As a Texas prison worker, Shirley Setterbo helped rehabilitate felons. The tables were turned last year when she revealed to the inmates that she had been an atheist for three decades — she was viewed as the biggest sinner in the joint and they all began praying for her reformation. She chronicled that experience in a blog called AtheistExposed, which has unfortunately been deleted. However, she's created a new blog, AtheistExposed2, in which she records similar adventures in coming out godless in her new office job within the correctional system.
I thought that in her relatively cushy work environment, Shirley might be missing the challenge of a really tough audience. The people at my crisis pregnancy center seem pretty hardcore, at least faith-wise, so I suggested that she volunteer at a local CPC and try her luck proselytizing there. Although I offered to cross-post her adventures on my regular blog, she wrote back reluctantly:
You know . . . It's an uncomfortable issue . . . I'm really not concrete on my views on the issue. I mean, I don't think children should be born to parents, that don't want to, or are not ready to raise them. So many of the federal prisoners came from just that environment. But, the whole ugliness of killing a baby is just so dreadful, I can barely stand to think of it. But, It does sound like a lively conversation starter. Let me sleep on it a night or two. I think it might, do some good, in spreading the word -- "That Atheists are good people". ShirleyIs it legitimate to argue that children who lead a life of crime result from women who commit the crime of life? I think you'll have an easier time convincing Shirley of the flaws of that reasoning than she'll have persuading a CPC crowd that there are errors in their cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments. Whatever the case, I'm sure that we all agree in the end, the Truth will prevail. In the meantime, try to talk Shirley into copping a plea for a "life" sentence.
