Atheist Shoe Co.: Postal Service Discriminating Against Shipments to Godless Americans (and the Interesting Way They Say They Found Out)

Atheist activists and a secular shoe company are claiming that the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been discriminating against non-believers. And they've even conducted a study into the matter in an attempt to substantiate their allegations.

Late last year, TheBlaze first told you about Atheist, a company that produces shoes for non-believers (and, as we've noted, the business has used some vulgar messaging to market products in the past). Now, the company is claiming that its past shipments to non-believers in the U.S. have hit some major snags -- delays that it believes could be the result of discriminatory practices on behalf of USPS employees.

Photo Credit: Atheistberlin.com

See, the company was apparently using "ATHEIST" packaging tape -- something it believes was potentially offending postal workers and subsequently leading to the aforementioned delays and package losses.

The company was so curious about this issue, in fact, that it commissioned a study into the matter, publishing the results on its web site.

"We have lots of customers in the USA, but sometimes the shoes we send them take longer than they should to arrive, or even go missing," she study reads. "And, when some of our customers asked us not to use ATHEIST-branded packing tape on their shipments, we started to wonder if the delays were caused by the US Postal Service taking [offense] at out overt godlessness..."

Screen shot from the Atheist shoes web site (Photo Credit: Atheistberlin.com)

Here's how the study worked. In Nov. 2012, the company intentionally sent out 178 packages to 89 people (each individual received two packages). One of the packages used the ATHEIST tape and the other didn't. All shipments were sent from the company's headquarters in Berlin, Germany.

The study apparently yielded the following results:

- 9 packages with ATHEIST tape were lost; only one package without the tape was lost

- ATHEIST packages took 3 days longer on average to arrive at their destinations

- ATHEIST packages were 10 times more likely to disappear

- In Michigan, the ATHEIST package arrived 37 days later

The shoe company's conclusion? "The results demonstrate a significant bias, in quality of shipping, against ATHEIST-branded packages," the study reads. And according to analysis, this alleged bias is distinctly unique to the United States, as the same issues have not been observed in Europe.

Equally troubling, the secular company claims, it the fact the discrimination even occurred in states heralded for being "less religious and more liberal."

On its Facebook page, Atheist said that it plans to take further action:

Some of you have asked if we'll be sharing the findings of our USPS discrimination study with anyone official, and yes, conscious that tampering with post is a federal offence, we will be contacting the Office of the Inspector General of USPS.

Screen shot from the Atheist shoes web site (Photo Credit: Atheistberlin.com)

The company claims that it is no longer using ATHEIST packing tape and that delivery times to non-believers in the U.S. have already improved.

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