Skip to main content

Spit'in on Mom's Apple Pie, The Flag & Cowboys

By Summerbreeze --

We were in South Western Missouri (the buckle on the Bible Belt) for a wedding in mid-May, and stayed on for 10 days to 'kill 2 birds with one stone' and call it a vacation also.

Mom's Apple PieImage by misterbisson via Flickr
We were in this area five years ago, but this time I paid more attention.

First came the billboards.

Covering the entire face of several billboards, one huge word, "JESUS." Then, "JESUS SAVES." (Saves what? S&H Green Stamps?)

Then came the hilarious bumper stickers, too numerous to list them all:

  • "Find The REAL truth about Man & Dinosaurs" (with the website URL and a large cross)
  • "The Lord Loves Cowboys"
  • "This Country was founded on God, if you don't like it then SCRAM"
  • "Creation Museum -- Prepare to Believe"...( actually prepare to laugh your A$$ off )
  • "This Country belongs to Jesus"

and my favorite:

  • "Jim Bob Duggar for President, Seed Sower" with some logo below it (Quiverfull? After all, we WERE less than 20 miles from Arkansas!)
Our first morning before hitting the road, at a northern Missouri motel, had me witnessing a Christian man yelling at a very nice, and attentive Indian man who worked in the breakfast room there. "I TOLD YOU I DON'T WANT A WAFFLE, I'M WAITING FOR MY WIFE!" he shouted. ( I imagine that he figured the man was a Hindu, therefore had no feelings )

How did I know that he was a Christian? Look where I was! Plus, his large gold cross hanging from his neck and his Church's logo on his car bumper.

A lot of the shows there in Branson Missouri. are patriotic. In fact, I think I recall someone saying that it is the most patriotic city in America.

A large percentage of the people who live in that area, and who visit there, are Veterans. They show their patriotism and their faith by the baseball caps they wear.

My Husband, who believes in God but does not go to Church, is very social and loves to talk with everyone. Actually I'm more of a loner type, minus the stereotypical serial-killer tendencies (so far). He would start talking with these Vets, being a Vet himself, and everything would be hunky-dory until the inevitable question: "Where do you Church?" My Husband would explain that he doesn't go to Church, and then he would suddenly be viewed as a Leper.

Imagine! Someone who spent one and a half years in Vietnam and received three Bronze Stars is suddenly persona non grata because he doesn't belong to a Church?!

Maybe one of these days he will understand why I'm a free-thinker, and will choose to join me.

The welding together of religious belief and Country by Christians has got to be one of their greatest wrong-doings.

How can any thinking person not be offended by these words:


"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one Nation under God" .....George Bush

I guess a dim-witted-believer-son, who hid behind his daddy's power to avoid seeing military action, has a firm place in what it means to be an American. Meanwhile, Pat Tillman, Hero, and Atheist, turned down millions with the NFL to join the US Army Rangers after 9/11 only to be killed in Afghanistan. I know that his legacy is felt by free-thinkers, however, believers have been known to dismiss him.

I love my country, and I deeply appreciate the fact that I'm an American. I think that I could say that my husband loves it even more than I do, since he has seen the conditions in Third World countries. However I resent the fact that it's considered akin to spitting on Mom's apple pie, etc., just because I choose to be free of a mind-robbing cult.

Mriana,  a contributor here, encouraged me to post this to support her in her rants on what life is like "on the buckle, " since she lives there.

I have to say that the South is beautiful, and the people are good people and very friendly. However, that friendliness comes with a price.

"Ya'll better love the Lawrd, or you're not a True American!"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi