…Oklahoma, that is.
No time for a big post, but I wanted to direct you to a very nice newspaper piece from the Oklahoma Gazette: Atheism increasingly finds a home in the Bible Belt.
Oklahoma is home to more than 6,500 churches. It’s also home to one of the largest atheist meet-up groups in the U.S.
That latter fact might seem incongruous in a state often characterized as the buckle of the Bible Belt. But some experts suggest the large numbers of self-described atheists aren’t so surprising.
“I am a native Oklahoman, and I have found that while Oklahoma is a conservative state with a strong religious presence, it is a state that has a very fierce independent spirit,” said Charles A. Kimball, director of Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “There’s a lot of respect for diversity, and that includes religious diversity, in this state.”
What follows is a thorough and very positive report on the state of atheists in the state of Oklahoma (with a nod to the rest of the country as well). Worth a read.
That was a very nice article on atheists and without a single “fair and balanced” opinion from a theist. That almost never happens and I didn’t expect it from an OK newspaper. Shocked I am.
Yep, a very fair article. The biggest Unitarian Universlist church, which contains many atheists, is in Tulsa. A liberal island in a conservative ocean.