Category Archives: Atheism

Atheists don't discuss their stance for fear of prejudice, a study finds.

Mark Rivera, WTSP 12:03 AM. EDT April 26, 2017

People gather for the Reason Rally on the National Mall March 24, 2012, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, 2012 AFP)

TAMPA It can be taboo to talk about religion in public and especially atheism.

That's why a new study from the University of Kentucky might surprise you.

It says the real number of atheists in the United States may be way higher than we thought:

It estimates more than a quarter of all American adults are atheists. They don't believe in God, or a higher power.

That's about 62 million people - the population of Florida and California combined!

But the same study says a lot of those atheists never talk about it.

Something else that might surprise you:

AGallup poll found54 percent of Americans would vote for a presidential candidate who was openly atheist. About 90 percent said they'd vote for a Catholic candidate, 80 percent said they'd vote for a Mormon, and 58 percent said they would vote for a Muslim candidate.

We are getting answers to your questions from Jim Peterson of Atheists of Florida, who does want to talk about being an atheist.

RIVERA: What the study has said is a lot of atheists in the US are afraid or feel like there's some reason they can't come out and talk about it. What do you think that is?

JIM PETERSON: Over the years, from the very beginning, it was apparent that atheists were the subjects of a good deal of prejudice, discrimination and outright bigotry. But a lot of people have become disenamored of religion altogether. They no longer feel that it's relevant to their life.

RIVERA: A lot of people ask, "can you be a good person and be an atheist at the same time?"

PETERSON: Of course!

RIVERA: How?

PETERSON: Well, pretty much do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There's no God in that formula. Morality does not grow from religion. Morality grows from the practice of everyday life. We are the ones who have to make up our minds.

Nobody comes into this world a Presbyterian. You have to learn how to do it. Or Jewish, or a Hindu, or Muslim, or Catholic, or anything else. You have to learn it. And some of us get to unlearn it.

RIVERA: Do you think people, when they hear someone is an atheist, make an instant judgment on that?

PETERSON: If the only thing they know about someone is that person is an atheist, then they will immediately have some sort of a reaction.

RIVERA: What are the negative connotations along with the idea of atheism?

PETERSON: They don't have any sense of responsibility to the broader community, they don't participate, they don't care.

RIVERA: Are they wrong?

PETERSON: Yes. Atheists as a group or people. They're just regular folks.

RIVERA: If there's one thing you want people to take away from a conversation with an atheist something people don't do every day what would that be?

PETERSON: Think. Just think about your situation. Think about the world. Compare and contrast. Learn about your religion, no matter what it is right now. Everything that is human has something to tell us. And as a whole picture - it demonstrates that we have a life. And it is not dependent upon a god.

2017 WTSP-TV

See the original post here:
Hidden atheists: What are the stigmas? - WTSP 10 News

At an April 3 mayoral candidate forum, Mayor Ivy Taylor shared her surprising views on systemic poverty in San Antonio. To her, the "broken people" facing poverty just have a bad relationship with God.

Now, weeks after the forum, a video of her answer has gone viral. The video shows Taylor and fellow candidate Councilman Ron Nirenberg answering a question fromMegan Legacy,the director of SA Christian Resource Center. She asks: "What do you see as the deepest, systemic causes of generational poverty in San Antonio?"

"To me, it's broken people...people not being in a relationship with their Creator, and therefore not being in a good relationship with their families and their communities....and not being productive members of society.

This comes from a mayor who's already on thin ice for using her religious beliefs to discriminate against the city's LGBT community. In 2013, when Taylor was still a councilwoman, she voted against a nondiscrimination ordinance that would protect LGBT San Antonians from being discriminated against by public and private business owners. Her reasoning? People shouldn't be forced to treat everyone equally if it goes against their faith or "moral values."It's the same excuse far-right conservative state lawmakers have used in writing bills to keep transgender kids out of public bathrooms.

This time around, the Democratic incumbent running for mayor has used her faith to chastise the city's poorest citizens weeks before election day.

In a statement sent to the Current, Taylor said that the video had been "intentionally edited to mislead viewers." However, it's hard to see how NOWcastSA's livestream video of the event could have been manipulated. The full video shows no obvious signs of editing.

"I have devoted my life to breaking the chains of generational poverty," she writes. "Ive done so because of my faith in God and my belief in Jesuss ministry on Earth."

See the article here:
Mayor Taylor Says Poverty is a Symptom of Atheism | The Daily - San Antonio Current

When stated in such blunt terms the theological and moral urgency of the tasks of combating and overcoming racism cannot be ignored. It is as big and complicated as how we act and react politically and in our communities, and how our Church and its programs are structured, led and accessible and welcoming to all. Its as difficult and awkward as how we learn to listen better to people who are different and how we respond to that racist joke or social media post a friend makes.

