participate in the life of the Triune God, who is love (1 John 4:16). The perfect love in and of the Trinity is the source of love and the home of love. The Sons redemptive work of love unites us to himself, the Holy Spirit perfects our will in love and makes us more like the Son, and both guide man toward the loving heavenly Father. Such is the path of divine life and love, the joy of divinization. God himself, the Catechism summarizes, is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange (CCC 221).

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new, wrote Augustine in his Confessions. As a young man he had sought love in many places, things, and people. Why? Because he knew that he was made to love and be loved. Everyone, in the deepest recesses of their hearts, has the same knowledge, no matter how scarred and distorted it might be. Some have even made love their god, failing to see that we cannot love love, nor can we worship love. Lennon sang, All we need is love. More accurately, all we need is the One Who is Love. Now that is a lyric worth singing for a lifetime and beyond.

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Love and the Skeptic Catholic World Report - Catholic World Report

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) A small atheist organization in Kenya is gaining ground in this largely Christian nation as it tackles political ideologies and human rights matters, wading into debates outside its usual critiques of religion.

While the group has kept up its calls for reforms of church regulation and religious education, it has also gotten attention for plans to distribute personal hygiene supplies in Kenyas slums and for supporting a needy schoolboy the kind of charity that is mostly the province of church groups here.

We are trying to make Kenyans see that we are not a weird group, Harrison Mumia, president of Atheists in Kenya Society, told Religion News Service. We want to show that we can sympathize with situations and also offer interventions.

The group flashed some of its newfound muscle in late January, after Ida Odinga, the wife of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, had retreated from her criticism of what she said was slipshod training for Christian clergy in the East African country and of illegal churches run by poorly schooled clerics.

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I sincerely apologize for the discomforts caused as I meant no harm to anyone, said Odinga on Jan. 28, just a day after her critical comments. I reiterate that training only makes the service of preaching better and promotes the ministration of the Word of God.

The Atheists in Kenya Society took up Odingas call for reform, arguing that the church in Kenya has been commercialized and that legislation is needed to guarantee transparency and accountability in religious institutions.

The government should shut down churches that fall short of the threshold to operate, said Mumia.

But with elections coming in August, the group has begun reaching out to political parties to sign a declaration that they would not discriminate against anybody on the basis of their religion, or lack of one.

When you look at our politics, said Mumia, there is always assertion that God is with us. We even have the aspect that the president is chosen by God. We are asking leaders of political parties to affirm to Kenyans that they will not go to campaigns talking about God.

Their campaign is directed not only at freedoms for atheists, but at what they say is a greater good. The political leadership has to change and we think atheists in Kenya will drive that transformation. The transformation will lead to a more equal society, where nobody is discriminated against on the basis of religion or lack of religion, Mumia said.

In a country where 85% of the 50 million citizens are Christian, about 755,000 are atheists, according to Kenyas 2019 Population Census Report. Atheist leaders say their polling shows the number closer to 1.5 million. We are receiving many new members and we are engaging with them, Mumia said in an interview. Kenya is changing. This should be the next earthquake.

Religious leaders have long resisted the atheist societys attempts to be registered with the government as an official faith group. After sustained pressure the government issued the group a registration certificate in 2016, three years after it wasfounded at a meeting in Nairobi in 2013.

Loreen Maseno, a senior lecturer at Maseno University, said atheists are becoming more visible in Kenya, and the reasons for their growth are complicated. Kenya has witnessed a population boom in recent years, and all faith groups have increased. But she said young Kenyans especially now access much more information about alternatives to traditional religions on the internet, giving atheism a higher profile.

Mike OMaera, a former editor of the Catholic Information Service for Africa, agreed that technology has spread atheist ideas but said increasing affluence and flawed religious leaders have also contributed. Some influential church leaders here have flouted morality, thus left followers disgruntled, OMaera said. Thats why atheism is becoming an alternative for some of the Christians.

The atheist societys philanthropy has also added to its prominence, drawing both praise and criticism.

In 2020, a Twitter post alerted the group to the plight of a boy in Baringo County in the Rift Valley region, Abel Lutta, who had attained top grades in his school examinations but whose single mother, a vegetable seller, could not afford the required fees to send him on to high school.

After seeing the Twitter post, said Mumia, We took it up as a society and raised the full fees.

We wanted to demonstrate an atheist is human and feels for the underprivileged. There is a view that when wedont believe in God, we dont care about other people. We are human beings, said Mumia.

Ironically, Mumia recalled, The mother called to tell me that she thanks God for our action. It didnt surprise me. We knew she is a religious person. We were not helping because of her religious background.

But the groups donations triggered reactions from Christian clergy and some ordinary Kenyans, who urged Luttas mother to reject what they viewed as devils money.

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Some clerics view atheism like any other belief the Christianity missionaries encountered when they arrived in Africa. Christianity did not find a vacuum. There has been traditional religion,there have been people of different beliefs and we have coexisted, said the Rev. Joseph Njakai, an Anglican priest from central Kenya.

The priest, while pointing out that Christian churches support children as well, accused the atheists of capitalizing on poverty. He credited their generosity, meanwhile, to a God-given empathy.

I think they want to gain mileage (publicity) using the vulnerable. I dont think this is all about being human. They may say they dont believe in God, but the element of God in them is what makes them be good, said Njakai.

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After moving out of their comfort zone, atheists in Kenya gain visibility - Religion News Service

In response to our request, the Eleventh Circuit has scheduled oral argument in our important prayer case. Oral arguments will be held the week of April 25, 2022, in our case appealing a flawed federal district ruling declaring that government officials can no longer encourage citizens to pray amid a difficult time in their community and volunteer chaplains can no longer lead members of their community in prayer.

In 2014, our client, the City of Ocala experienced a crime spree resulting in injury to several children. The police knew the identity of the shooters but could not persuade witnesses to come forward to testify. Consistent with community policing standards regularly employed by the Citys police department, Chief of Police Greg Graham, met with local NAACP leaders who suggested that the police department reach out to the local faith-based community for help in persuading witnesses to come forward. Chief Graham did just that.

In response, community leaders decided to hold a community prayer vigil. The vigil was organized by private citizens and volunteer chaplains (faith community leaders), along with private citizens, led the vigil. Many in the community attended. At the request of the organizers for the event, Chief Graham posted a letter encouraging unity and prayer and attendance at the vigil. Atheists, offended by the idea of prayer at the vigil, demanded City officials cancel the event. Despite City officials continued explanation that it could not cancel a privately organized event, the atheists cried foul and later sued the City for allegedly promoting the vigil.

Unwilling to let atheists vilify the City and its officials, the ACLJ took action, representing the City of Ocala in the lawsuit. When the district court found for the atheists, we appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.

In our reply brief filed late last year, we urge the Court to reject the atheists attempts to reshape the First Amendment and interpret in a manner that specially limits religious expression rather than protects it. As we point out:

Plaintiffs-Appellees advocate for a country in which chaplains are no longer permitted to lead members of the public in prayer and government officials can no longer have any association with religion at all. In fact, according to Plaintiffs-Appellees[,] government officials must shut down protected First Amendment gatherings out of fear of division or where there is opposition.

