The Growing Minority
More and more I have found myself thinking about religion lately. I think a lot of people have. Over the past 6 years, Evangelist Christians have become louder and more influential in America. With 9/11 and our forays into Afghanistan and Iraq, we've begun to take note of and learn more about Islam and the Qur'an, with the emphasis mainly on the differences between Islam and Christianity. Meanwhile, a much smaller movement for Atheism has surfaced, with people like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet writing books about the demise of reason and rational thought in the face of growing religiosity in America. Atheists have also begun using the internet as a base for their movement with sites such as The Blasphemy Challenge, which challenges people to publicly state their non-belief in anything religious.
On an even smaller scale, many atheists have begun blogging about atheism and the problems they see in their own lives with religion, as in this entry about girl who comes up with the perfect response to the essay question "What do you want for Christmas?" by pointing out the baseless assumptions the teacher made in asking the question, and how by asking it the teacher has made the non-Christian children in the class uncomfortable. (At the end, she admits that she is offended by the question because she is an atheist. Her teacher responded by telling her that "her ability to care for others feelings isn't an atheist trait" and her "attitude was very Christian".)
This growing movement has begun to threaten many religious Americans. Recent polls have shown that Americans think atheists are the group Americans feel disagrees most with their vision of America, the group they would least like their child to marry (link), and the group they find least favorable (link). Another poll found that only 49% of Americans would consider voting for an atheist candidate for public office (link). Some have even gone so far as to write letters to the editor, saying things like, "It's time to stomp out atheism in America" and "...atheists are the reason crime is rampant."
Imagine in this day in age, if someone were to say that about any other minority group: "It's time to stomp out Mormonism in America.", or "Hindus are the reason crime is rampant." In addition to not making any sense, the people saying these things would be scorned and despised for their bigotry. For most, the social standard of tolerance would be too great for them to even allow themselves to think about saying it.
So why has does the social standard in America not dissuade people from making such statements about atheism? There seem to be three main issues. The first is simple an issue of awareness. In a society where a majority of the populace is Christian of some form, there are many people who do not realize that some of the people around them are atheists. This is compounded by religions special status as a "taboo" topic of discussion. It turns out that atheists, depending on which definition you use, constitute 3-14% of the American population. (3% is the number of actively self identifying atheists, while 14% is the number who identify themselves with "no religion".) The second reason is that for centuries the church has vilified atheism, equating atheists with evil, using them as scapegoats for causing unfortunate events through the wrath of god, and other ridiculous accusations. The third reason, and the one that anti-atheists voice the most, is that atheists try to uphold the idea of the separation of church and state by removing mandatory prayer from school and attempting to remove "In God We Trust" and "under God" from currency and the pledge of allegiance, which they somehow consider "un-American".
The main point of this article is to address the first issue, awareness, by pointing out a few people who are atheists. I'll kick it off by stating something that should surprise very few people: I am an atheist. That means that I do not believe in any god or gods, in heaven or hell, in angels, fairies, or leprechauns, in souls, or in the bible.
To expand the field some, I'm also adding a link to the Celebrity Atheist List, so you can see who of your favorite stars, writers and scientists deny the existence of any deity. Moreover, I want everyone to try and think the next time you meet a new person, "What assumptions am I making about this person based on what I think their religion to be? What if they aren't the religion I thought they were or have no religion at all?" I know the first reaction to that is to say "I don't make those assumptions," but I think if you spend a little more time thinking about it, you'll start to see things you hadn't thought of before.
UPDATE:
Here is a good graphic of the numbers I was talking about earlier regarding presidential candidates, as well as the full statistics.
"If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president, who happened to be _, would you vote for that person?"
At 6:13 PM on February 21, 2007, Wojo said,
As a fellow Atheist, I feel for you on your arguments especially the fact that Atheists are neglected, despised, and misunderstood by American society in general. I don't know how you could possibly turn around the public's opinion on atheism, but I believe that the majority of the cause is due to our lack of visibility in society. No one knows that Atheists are doing things to further society, to help the underprivileged, and to promote prosperity.
Most people assume other people are Xian in the US. There is no real way for any Atheist to advertise "I am an Atheist" when they do things that people wrongly would assume only a "Christian" would do. While it's quite ridiculous that people think that a religion somehow predetermines what a person will do in a situation, people do this all the time - which leads to their ignorance. To this day, the majority of my family probably doesn't know that I am an Atheist - and I know that they would be completely surprised by my choice in "faith" (most are Catholic, the rest are non-practicing Xian's). This disheartens me some, but those that do know my faith have learned what Atheism can be and usually is.
I suppose that a good start for Atheists in general would be to let their family and their friends know of their beliefs. I personally will not advocate my belief on anyone anymore - although I will speak about them. But to just tell someone that you are an Atheist should help others understand the depth of the field of Atheists. If every Atheist were to just do this, America would come to some understanding of what Atheism meant and how it is not the poison that it has been portrayed to be. Even then it will be an uphill battle, but we can always hope for the best.
TW
At 8:22 PM on February 21, 2007, alex lo said,
I kept reading "Xian" as in "Xi'an, the city in China" (that I was lucky enough to go to once) - I recommend using the full out 'Christian' in the future.
At 1:51 AM on February 22, 2007, Keacher said,
One of the things that really irritates me is when a Christian sees an atheist's non-belief as a problem to be fixed.
I'd be interested to see statistics on what percentage of convicted felons are atheist. I guess I'd like to see data on beliefs in lots of demographic groups. I think I read something recently that claimed that over 60% of ivy-league biology professors are atheist.
At 3:03 AM on February 22, 2007, Tyler said,
Or any other religion as needing to be fixed.
I recall seeing the stat somewhere, I remember it being extremely low, like in the <1% range. I'll try and dig it up. I've also seen stats showing an inverse relation between religiosity and education level, but of course that doesn't necessarily say anything about causality.
At 3:50 PM on March 12, 2007, Snyder said,
Totally off-topic here, but do you have a recommendation on aero bars for a road bike? I remember you talking about them at some point in the past. Thanks for the help.
At 6:33 PM on April 10, 2007, Jeff said,
Of course everyone is entitled to their beliefs and should not be discriminated against but have you considered what is the basis for your lack of faith?
Donald Knuth has a interesting take on this...
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/things.html
At 11:47 PM on April 10, 2007, Tyler said,
That's interesting, thanks for the link.
I tend not to think as myself as having a "lack of faith", but more as having an understanding of logic, reason and science. I do not see "faith" as a good basis for my life. I want to build on evidence, facts and knowledge. That is how we as a species have come so far.
Really, this question is no different from asking a person why they don't believe in Santa Claus or Zeus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy or Tinkerbell (no matter how hard you may have clapped for her). Until someone can show me through repeatable, scientifically sound experiments that there is a supreme being out there that cares about what I think, I just don't buy it.
At 6:49 PM on April 20, 2007, lucas said,
why does this site throw debug errors in IE7?
just thought you shoudl know.