I'm Just Sayin'

I live about as deep in Christian territory as anyone could. The Bible Belt is wide and long and I'm sure many areas of the South equal or exceed my home territory of North Georgia in the number of ...let's call them conservative Christians....but sometimes I feel as though I am the only freethinker around. I'll say it  loud...the only ATHEIST around. I know I'm not alone, but I'm still a little surprised when a freethinker or an un-believer...a non conservative Christian pops up.

It happened yesterday....I saw a freethinker...at least I saw evidence that the person driving the car in front of me was a freethinker.  My wife and I were headed to our "farm" in North Carolina. We were passing through the town of Blue Ridge, Georgia, about to take the spur 60 cutoff which takes us into North Carolina and we had to stop for a traffic light. The car in front of us, a ten year oldish compact import had several bumper stickers on it. I still call the things with slogans or sayings that folks stick on their cars "bumper stickers". Cars don't really have bumpers, as such, anymore and these stickers were all over the back of this little car including the back window. One of the window stickers caught my eye. It was the most legible..most of the others were too faded to read. I was expecting to read some tree hugger line or an anti war slogan or maybe I would be informed that the person in front of me hearts this or that or has a child who is an honor student. As I read the sticker, my heart skipped a beat..."Don't  Pray  in  our  Schools  and  I  won't  Think  in  your  Church" . Holy shit!!! And get this...the driver was a young...maybe 20 years or so,  girl. "Holy shit Baby...look at that" I almost shouted to my wife. (It was kind of a stuttering shout.) "Well there you go Honey" she replied, "and look at that...look at the back of her trunk lid...it's a Darwin fish." She had the fish with legs...you know... the evolution fish.. on the back of her car. 

Son of a bitch...what an event! My new friend wasn't ahead of us long. She took a turn off and was gone. But I think I'll always remember that moment. Okay, Okay...I know we have nonbelivers in the South and I know I don't really do my part in seeking them out. But still...it does me good to stumble upon a freethinker...it's kind of like finding a twenty on the floor in a store or having a thoughtful person allow you to pull out of a parking lot ahead of them...or even, in this day and time..having a convenience  store clerk say "hello and thank you"...especially if they leave off the "have a nice day" or " have a nice one" part.

I have wondered why the South is such a major part of the Bible belt. Some say that the reason has to do with the income level of the South..it's lower than most of the rest of the country. The idea here is that those who have less, have more reason to pray for help and/or they can't afford to travel and so are less exposed to different points of view and different ways of living. Some say it's the average level of education in the south...that also is lower than the rest of the country.  Those with less education, some argue, are less prone to question or more receptive the instruction of those who sound like they have more education. I think another factor can be considered...tradition. Not the family values thing or even the God fearing thing....it's more than that. Looking back into the history of rural areas, it's easy to recognize that the only place many folks had to go to interact with friends and to find out the latest news and to do some prayin' of course...was the church. Many folks were totality isolated...no phones, no newspapers....some had no radios. Some people had only the company of their families. The church was a chance to mingle. "Sunday go to meeting" was a social event.

And so there was a need, not only for churches, but for a lot of them. People didn't have the means by which they could travel very far to go to church. Even a ten or fifteen mile distance was quite a little trip back in the old days. All that has changed now, but the idea or the tradition of church as a social event has not. Church is still a way for people to visit with others, and also it's a place  to be seen....proving  that one is a church goer often goes a long ways towards establishing social and business associations. It may sound as though I am over simplifying a complex topic, but I am the first to acknowledge that religion...the history of, the study of religion is by far the most complicated and perplexing endeavor in which any person can engage. I guess I simply wanted to share the excitement of my seeing a simple little window sticker on the back of a nondescript little car....which was for me a personal message...one that said, "you are not alone Slim."