To achieve this vision, the atheists urge the Court to reject our countrys long history of recognizing the important and permissible role of chaplains and public references to God and prayer by public officials, toss aside a host of case precedent including the Supreme Courts recent ruling in American Legion v. American Humanist Association and in essence, scrub away any reference to the divine. Am. Legion v. Am. Humanist Assn, 139 S. Ct. 2067, 2085 (2019).

This case represents yet another example of cancel cultures attacks on free speech and prayer and emphasizes why the defense of First Amendment rights is more important than ever. As we further note in our reply brief:

[I]f the Vigil that took place had been a public gathering involving any non-religious speech, Plaintiffs-Appellees would not have raised a legal challenge. Indeed, if Chief Graham had been tasked with finding a shooter at an Ocala Atheist event and, in doing so, consulted with the groups leaders and vocally supported their efforts to organize a protected First Amendment gathering, Plaintiffs-Appellees would not have filed suit, nor would they have demonized Chief Graham for his efforts as they have done here.

Prayer, especially in the public sphere, is under increasing attack. In addition to this case where we are representing the City of Ocala, we are preparing to file an amicus brief at the Supreme Court in the case of a high school coach who was fired for silently praying after football games.

The ACLJ will continue to pursue this fight and keep you posted as these cases defending prayer proceed.

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Eleventh Circuit Will Hear Oral Argument on Prayer Ban in Major ACLJ Case - American Center for Law and Justice

Kochi: Kerala's Ayesha Mercerous has turned an atheist by renouncing Islam. Talking to the media, she has told that she was in a state of euphoria for almost 10 years. He had questions about Islam, due to which he read the biography of Prophet Muhammad a few years ago. He says that as I went on reading this book, my intention became firm. He told that the things that have been written in that book about slavery and women, it flaunts human rights. Ayesha says that, 'Therefore, I decided to leave Islam by going to the mosque in December 2021.' Like Ayesha, there are many such people of Kerala who have given up Islam, but the Muslim people treat those who leave this religion very badly.

Ayesha says that my family members do talk, but now the two earlier things are no longer there. An organization in Kerala has been in constant headlines since January 2022. Whose name is 'Ex Muslims of Kerala'. Arif Hussain Theruvath, the head of this organization, says, 'In the last one year, a record 300 people have left Islam in Kerala. Apart from the statistics, about 2000 people are in contact with us, who have left Islam. There will be many people who have not been able to come in contact with us. Dr. Arif further said that, 'People keep their identity hidden because the society declares such people as kafirs (atheists) and immoral. Not only this, that person is boycotted. All kinds of rights including his property are taken away from him. She is harassed in every way physically, socially and mentally. They say that although every religion discriminates against atheists, Islam is fanatical in this matter, people who leave Islam, people treat them very badly.

Thousands of people have left Islam all over the country, but are not speaking openly due to fear. Arif also says that, 'In Islam, the words of Prophet Muhammad are considered to be a stone line, but if one reads his life carefully, questions arise on his own character.' The president of the organization claims that this organization has come to the fore in Kerala for the first time, but the work is going on for almost 10 years. This organization is also operating in the whole of India under the name 'Ex-Muslims of India'. This organization works in secret now, but soon like Kerala, this organization will be brought to the fore with identity across India. At present, the registration work of this organization in Tamil Nadu will be completed soon. Let us inform that an organization named 'Ex-Muslims of Kerala' has been formed for the people who have renounced Islam in Kerala. Its purpose is to provide help and support to those who have left Islam.

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2000 people left Islam in this state of India, know what is the reason - News Track English

Directed by Drew Mylrea, Last Survivors is a blurry tale about a father and a son living in the woods, following the belief that they are giving more to nature than they are taking away from it. Anyone who enters their self-created territory is treated as an outsider, and the father, Troy (Stephen Moyer), doesnt hesitate to shoot them to protect his 25-year-old son, Jake (Drew Van Acker).

Cinematographer Julian Amaru Estrada has captured picturesque shots depicting the serenity and wilderness of Butte, Montana, where Last Survivors was shot. The narrative majorly depicts the two lives that are conflicted when the son meets a third person, a woman living in a cabin, and falls in love with her. Not only does love kindle a kind of warmth in Jakes heart, but it also gives him a sensibility that makes him question his fathers lies, who has forced Jake to live in a no-mans land since childhood. Why are Troy and Jake living away from human civilization? Lets find out.

Troy Belstair took his son, Jake Jakey, to the woods near Chicago on December 11th, 2002, and lied to him about World War III, in which his mother was killed. Since then, Jakey has been living in a wood cabin in the wilderness, following the orders and beliefs of his atheist father. Tory has taught Jakey about the importance of mans primitive roots, where they used to hunt for food instead of using packaged, processed food, which is why they hugely rely on animals and have also maintained a shed to preserve food, spices, and medicines.

Though Jakey carries out all his fathers commands, he hides a secret tin box from him in which he keeps his books, magazines, and a picture of a woman printed in the magazine that Jakey adores. Jakey loves reading books and constantly refers to the adventures of The Swiss Family Robinson in all his conversations, with the belief that someday he too will find his island and start a family with someone.

Jakey and Troy live in a self-created territory, believing they are one of the last few survivors, and some people, whom they call outsiders, want to hurt them and steal their food or territory. Hence, whenever a person invades their lands, Troy shoots them without a second thought and kills them. Last Survivors begins as a person named Jeff Williams walks into their territory, and while dealing with the outsider, Troy gets hurt.

Troys wound got infected, and the antibacterial medicines he had were too old to make him better. He is not in a position to go out of his territory to bring medicine and thus asks Jakey to bring out an SHTF book that has a map to the location of the medicine. Jakey has never stepped out of the territory, and though Troy is in pain, he is not sure whether his son is ready to deal with the outsiders. However, with this belief, he lets Jakey go on a one-man mission.

Outside the territory, Jakey spots a woman, Henrietta (Alicia Silverstone), living all alone in a cabin to seek peace and space away from her family and city life. Jakey gets infatuated with Henrietta and decides not to kill her. He steals the medicine and leaves, but when his father inquires about the woman, Jakey lies to him that he killed her. Later, Jakey steals the meat from the preserve and hides it to return to Henriettas cabin again and meet her. Jakeys infatuation with a woman sparks a chain of events where he lies with his father, and Henrietta becomes Jakeys link to the outside world, where she tells him about the things about which his father has been lying all along. But why?

Major Spoilers Ahead

When Henrietta reported Jakes intrusion into her cabin to the police, the officer dug up information about Troy and Jakey and revealed to Henrietta that on December 11th, 2002, Troy kidnapped his son from the house and attempted to murder a woman named Miss Chandrey, who was probably Jakeys mother.

