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?"

Posted February 21, 2007