Autumn 1999 -- Volume 37 No. 4 Weird Tales From The Annals of A Bible-Belt Atheist

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Weird Tales from the Annals of a Bible-Belt Atheist

by Gary Sloan

he story recounted below, improbable though it may sound to foreign ears, is true. It has no conclusion, since the events it records are still unfolding. The moral ramifications are murky. A somber eye might discern the rudiments of tragedy: unexamined beliefs, impetuous judgments, casual slanders, misconceived idealism, and purposes mistaken fallen on the inventor's head. A sanguine observer may espy the eternal human comedy in full career.

For many readers in northern Louisiana, I am “the atheist from Ruston,” a small town on I-20, not far from Mississippi. For ten years, I have written anti-theistic letters to the Shreveport Times and the Monroe News-Star, the largest newspapers in the northern half of the state. In these epistles, I have discussed topics commonly addressed in American Atheist and other freethought publications. Originally, I had thought to inform the interested reader about philosophy, mythology, evolution, cosmology, biblical criticism, and other academic subjects seldom explored on the editorial pages of area newspapers.

In my grandiose moments, I fancied myself a lower-case amalgam of Bertrand Russell, Carl Sagan, and Thomas Paine. I would unfetter knowledge from the ivory tower and let it gambol on the village green. I would illuminate caves of ignorance in benighted souls. Inspired by my bold, lucid discourse and lofty intent, other freethinkers in the region would burst from their closets, fly to their keyboards, and help me feed hungry minds. Here are samples of what one unimpressed reader called “Sloanian slogans”:

“Even if a creator exists, he isn’t necessarily interested in our backwash orb. Nor must a creator be loving and kind. As John Stuart Mill observed, whoever or whatever created the animal kingdom must be fond of blood baths.”

“How can a being without physical components feel love, exercise mercy, or - like the Old Testament Yahweh - experience jealousy and anger? Emotions are organic phenomena: racing heart, butterflies in the stomach, lump in the throat, flared nostrils.”

“Notwithstanding his enunciation of the Golden Rule, the Biblical Jesus sometimes exhibits a conspicuous lack of charity. Those who reject his teachings are vipers, chaff for sulfurous fire. Unlike Yahweh, Jesus doesn’t give his enemies the solace of eternal death.”

“Paul’s silence about the details of Jesus’ life, as they are later depicted in the gospels, makes sense when Jesus is viewed as a creation of the late first-century.”

My tutelage in reality began hard upon my first letter and has, through the auspices of the unabated responses (about 300) to subsequent letters, continued ever since. Bible-Belt readers, I now understand, neither suffer a fool gladly nor hesitate to call a fool a fool. I am often advised to read Psalms 14:1 (“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’”). In the responses, the ad hominem retort has flourished. I have been christened with such unendearing epithets as Satan, anti-Christ, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Mussolini, Attila the Hun, "Madelyn O'Hara," and William Buckley, Jr. - the Firing Line host, not for any political conservatism on my part, but because of my putative predilection for sesquipedalian diction. I have also been nicknamed after diminutive species: mouse, minnow, housefly, spider, ant, flea. Beetlejuice I didn’t expect: “Gary Sloan. Gary Sloan. Gary Sloan. Say his name three times and he appears just like Beetlejuice.”

I am rebuked both for being an intellectual and a pseudo-intellectual, and I’m not sure which is worse: “Sloan may be an intellectual and smart, but he’s also a gibbering idiot and a bubble and a half off.” “Mr. Sloan is highly intellectual - that is, he speculates about things he does not know anything about.” My bogus intellect frequently elicits exhibitions of wit: “I was no magna nor summa cum laude, but simply a grateful ‘thank-you laude’ when I graduated.” “Sloan thinks Jesus is a liar, a bum, a beggar, and thief. In his vast wisdom, Sloan has confused Jesus with Bill Clinton.” “Professor Sloan has a BDIP degree (bombastic, doctrinaire, intolerant, and predictable).” Some respondents unwittingly disclose a scarcity of wit: “Sloan searches his dictionary for uncommonly used words like ‘omnipresent’ and ‘omnipotent’.” “Sloan thinks he’s going to convert the Bible Belt by quoting someone named Dawkins.”

In more towns than one, I am persona non grata. A Ruston citizen wrote to the Monroe paper: “I’m sure the good people of Monroe realize most Ruston people don’t share Gary Sloan’s opinions. You can have him if you want him.” The sequel was swift: “No, thanks.”

Many would have me muzzled. Eleven colleagues signed a letter they wrote to my hometown newspaper, the Ruston Daily Leader. They assured anxious parents that “there are many Christian faculty members in this university [Louisiana Tech] who do not share Dr. Sloan's philosophy.” A distinguished professor of business and administration wrote to the News-Star: “Sloan’s real intent is to attack, to provoke, to ridicule, to incite, to mock. His letters reveal a mean-spirited self-absorption that is becoming dangerous. They are the moral equivalent of yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. It is time for the News-Star to suspend publication of Sloan’s clever but ill-intentioned letters. They inflate his self-importance at considerable expense to the common good.”

A former editorial page editor refused to print my responses to criticism of me, though he printed critics’ responses to my criticism. When I publicly pointed out the double standard, he wrote a column defending himself: “Sloan is right, you know. His turning upon those who criticized his deep emotional aversion to worship was prevented. It just seemed too, too sadistic on my part to do otherwise. I think of the Bible Belt as people who are proud to give their allegiance to a higher spiritual power rather than follow the unwashed rudiments of man.”

Respondents remind uneasy readers that my foot will slide in due time: “While I will pray for Sloan, I pray not to see him in the end, because I don’t plan to go where he’s heading.” “You can bet that one day Sloan will believe in hell.” “Hell is no piece of cake. He’ll be hot and thirsty for a long time.”

Some think I’m still salvageable: “God has shown me that you, sir, will in time accept Jesus as your savior, and you will stop disgracing Him.” “Mr. Sloan, you are like Saul. I believe God is going to use you the way he did Saul.” On my answering machine, a Pentecostal woman left a message in tongues. After the last indecipherable morpheme, she whispered: “Thank you, sweet Jesus. Thank you, Lord.”

Several churches have made me their project: “Gary, next Sunday at 10 a.m. we will be praying that the Holy Spirit will reach out to Gary Sloan and that he will receive a sign by Wednesday, June 14th, at 6 p.m.” If the sign appeared, I missed it. A large Baptist church (Six Flags Over Jesus, one wag called it) blazoned a pithy homily on a marquee that faces a thoroughfare: “GARY, GOD IS REAL, AND HE LOVES YOU DEARLY.” No one from the church bothered to drop by, write, or call.

The only published letter of support I’ve gotten was from one of my wife’s undergraduates: “Hurrah for Gary Sloan! I hope he runs for President!” The effervescent student was, I suspect, bucking for an A.