Whenever Jake dreamt about that night, he often saw a mans face who knocked on the cars window. Initially, Jake believed that the man in his dreams was asking for help from his father after the outbreak of World War 3, but in the end of Last Survivors, Jake understood the meaning of that dream. The man knocked on the cars window and asked Troy to leave Jake, who was living with his mother at the mans house and was probably her new partner. For some reason, Troy might have lost custody of Jake, and thus, to get his son back, he attacked his wife and tried to kill her. Troy showed signs of mental illness, but despite that, he was obsessed with his son, and to convince Jake to live with him in the wilderness, Troy fabricated the story of World War 3 and the human madness that destroyed the world, which made them the last few survivors of humanity.

Troy felt the same fear of losing his son when Jake, looking for a sense of belonging to start his own family, fell in love with Henrietta. The father didnt want Jake to develop any human connection out of love or compassion. He was scared that Jake would leave him and start a new life, and Troy wasnt ready for the separation. He locked Jake in the storage room and left his territory to kill Henrietta. However, before his father could harm Henrietta, Jake intervened and pushed his father off the window in Henriettas cabin.

At that point, Troy fell into a pointed metal that resulted in severe blood loss, and when Jake confronted his father, Troy finally revealed that whatever he did was out of love, which proved the theory that Troy kidnapped and lied to his son to keep Jakey with him. In the end of Last Survivors, Troy gives Jake his gun and asks him to end the misery for once and for all.

Before dying, Troy gave Jake a key that opened a box that he left for Jake to open only after his death. Inside the box, Jake found an address that he hoped belonged to his mother, Miss Chandrey. Without any further ado, Jake visited the place and knocked on the door before the film blacked out.

Jake didnt believe in luck, but it could be surmised that it was a stroke of luck that brought Jeff Williams to their No Mans Land and gave an injury to Troy that compelled him to send Jake to the outside world. Jake and Henrietta were destined to meet; however, they werent meant to stay together.

Henrietta, like Troy, developed a hatred for the city lifestyle and civilization. She left her husband and her kids to stay all alone in the woods looking for something, but she didnt know what. Her husband encouraged her to get a job or pursue a hobby, but Henrietta was unable to find meaning or balance in her life. She needed experience, and the interaction with Jake evidently became that experience. Jakes story gave her hope. A hope that there is still good in the world and that our lives are more about which part of humanity we accept.

Last Survivors is a 2022 Drama Thriller film directed by Drew Mylrea.

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'Last Survivors' Ending, Explained - Why Troy & Jake Are Living In Isolation? | DMT - DMT

Beyond the left/right binary. In a widely shared Sunday tweet, journalist Matthew Sheffield asserted that controversial podcaster Joe Rogan "overwhelmingly" favors "right-wingers" as guests. Rogan has been at the center of multiple outrage cycles recently (even the White House has been weighing in), with many progressivesincluding musicians like Neil Youngattempting to get the audio platform Spotify to cancel his contract. Proving that he's some sort of right-wing nutjob has been a major thread in all this.

Rogan and his supporters insist that he's simply open-minded and likes to talk to people from across the political spectrumand a quick glance at some of his repeat guests would certainly suggest this.

Liberal actress Amy Schumer has been on Rogan's show four times, while Trump-loving actress Roseanne Barr has been on three times. Liberal director Kevin Smith has been a guest (four times), as has conservative rocker Ted Nugent (three times). Sex advice columnist and podcaster Dan Savage, Cenk Uygur of the left political show The Young Turks, whistleblower and civil liberties advocate Edward Snowden, and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (DHawaii) have all been on Rogan's show. As have conservative commentators and entertainers like Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones.

Many of Rogan's guests don't fit into neat political categories. For instance, politically independent YouTuber Bridget Phetasy has been on four times. Rogan also likes guests from the atheist and skeptic communities. Neuroscientist, podcaster, and author Sam Harrisbest known for his writings on atheism and debates with religious believershas been on eight times. Psychologist and author Steven Pinker (famous for books like How The Mind Works and The Blank Slate) has been on twice. Skeptic magazine founder Michael Shermer has been on six times.

In the chart made by Sheffieldwho describes himself as "post-conservative" in his Twitter bioall of the people listed in the above paragraph are coded as "right-wing." So is English actor Russell Brand, who has campaigned against austerity measures and made a documentary against the war on drugs. So is Gabbard, who was literally a Democratic presidential candidate. So is Elon Musk, who describes himself as a "registered independent & politically moderate." And so are all the Rogan guests associated with what was briefly termed the Intellectual Dark Webfolks like journalist Bari Weiss (on twice), biology professor Bret Weinstein (on seven times), Canadian author and professor Jordan Peterson (on seven times), and evolutionary biologist Heather Heying (on twice)regardless of whether they personally consider themselves liberal or libertarian-leaning.

I don't mean to single out Sheffield especially, but his tweet made the rounds, and it's illustrative of the ways in which Rogan has been awkwardly folded into a conventional left/right political argument that doesn't quite fit the podcaster, his listeners, or a lot of other discussions these days.

As writer Kat Rosenfield points out, "many of the 'right-wing' guests explicitly favor left/liberal policies and voted dem in at least the last 4 presidential elections." Others on the right-wing list tend to lean libertarian, or to support a mix of policies and cultural attitudes associated with the left and with the right.

The whole thing makes no senseexcept as an exercise in labeling anyone out of step with progressive orthodoxy in any way at all as a right-winger. That's the thing all of the centrist or left-leaning folks that Sheffield labels as right-wing have in common: a quibble with some aspect of mainstream Democratic or progressive politics. In many cases, these quibbles are related to free speech, which much of the mainstream modern left has been turning against.

In the past, there seems to have been more acceptance of ideological diversity and policy differences within parties and political movements. Butalasthese days, many Democrats/progressives or Republicans/conservatives who refuse to march in lockstep with these groups' thought leaders get cast as traitors. It's nuts.

But the Rogan guest list highlights more than just the intensifying gatekeeping of political labels. It also showcasesas Rosenfield puts it"the total breakdown of left/right as a meaningful political binary."

These days, we've got Republicans calling for economic and regulatory policies that would've been considered too left for the left just a few decades ago. We've got liberals who reject all sorts of liberal values, like freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

We've also got a whole lot of independents who can't stand either mainstream political party. More people now identify as independent than as either a member of the Democratic Party or of the GOP.

The list of Rogan guests does highlight something telling, just not what Sheffield thinks it does. It shows how inadequate the language of left versus right is for discussing politics and cultural leanings in 2022.

Free speech principles must go both ways. Two newsletters, from opposing political vantages, tackle censorship and "ideological surveillance," including book bans and measures limiting school instruction (like this terrible proposal out of Florida).

"I have never in my adult life seen anything like the censorship fever that is breaking out across America," writes David French in "Our Nation Cannot Censor Its Way Back to Cultural Health":

As American animosity rises, we simply cannot censor our way to social peace or unity. We can, however, violate the social compact, disrupt the founding logic of our republic, and deprive American students and American citizens of the exchange of ideas and of the liberty that has indeed caused, as [Frederick] Douglass prophesied, 'thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong' to tremble in the face of righteous challenge."

Meanwhile, in "Snitch Nation," Jill Filipovic laments that "we have adjusted startlingly rapidly not only to pervasive surveillance and the end of personal privacy, but to the justification for punishment arising from that surveillance."

"We can differentiate between the need to check those in positions of significant power and the baser urge to punish those who have bad or even harmful ideas, or those who do things we dislike that don't actually cause tangible damage," writes Filipovic:

Police who complain about body and dash cam rules, for instance, can suck an egg when the state hands you a gun and gives you the authority to use it, you take on a higher level of responsibility and there is a significant public interest in making sure that you are not breaking the laws that you and your friends and colleagues are charged with enforcing. But punishing people whose ideas are wrong but not immediately physically dangerous even if the people disseminating those ideas have some cultural influence or educational authority leads us down a dangerous path. After all, it's those in power who get to decide which ideas merit penalty. When that's progressives at a liberal arts college, I tend to agree with their assessment. When it's conservatives on a Texas school board, I don't. Which is why we need to maintain a set of consistent principles when it comes to speech and surveillance that transcends (most) of that speech's content.

On "free" COVID-19 tests, from The Wall Street Journal:

My 4-year-old daughter's preschool requires weekly Covid testing. We were told not to worry about the costthe tests are free. On a recent Sunday my family got tested at a pop-up tent outside a gasoline station. The sign on the tent advertised "free Covid testing."

I didn't pay for these tests, but they aren't free. The cost is billed to my health insurance. A few days ago, I received a routine letter from my insurance company summarizing what it paid: $1,140 a month for my daughter's weekly PCR test. That comes to about $285 per test, 20 times the cost of an at-home rapid test."

The IRS is backtracking on a plan to use facial recognition software. In January,Reasonreported that the IRS was requiring users of many of its online services to register with facial recognition company ID.me. "The IRS takes taxpayer privacy and security seriously, and we understand the concerns that have been raised," said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig in a statement. Now, the agency has announced that it will "transition away from using a third-party service for facial recognition to help authenticate people creating new online accounts" and "quickly develop and bring online an additional authentication process that does not involve facial recognition."

Canadian authorities are getting more aggressive against protesters in Ottawa. "Police in the Canadian capital are trying to prevent protesters who have parked an estimated 500 heavy-duty trucks in the downtown core from obtaining fuel, food and other supplies in a stepped-up effort to end the 11-day demonstration against Covid-19 vaccine mandates," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Among the new measures is the arrest of protesters and their supporters who attempt to ferry fuel and food into the main demonstration zone." Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted on Monday:

Meanwhile, on Monday, a judge ruled that protesters must stop honking their horns for the next 10 days. "Tooting a horn is not an expression of any great thought I'm aware of," declared Judge Hugh McLean. Here's how truckers responded:

A new study shows a correlation between vitamin D levels and COVID-19 severity and death rates. "A patient's history of vitamin D deficiency is a predictive risk factor associated with poorer COVID-19 clinical disease course and mortality," said study co-author Michael Edelstein, of Israel's Bar-Ilan University.

Oregon drug decriminalization is off to a successful start:

Dangerous no-knock warrants and thwarted Second Amendment rights collide in the Minneapolis police killing of Amir Locke, notes Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post. (More about the unjustified shooting here.)

A good thread from the founder of Wikipedia:

Techdirt: "The EARN IT Act is significantly more dangerous than FOSTA."

Facebook parent company Meta says European Union data rules may render it "unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe."

A proposed law in Kentucky would micromanage the teaching of history and ban teachers from discussing current events in classrooms without offering a full range of views on those events.

Against Great Britain's porn laws:

Read more:

Joe Rogan and the Weird New Definition of 'Right-Winger' - Reason

Im done waiting for mainstream media to cover nonreligious people and secular issues fairly and accurately, says Sarah Levin, a woman who wears a number of hats in the institutional secular world. Im done waiting for them to stop reinforcing the Christian Rights framing on issues and failing to challenge religious privilege. And I am absolutely done waiting for them to start seeing nonreligious people as their whole selves, beyond our orientation around religion, Levin goes on, speaking with RD in her role as director of advocacy for OnlySky Media, a new outlet focused on exploring the post-religious perspective. In addition to publishing content aimed at secular readers broadly, OnlySky will be conducting its own research on secular Americans, so it will no longer be necessary to rely solely on research produced by institutions that do not, either by way of their mission or their funding sources, have an explicit interest in serving the nonreligious, Levin explains.

On the issue of media representation of secularism and secular Americans, Levin, the founder and head of Secular Strategies and co-chair of the Democratic National Committees Interfaith Council, has a point. Nonreligious Americans are generally a pro-social bunch, and overwhelmingly in favor of the very rights the anti-social, anti-democratic Christian Right is actively working to take away, like voting rights, reproductive rights, and LGBTQ rights. Yet, according to the legacy medias punditocracy, Americas rapid secularization is something we should all be terrified of.

Starting from the demonstrably false assumption that religion is essentially the only source of social cohesion, philanthropy, and pro-social behavior, prominent pundits and religion journalists (who should know much better) continually insinuate that secularization is somehow destroying the fabric of American civil society, and that the nonreligious are somehow to blame for American polarization. How, exactly, is unclear, and it could hardly be otherwise, given that both of these premises are entirely without factual basis.

Think piecesand often even supposedly straight reportingtend to ignore the empirically demonstrated fact that the social and political polarization that pervades these not-so-United States is asymmetric and significantly worse on the political Right. Not coincidentally, that side of the proverbial aisle consists largely of the conservative, mostly white Christians from whom the newly nonreligious are fleeing. These same conservative Christians, directly encouraged by their defeated president and a host of powerful Republican leaders, attempted to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by means that included a violent Christian nationalist insurrection in which people were injured and killed, very nearly destroying what was left of American democracy, such as it is. But, you know, there are problems with liberals and progressives too, so

If elite pundits and journalists wont even grapple with the basic fact of asymmetric polarization, instead falling back on a lazy bothsidesism that must be comforting to people of immense privilege, I suppose its far too much to ask for most of them to pay attention to the numerous peer-reviewed studies demonstrating that its precisely the Christian Rights authoritarian culture-warringthe very dynamic that led to Donald Trumps 2016 election with enthusiastic Christian Right backingthat has driven many to empty the pews. But even when journalists acknowledge this fact, theres often a subtext of paternalism and victim blaming, the not-so-subtle message that these whippersnappers ought to stay in their churches and work to make them better, instead of leaving the churches to become ever more radical in their absence.

Spoiler alert: exvangelicals like myself have often spent years, even decades, trying to push evangelical Protestantism in a more humane direction from the inside, only to conclude that evangelical institutions and norms are unreformable. Journalists would know this if they considered us sources worth consulting. On a related note, Levin is far from alone in her concerns about misrepresentation of secular Americans by the press, though you would hardly know this from watching cable news or reading the legacy media, because journalists and pundits have a habit of talking over and about the religiously unaffiliated, exvangelicals, atheists, and secular advocates, rather than talking to us.

If they were to start talking to us, treating us as valuable sources and stakeholders in the national discussion around religion and politics, civil society, and pluralism, they would of course have to grapple with a very different viewpoint on American secularization than the Chicken Little story they insist on purveying, as if they all nodded along with Dostoevskys understanding that if there is no God, everything is permitted when they were undergraduates and never revisited that proposition with a more mature, critical eye, and an awareness of the great Russian novelists reactionary politics, Russian nationalism, and antisemitism.

