A Florida State University windbreaker and hat stand out on Auburn's campus. The man's white beard and glasses hint at wisdom, and his purposeful stride makes it easy to spot Delos Mckown as he walks around the University where he used to teach.
Mckown was head of the department of philosophy at Auburn until 1995.
"I have been off the scene for so long," Mckown said. "I used to be well-known on this campus. I had a horrible reputation."
He was an important figure in Alabama's freethinking community and still inspires and teaches people about religion through the books he has authored.
As a child, Mckown wanted to be a cartoonist and graduated with a bachelor's of fine art at Alma College in Michigan.
At 19 years old, he began preaching with the hopes of becoming a minister. Mckown enrolled at the Lexington Theological Seminary "under the influence," of another minister who had been taught there, Mckown said.
"I was under the illusion that I had received a call to the ministry," Mckown said. "But I was very young in those days."
While in Lexington, Mckown's beliefs flipped.
"Not because of research, it was because of personal experiences," Mckown said. "I realized I had been sold a bill of goods."
Mckown went on to earn a master's degree in philosophy at the University of Kentucky, then a Ph.D. at Florida State University.
Since retiring in 1995, Mckown spends more time at home. Earlier in his life, he spoke regularly as an active member of the Alabama Freethought Association.
The organization's goal is to separate government from sponsored religion and remove it from schools.
Mckown said he believes this goal is in line with the Founding Fathers' wish for a country free from religious influence.
"I just wish that we were truer to our Founding Fathers," Mckown said. "They didn't do a perfect job by any means, but they did a pretty good job at creating a new country. And there was a time when those classic values in the constitution held us together. There has to be something (classic values), or else our society would become anarchic."
Mckown lives as a self-described agnostic, someone who admits to not knowing if a god exists or not. This position is "more defensible" than deist or atheist, he said.
A deist believes in a god, but not the Christian God. Instead, a deist believes in a god who "doesn't pull on someone's heart strings," Mckown said.
Defending his position is what Mckown enjoys.
A quick Google search of his name returns numerous chat room sites talking about his many books, speeches and debates.
In one speech transcript that was given in 1989 titled "How to Handle Bibliolaters," Mckown outlines what a person should do when confronted with evangelists.
The speech even included an anecdote from a debate with a reverend in Auburn's ballroom.
Regardless of his notoriety online, McKown doesn't spend any time thinking about his accomplishments or past achievements, he said.
He wants to see change in our country, and all inquiries into how he has made a difference resulted in conversations about religious inequalities, or how Americans can retain a separation of church and state.
"The best thing an individual can do would be to take a busload of school kids to see the dinosaur bones and things of that sort," Mckown said. "You counter it not directly, but by showing things."
Now in his mid-80's, Mckown hesitates to talk about his accomplishments. He has written four books about debatable religious figures and philosophies.
A quick read of any of his speech transcripts gives more insight into Mckown than any other writer could describe.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike."
Mckown's most notable quote speaks to his personality. He speaks through irony. Some of his statements don't mean anything literally yet provoke deep insight into our culture's beliefs.
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