The Happy Heretic, Judith Hayes’s web site, is back online after an absence of two years. Every month she puts up an essay criticizing some aspect of popular religion in the United States.

I like following The Happy Heretic. I’m used to the sort of nonbelief that is common in academic circles, and I’ll never get an insider’s feel for Bible Belt religiosity. I tend to think that supernatural belief is the normal state of humans. I emphasize how commonsensical religion is, in contrast to science-based, naturalistic nonbelief. But there is also a strain of nonbelief that relies on commonsense criticism of the absurdities of popular religion and is at home in popular culture. Hayes is an interesting representative of that strain.