Levins frustration with the press is thus entirely valid. The legacy medias approach to American secularization and secularism, frankly, constitutes journalistic malpractice.

To take a recent (admittedly far from the worst) example, many secular Americans were dismayed by Michelle Boorsteins January 14 Washington Post report on secularization and the secular movement in America. The report failed to quote a single religiously unaffiliated young American or secular advocate. Instead, it gave pride of place to observers like Georgetown University sociologist Jacques Berlinerblauwho claims that American secularism is lacking in innovation, leadership, and movement coherenceand political scientist and Baptist pastor Ryan Burge, who contends that the secular movement is out of step with the country and the religiously-ambivalent nones.

Kevin Bolling, executive director of the Secular Student alliance, an organization with chapters on college campuses throughout the US, told RD that reading Boorsteins report was disheartening, particularly given her record as an accomplished religion reporter with a vast catalog of well-written articles. He continued, Boorstein has written about numerous topics of prime interest to secular people; follows multiple leaders in the secular movement on Twitter; is an alumnus of UW Madison [which has] a large and active Secular Student Alliance chapter; and could have easily directly reached any of the twenty national nonprofits in the secular movement for comment.

Boorsteins article is also typical in going to great lengths to distinguish the religiously unaffiliated, aka nones, from atheists, agnostics, humanists, and similar self-defined nonbelievers, painting the typical none as someone who is basically religious but alienated from organized religion as theyve known itsomeone with plenty of spiritual beliefs who could, its implied, perhaps adopt religious affiliation again under the right conditions (something that the American elite public sphere represents as a good thing, full stop). In the case of Boorsteins article, the implication lingers, intentionally or not, in the way she ends the piece with Burges assessment of the nones as ambivalent toward religion as a result of polarization. Should American society return to a less polarized state, this framing implies, perhaps religious affiliation would start to recover as well. Such thinking inevitably casts the nones in an unserious light, as if our often painful and protracted decisions to disaffiliate from religion were not thoroughly thought through.

In fact, data now show that religiously unaffiliated youth are generally no longer returning to religion as adults, as was common in the past. While it would be equally unfair and inaccurate to portray the nones as mostly atheists and agnostics when they clearly are not (although the numbers of atheists and agnostics are rising as well), the subtext that the nones havent fully thought through their choice to disaffiliate from religion is offensiveand its a prime example of how journalists talk over nones instead of to us.

Bolling, by contrast, works directly with students, which gives him valuable insight into their mindset and decision making. Some of our students have experienced significant religion-based harm, been financially cut off, rejected by family, ostracized in their communities, kicked out of fraternities, and verbally and physically harassed, he explains. Seeing the harm many religious believers perpetrate by acting on their religious beliefs has a powerful impact on young people, according to Bolling.

While its true that there are differences and distinctions in the spectrum of spiritual, but not religious to atheist that comprises the nones, Bolling observes, they are rejecting religion, to some degree.Politicians, community leaders, celebrities, and corporations need to understand this younger generation doesnt want religion pushed in their faces, wont stand for religious nationalism, and doesnt want one persons freedoms to diminish their own.

Secular community leaders also take issue with Berlinerblaus assertion that There has been no innovation in secular thought in 50 years, as well as his description of the current third wave of secularism as lacking in leadership. Bolling pointed to the big three advocacy organizationsthe Freedom from Religion Foundation, American Atheists, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and Stateand commented on the increasing diversification of the secular movement, as a result of which the movement has seen a more intersectional approach.

To be sure, movement atheism has long been dominated by cisgender white men, and much work remains to be done both in terms of diversifying leadership and in terms of fully rejecting the misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, and anti-LGBTQespecially anti-transgenderanimus that characterize New Atheism. But by the same token, organized movement secularism has made significant strides in addressing both lack of diversity in leadership and bigotry in the movement, and that should be acknowledged.

Asked what she makes of the suggestion raised in Boorsteins article that were in a third wave of secular organizing, Mandisa Thomas, the founder and president of Black Nonbelievers, told RD, If this is a comparison to third wave feminism, in some ways, that could be true. There is now more of a focus on the voices of women, cis and trans alike; our concerns are being taken more seriously; and we are asserting ourselves through our content and events.

Thomas also called Berlinerblaus assertion of a lack of leadership in movement secularism poorly researched, noting that it ignores the work of organizations like American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, and Black Nonbelievers. What does Berlinerblau, and even Boorstein, consider to be leadership, and how narrow-minded is their view? I, too, would like to know the answer to this question.

Thomas began her organizing work in 2011 because, while data indicated that more and more young African Americans were questioning and disaffiliating from religion, there was a lack of resources available to bring them together and address their needs. Black Nonbelievers, which now has affiliates in seven cities across the United States, became a 501(c)3 nonprofit in 2014. Like the other secular leaders who spoke to RD, Thomas is frustrated with poor media representation of secular Americans and the secular movement. Her frustration extends to the paucity of coverage of BIPOC secular organizing relative to the (still sparse and often poor) coverage that majority white secular organizations and the (dead or aging and problematic) New Atheist leaders get. Despite improvement, Thomas agrees that the secular movement itself still has a diversity and inclusion problem, and maintains that the best way to address it would be for allies to highlight the work of organizations like BN and encourage more support for us.

Since the removal of David Silverman as its president amid allegations of financial conflicts of interest and sexual misconduct in 2018, American Atheists has also been at the forefront of diversifying the secular movement in practicing and promoting a broader, more intersectional approach to secular advocacy. The organizations staff includes queer people, women, and African Americans in prominent roles. And, as its shifted away from Silvermans firebrand approach to anti-religious messaging, American Atheists has begun to robustly and frequently make the case that anti-racist, feminist, and LGBTQ concerns are key church-state separation issues and should be an integral part of secular advocacy.

American Atheists current president, Nick Fish, told RD, I view American Atheists role as providing opportunities for members of our community to more fully participate in American society, whether that be in politics, cultural institutions, or any number of other areas of life. That means doing more than simply being right about this one thing: the nonexistence of gods. It means finding partners who share our values and interests and working together to make this world a better place to live. Clarifying that latter point, Fish noted, Our advocacy is going to continue working to find areas of common ground with partners, regardless of their religious beliefs, while holding true to our own values around equality for all.

Asked for his take on Berlinerblaus comment about secularisms lack of leadership, Fish asserted that its unfair to say theres no coherence or collaboration within the secular movement, which is advocating on behalf of the nonreligious. He admitted, however, that the lack of centralization and hierarchy means that secular organizers face challenges that simply arent present for religious groups. He knowingly adds, There are certain things that we wouldnt want to replicate from the Religious Right even if it were structurally possible to do so because they run counter to our values as atheists and humanists. Perhaps critics of the secular movements less centralized approach to leadership lack the imagination to conceive of models of leadership that differ from those employed by many religious institutions.

Regarding media representation, Fish lamented the tendency of the media to focus on New Atheist leaders and their angry, often bigoted style of atheist advocacy, when journalists should be looking to actual policy advocates, community leaders, and grassroots activists. Says Fish, Its certainly easier to always go back to the same people, but this does a tremendous disservice to promoting understanding of this community as it exists today. As Fish sees it, journalists dont quite know how to talk about this elephant in the room: the fact that almost a third of Americans are no longer part of an organized religious tradition, and no legacy media outlet does a particularly good job.

To speak of this significant percentage of the population as merely having lost something, or lacking something is at once offensive and ignorant. And so long as the legacy media continue to portray the nones in this way without actually talking to us, their reporting will inevitably imply that the nonreligious do not deserve to be taken seriously.

This brings us back to the new secular media project, OnlySky. Founded by Silicon Valley tech veteran Shawn Hardin, who now acts as its CEO, OnlySky already boasts an impressive group of contributors who are well known in secular circles. These include Pitzer College Professor Phil Zuckerman, a sociologist whose books on lived secularism are highly valued in the atheist and humanist communities.

Speaking to RD as a columnist, feature writer, and editor for OnlySky, Zuckerman explained that the outlet, which was in development from early 2020, quickly became a haven for popular atheist bloggers, including Hemant Mehta and Captain Cassidy, who were pushed out of the blogging site Patheos by onerous new guidelines requiring bloggers to avoid politics and criticism of other worldviews, two things increasingly important to our writers since the merging of evangelicalism and conservative politics in 2016.

But while Patheos Nonreligious was focused tightly on the self-declared atheist and humanist demographic, OnlySky aims to serve a much broader audiencethe 1 in 3 Americans who identify as having no religion, says Zuckerman.The hope is that OnlySky will be the main go-to media hub for secular, post-religious Americansor for people simply interested in a secular slant on the world and on current events.

Zuckerman and Levin, OnlySkys director of advocacy, both share the general frustration with media misrepresentation of secularism that RD found among secular advocates. But is a secular media outlet the best way to address that issue, given that American atheist and humanist thought already exists largely in a silo, exerting little influence on anyone not already in the club?

Asked this very pointed question, Levin was ready with a powerful answer. If we reach even a quarter of the 29% of unaffiliated [in the American population], our reach will certainly match if not exceed that of many mainstream publications.

Marketing, too, will play an important role in getting the public to understand that the nonreligious constitute a relatively cohesive demographic worthy of attention from both advertisers and politicians. We are often dismissed as this nebulous, loosely connected group of people that cant possibly be reached in a targeted way that would meaningfully impact, for example, a candidates election prospects or a businesss bottom line, says Levin.

OnlySky is taking on the ambitious task of changing this perception, and I can only wish them godspeed, so to speak. The nones are not the only large and complex demographic out there, Levin observes. Complexity hasnt stopped politicians or advertisers from targeting the Latino community, for example. But unlike Latinos, the nones are not generally treated as a group worth researching and targeting. Levins a smart strategist, and her enthusiasm for the project is contagious. In success, she maintains, OnlySky will prove that nonreligious Americans are a cultural, political and economic force to be fully reckoned with. Given the disproportionate political power of the Christian Right and the progressive and pluralistic tendencies of the nones, lets hope shes right.

More:

Secularism in the US is Larger, More Diverse and More Dynamic Than Ever, But You Wouldn't Know it From the Media - Religion Dispatches

A TATTOO fan has caused a stir on social media with their Virgin Mary inking.

A video showcasing the tattoo was shared on TikTok by Kay Wilder, as she praised "one of the best worst tattoos I have ever seen".

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The tattoo, on a woman's upper arm, showed the Virgin Mary with a halo of light above her head, wearing a flowing pink robe.

The inking also featured the words, "You thought God was an architect, now you know" written in a somewhat bizarre order around the image.

But it was the saint's robe that provoked the most response among commenters on the video - with many people suggesting they could see a vulva in the design.

"Now I want a vulva mary as a tat," one person commented, while another added: "Holy Lady Garden, Batman."

"I never even got to the words," someone else commented.

Others wondered if the design had been a deliberate move by the tattoo artist.

"This had to have been intentional right?" one person wondered.

While another asked: "Atheist tattoo artist wanted to see how far they could go?"

"This tat is probably the worst I've ever seen," another person added.

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Speaking of bad tattoos, this mum had a cat tattooed on her bikini line but the inking now looks trashy.

This mum cried over her daughter's tattooed sleeve, but some people have said she needs to get a grip.

And this OnlyFans model is labelled a demon due to her tattooed body and ink-injected eyes, but had a traditional, Christian upbringing.

Read more:

Tattoo fan left red-faced after Virgin Mary inking looks rather rude thanks to shape of robe... - The US Sun

Emily Kawasaki and Mark Horton Smith in a disused LDS church in Salt Lake City, Utah. In Mormon culture, many people feel the pandemic and general discord are signs the second coming of Jesus is nigh, even to the neglect of the science and reason behind the turmoil, Horton Smith said. To me, thats terrifying. (All photos by Elijah Hurwitz)

Homeschooled in a strict Christian household in western Maryland, Laura Parks* would murmur to herself thank you so much, God when things went well; and help me, God when they didnt. She huddled in prayer almost every night with her parents and five siblings, and remembers peeking out during prayers to catch the eye of an equally curious brother or sister grinning back. But once she was away from home to study at Princeton, a freshman year philosophy class and a friendship with a gay classmate began to tug at the threads of her tightly wound upbringing and the worldview she had inherited.

The next summer she gathered the nerve to tell her parents she no longer believed in God, and they refused to continue paying her university tuition. She spiraled into a major depressive episode.

When I first left my religion, I felt quite isolated, she said. I started group therapy that helped me regain trust in a community. I used to gain a sense of calm from prayer and my Bible. Now I find it in other places.

*Name altered at request of subject.

The tumultuous state of the world has revealed the importance of maintaining an inner balance and sense of hope. But hope can be harder to cling to as an ex-religious person, said Parks, who volunteered at Princetons suicide hotline. Because so much of my life feels shaken loose, I try to get out of my own tangled thoughts by making a pot of tea or dancing in front of the mirror or folding laundry. (All photos by Elijah Hurwitz)

The doldrums of isolationfeelings now well known to many in the pandemic eraare especially heavy for anyone shunned by family and friends for choosing to shed their former beliefs.

This demographic has been steadily increasing in the United States. The most recent Pew Research Center survey of religious composition reveals nearly 30 percent of the U.S. is now religiously unaffiliated, and the ranks of self-described atheists and agnostics have almost doubled to 9 percent in the past decade.

Secularizing is an unusually bumpy ride when it involves leaving behind the familiar structures of a daily life governed by rules and conformity. Dr. Marlene Winell, a psychologist whose work was inspired by her own exit from fundamentalism, described the PTSD-like emotional and mental turmoil as religious trauma syndrome.

For Pesach Eisen, it was a gradual exodus from an Orthodox sect of Hasidic Jews in Borough Park, Brooklyn, but it was no less turbulent. I left home because the person I turned into couldnt exist in that environment. I needed freedom, he said. I lost my faith in religion and God. My family threatened me and tried to make me feel guilt and shame. I struggled financially. Making friends and dating was rough because Id never spoken to a member of the opposite sex. I had to restructure my identity and moral system with therapy. Leaving an insular religious community is not for the faint of heart.

I always wondered about the saying no atheists in foxholes. Now I know there are, Eisen said. During the pandemic in New York City, not even for a second have I wished I still had religion and faith. I find myself wishing for a world where even devoutly religious folks look to science, medicine, and reason to guide their choices. In my former community, immeasurable harm and death transpired because of anti-science misinformation and conspiracies. This is not only a fundamentalist problem; its an American problem. (All photos by Elijah Hurwitz)

The internet allowed Eisen to compare notes and bond with other people on similar journeys, and it did the same for Delissa McAdoo. Initially she went online as a convenient way to worship. As streaming church services gained popularity, McAdoo traded the crowded pews of local prosperity gospel megachurches in Fayetteville, Georgia, for the comfort of watching from home.

During this time, I started vigorously studying the Bible and other religions, she said. The more I dug in, the more I found Id been lied to and brainwashed. The silver bullet was when I realized preachers wereexploiting members for their own financial gain. This revelation made me sick. I was a member of a finance ministry teaching tithing to seniors and poor single mothers. I went into a deep depression because Id been teaching a lie to people of limited financial means.

In the heavily religious South, McAdoo, who is a small-business owner, found community and camaraderie with Black Nonbelievers, an Atlanta area non-profit founded by Mandisa Thompson for Blacks and allies living free of religion who might otherwise be shunned by family and friends. There, she met Drai Salmon, a student at Spelman University whose views were shaped by witnessing similar misdeeds. Salmon had seen her grandmother struggle financially after donating large chunks of her retirement savings toward church renovations that never materialized as promised.

In this so-called cultural consciousness environment of being woke, people cannot be truly woke if their life centers around unprovable non-historical events, biblical contradictions, and lies. Wokeness and religion cannot coexist, McAdoo said.Ive received mixed reactions upon revealing Im a staunch non-believer. While dining with a group of friends, I was cursed out. When I told my aunt, she became physically ill and lost her appetite. Ive been a victim of cancel culture with former church friends. Yet, I completely understand their actions because of the roles Ive held in the church. (All photos by Elijah Hurwitz)

The seeds of doubt for an apostate can take root in silence for a long time before curiosity and courage finally pry open a window. Neftaly Aldana, a former Jehovahs Witness who spent nearly all his life within the border lines of the austere religion, says he always felt deep down that something wasnt right.

But it wasnt until his mid-forties, during a rough patch in his marriage and a visit with an estranged sister whod already distanced herself from the church, that he finally put his faith under a microscope.

When I got home from that trip, it was the first time I allowed myself to question my beliefs. I needed to know if what I believed was real or not. Within a week or so it all came tumbling down, he said.

Im 45 and didnt even realize my birthday was in October because you dont celebrate those things. I will celebrate my birthday and other holidays now. Ive even donated blood twice, which was a huge sin, said Aldana, pictured in a suit he once wore to proselytize as a Jehovahs Witness in New York City. Im grateful I can think for myself and have self-determination now and can give that to my children. I look at my kids and just think if someone had talked to me about this stuff, how different my life could have been. (All photos by Elijah Hurwitz)

Hoover Street in South Los Angeles, California, January 12, 2021. (All photos by Elijah Hurwitz)

An afterlife of hellfire is an ever-lurking threat in many fundamentalist religions. The idea of a spiritual plane designed to maximize suffering might seem redundant when news headlines are filled with reports of mass death and sickness, climate catastrophes, toxic political polarization, gaping wealth inequality, and rampant conspiracy theories, but for someone raised under the guillotine of eternal damnation the concept is less abstract.

During Harley Hancheys teenage years in a Southern Baptist household, her fear of sinfulness was so great that intrusive thoughts and feelings of shame led to self-harm as a way to relieve the pressure.

By the time I left, I was firmly atheist, and still terrified of hell, Hanchey said. For years the terror stuck around. The fear that I would suffer and burn when I died. Even after rejecting the hypocrisy, the fear is hard to shake. It took years, but I am so content with who I am now. I feel like a good person.

Now raising three children in the rural township of Galien, Michigan, where she works as a mail-carrier, Hanchey allows her kids to choose their own beliefs, rather than prescribe them. Her youngest identifies as a Christian, while her oldest, Trent, identifies as an atheist, like her.

My kids dont believe in Santa because they asked me and I told them, she said. I love being genuine. And my kids appreciate it too. Theyve learned to be genuinely themselves. Especially with me. They know I wont lie to them and were very close. Its not always smooth sailing, but what family is?There are a lot of microaggressions and intrusions on rights involved in being an atheist in America. If youre like me and from a religious family, as a kid you lie and lie and lie and are scared a lot of the time. (All photos by Elijah Hurwitz)

Torah Bontrager wasnt given such a choice on the midwestern Amish farms where she grew up without electricity and English was only spoken as a second language. If she hadnt escaped out a window one night as a teenager, she would likely have only received a rudimentary high school education from Amish teachers with limited educations themselves.

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1972 case Wisconsin v. Yoder that a parents freedom of religion outweighed the states interest in educating their child, opening the door for religious parents to homeschool their kids beyond the 8th grade.

Only Justice William O. Douglasan appointee of FDRwrote a dissenting opinion in the case: On this important and vital matter of education, I think the children should be entitled to be heard. The education of the child is a matter on which the child will often have decided views. He may want to be a pianist or an astronaut or an oceanographer. It is the future of the students, not the future of the parents, that is imperiled by todays decision.

Bontragers views were decided enough that she risked everything to start over as a teenager. Hungry for a serious education and new opportunities, she went on to graduate from Columbia University in New York, and now lives in Harlem, where she works to help overturn Wisconsin v. Yoder.

My lifes work is about making sure that not another American child is forced to escape in the middle of the night just for a chance to go to school, she said. Children are not property; they have inalienable rights and those rights need active protection.

The pandemic helped me realize that I need the physical presence of humans who are strangers, Bontrager said. The experience of social isolation helped me understand that humans are wired to be social in order to stay healthy. I hadnt believed that applied to me because of my negative childhood experiences. Now I see that simply by virtue of being human, I need other humans around me. (All photos by Elijah Hurwitz)

Adjusting to life after religious disaffiliation takes resilience and patience. Today Jana Fisher works as an artist-manager in Los Angeles, but she was raised in a family of evangelical ministers and likely would have followed in their footsteps if women were allowed to become pastors in her church. After attending college and experiencing bigger cities, she immersed herself in queer communities where she finally became comfortable with her identity and found a feeling of camaraderie she had missed since leaving church.

Fisher credits the exvangelical community on Reddit and podcasts like Born Again Again for helping her break old thought patterns, but she says it was the writings of outspoken atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins that forced her to reckon with the idea of a godless world.

To my surprise, I found the prospect devastatingly lonely. I found myself driving down a highway sobbing when I realized that I was in fact completely alone, she said. But confronting the absence of God pushed me to connect more deeply with other people. I believe we are all inherently worthy and capable of great good.

Religion was the driving force of my life, and rather than being anti-religion, I am now in a place where religions role or its absence in my life is not something I think about, Fisher said. I cant imagine putting myself back in a box where I worry about what other people believe or what I should believe.

In the early 1900s, the German poet Rainier Maria Rilke veered from a Catholic upbringing and wrestled with his beliefs in various poems and letters. One of his famous lines, Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final, reads like a mantra against despair, a reminder that existence drifts onward, and time can heal.

The pandemic years have tested everyone in surprising ways, with some believers even saying it strengthened their faith. But for a growing number of American non-believers, it is the cushion of new communities, trust in evidence-based science and self-care, and confidence in their rebuilt identities that propels them to just keep going.

Elijah Hurwitz is a photographer based in Los Angeles, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, WIRED, The Atlantic, TIME, and Politico Magazine.Follow his work on Instagram and elijahsol.com.

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States of Disbelief: Non-Believers Wrestle with Life After Religion - Religion & Politics

Raised by Wolves

The Collective

Season 2 Episode 1

Editors Rating 4 stars ****

Photo: HBO

When we last traveled Kepler-22b with Mother (Amanda Collin), Father (Abubakar Salim), and their brood of problematically obtained children, it was the fall of 2020, which seems like a dozen lifetimes ago. Mother, a droid and necromancer reprogrammed to raise a new atheistic society of children, and Father, a service android tasked to protect their new colony, had completed their core task with little success and had plenty of Ridley Scotts trademark milk-seeping wounds to show for their efforts. Out of the six embryos they transported from a religious, war-ravaged Earth, only one survived, the others having died from eating toxic foods. And Mothers surprising pregnancy, which she idealized as being the love-child of her creator, Campion Sturges (Cosmo Jarvis), turned out to be a supercharged flying eel that was at one time native to Kepler-22b and brought back from extinction via a cosmic troll of epic proportions.

Mother and Fathers overall plan of a new atheist society free from the combative nature of being governed by a spiritual leader is in perfect opposition of the Mithraics, who worship the Roman god of supreme light, Sol. When the Mithraics made their way to Kepler-22b in season one, they were initially only interested in dipping into their resources, but when Mother abducted a number of their children, including Paul (Felix Jamieson), the son of faux Mithraics Marcus (Travis Fimmel) and Sue (Niamh Algar), atheist soldiers who went through a droid-conducted procedure to take on the appearances of Mithraics in order to gain entry to the ark fleeing Earth, the collective hope of a fresh start went up in flames. Going into season two, our own hope is that well learn more about the mysterious influence that is causing visual and auditory hallucinations in both the Mithraic and atheist camps and, most importantly, just how big Mothers baby has become, and who its gonna eat first.

With this new season, were given a new location, the tropical zone, where atheist colony 1 has set up camp surrounding a hijacked Mithraic ark. The atheists come across the zonked-out bodies of Mother, whose non-mother name is Lamia, and Father on opposite ends of the zone where they were flung from their crashed lander. The atheists have plenty of droids of their own, but haul these two into their ship anyway, primarily out of curiosity. They make an attempt to download their memories but while digging around in Mother to locate her processor, the atheist doing the digging blows up like a burnt marshmallow on the end of a campfire stick. Quick to bounce back, Mother is still not one to be fiddled around with. She surveys her new surroundings and sees that the atheists seem to be governed by a highly intelligent computerized force and asks to be taken to it. Standing before what looks like a dark smoky bong inside a lava lamp, Mother learns that the force governing the atheists is a quantum computer called The Trust made by Campion Sturges, which makes them siblings, in a sense. For as much as the atheists are repulsed by the Mithraic way of believing in what cannot be seen, the idea of them putting all their faith in a pushy machine seems pretty ironic. But the need to seek out a larger meaning to life, in one way or another, is almost impossible to avoid whether youre religious, an atheist, or even a droid.

Mother is having human-esque reactions to things now like love, desire, and shame. She lies to her son Campion, named after her creator, and the others about the fate of her baby, saying that it died immediately after being born. And she seems elated to be put to work by the new atheist colony as the caregiver for their youngest children. While watching over their classroom, she gives them eggs to color, and when one little boy starts coloring a bright green snake on his egg she tells him not to make it scary, clearly triggered by the idea of her slithering spawn out there somewhere wiggling its way towards their colony. Its not scary; its beautiful. All living things are beautiful, the child responds. Clearly hes never met this particular butthole-mouthed living thing.

The reunited family structure of Mother, Father, Campion, Paul, Hunter (Ethan Hazzard), Holly (Aasiya Shah), Vita (Ivy Wong), Tempest (Jordan Loughran), and Sue take pleasure in the pleasant air, bright sun, and fancy amenities of atheist colony 1, but we can already tell that they wont be able to enjoy it for very long. While theyre luxuriating in the working kitchen, cozy bedrooms, and congregational areas equipped with hologames called Necro Slayer!, Marcus, their one remaining Mithraic threat, is making his way toward them. After shooting down an atheist bomber, he hijacks it and has no trouble locating their new camp. The Trust spots him before he lands, and takes over control of the bomber, but a crash landing into acid water isnt even enough to slow him down. He uses a ray gun to anchor his ship and pull it close enough to land so he can jump out, and then rewards himself with cactus fruit. While navigating his way through the new zone, he comes in contact with a mother and her droid daughter who are fleeing the perimeter. Theyre wearing explosive vests set to detonate if they stray too far away, but Marcus uses a pin from the droids shoulder to pry them open. He learns that the mother is a Mithraic quantum gravity engineer named Decima (Kim Engelbrecht) who spent her lifes work making the ark that the atheists stole to get there, and was able to keep her droid daughter, Vrille (Morgan Santo), in exchange for working on the ark and keeping it in good running order. Marcus is quick to put all of this knowledge to use and makes plans to start a Mithraic congregation in the new tropical zone by converting the rest of the atheists one by one. So here, in one episode, we have the basis for enough conflict to easily fuel the season.

A disgruntled atheist leaves a message for Mother, Father, and the rest of the new colony in the form of a blazing sun symbol on the ground, right outside of their ark. Paul, who was recently quarantined for believing that Sol is speaking to him and leaving him little gifts here and there, will take a great deal away from this, to be sure. Toward the end of season one, Paul and Marcus, who he says Sol revealed to not be his real dad, were on the outs after Marcuss violent outbursts, but when he hears of Marcuss plans to start a new church, that might change. If Marcus is able to lure Paul away from the atheists, thatll set him against his friend Campion who, as far as I can see, is just out here trying to hatch eggs to make pets and mind his business, so well see what happens there.

Its not very realistic, is it? Mother when she sees the Necro Slayer! game.

This side of the planet seems less intent on killing our children. Father, ever the optimist.

Campion needs some conditioner.

I have a feeling that the Dungeons & Dragons relic that Paul found and the egg that Campion brought back to the colony are both going to end up being terrifying things.

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Raised by Wolves season 2, episode 1 recap: The Collective - Vulture