Citing the transformation that a proper understanding of the gospel bringsas Paul set it out (Galatians 3:28)Ellen White also recognised the positive call to listen, to act and to care (and, no, to say our objection is to differences of religion does not let us squirm out of our responsibility): Whatever the difference in religious belief, a call from suffering humanity must be heard and answered. . . . They have been bought with a price, and they are as precious in His sight as we are. They are members of Gods great household, and Christians as His stewards are responsible for them.4

Racism might be the most common atheism among Christians today. When we dismiss, devalue, exclude, marginalise and oppress others, we deny our shared Creator and Saviour. This sobering realisation must change how we listen and speak, like and post, vote and worship, think and work.

No room for racism, Melbourne street art, Brunswick East, Melbourne Street Art Avantgarde/Flickr

Read more:
Racism is atheism - Avondale College News

"God has left the universe in a state for faith in this age of reason"

- Haulianlal Guite, in Confessions Of A Dying Mind: The Blind Faith of Atheism

In 2006, the noted British ethologist Richard Dawkins published his swashbuckling bestseller, The God Delusion. With content as provocative as its title, this book attempted to show that God is a bronze-age civilisation holdover that has no place in the mind of the modern man. The book came at a most opportune time and led to a plethora of other atheism books designed along the same line, so that popular authors like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett (called "the Four Horsemen of Atheism") churned out books against religion one after another.

These atheism books were distinguished from their predecessors by their rhetorical, propagandic content, full of provocative barbs and tirades designed to elicit the most outlandish response attempting to bully the reader's intellect into accepting that the concept of God is outdated, and religions are the root of all evils.

The underlying theme of all these works is the proposition that modern science has shown a universe without God or any supernatural entity; therefore, God or anything similar does not exist. As Dawkins himself put it, "Darwin has made it possible to be an intellectually-fulfilled atheist".

These Four Horsemen have made atheism the new fad which every thinking person is supposed to capitulate into. All the more so since the response from the faithful (called "apologists") has been rather tepid; and that, while their arguments lack substance, the popular appeal to science as the source of all our knowledge and authority, and religion as the equivalent of a vestigial organ, made an irresistible impression on millions. Today, it may well be the case that most lay atheists in Britain in particular, and the Anglophone world in general, owe their atheism, directly or indirectly, to these Four Horsemen.

Another story they spectacularly succeeded in selling to the public is that all religions are based on faith without evidence (that is, blind faith), while atheism is based on science and reason.

But is that so? Is it truly the case that religion is blind faith while atheism is not? Has modern science, indeed, really done away with God?

Way back in the 19th century, when Napoleon's chief scientific advisor, Laplace, explained his nebular hypothesis, and the emperor noticed the lack of God in his new theory of the cosmos, Laplace simply replied, "I have no need of the God hypothesis".

But is God really a scientific hypothesis in the first place? Victor Stenger, at the height of the atheism resurgence in 2007, himself published the book grandiosely titled, God: The Failed Hypothesis. In it, he argued that God must be treated like any other scientific hypothesis, and furthermore, that when seen in this light, it is a failed hypothesis that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Enter Haulianlal Guite, and his new book Confessions Of A Dying Mind: The Blind Faith of Atheism.

Confessions of a Dying Mind: The Blind Faith of Atheism; Bloomsbury; Rs 599.

The latest to join this perennial conversation on the ultimate nature of being, this rising philosopher from the most unlikely place, has published a work that attempts to undermine the narrative championed by the Four Horsemen and their acolytes.

Where atheists like Dawkins appeal to science to allege that God is nothing but a prehistoric delusion, Guite in this new book uses the same scientific data to show how science is an enterprise that is monumentally irrelevant to the God question.

Where attempts have been made to portray religion and science as always conflicting since the trial of Galileo in the 17th century, Guite uses the same example to show how religion and science have never been in real conflict, and that the battle was never between religion and science.

As he put it in the mouth of his book's protagonist, Mr Walker, "the battle between Galileo and his foes was never been science and religion, but between one philosophy of science called 'realism' and another philosophy of science called 'instrumentalism'".

That is, what was at stake was never science and reason, but a particular interpretation of science. And Guite relishes in pointing out the irony of how such modern scientists like Stephen Hawking would have sided with the medieval churchmen who battled against Galileo.

As for the claim that religion is based on blind faith while atheism rests on evidence, Guite marshals an impressive array of arguments and evidences from philosophy, biology and physics to show how atheism has nothing to do with science at all. By using the most significant ideas in modern philosophy - such as, Kant's Copernican Revolution, Popper's falsification and the Duhem-Quine thesis - Guite has powerfully argued that there is no sharp distinction between science and religion, and that if anything, atheism itself rests on blind faith.

Thus the subtitle. By putting the shoe on the other foot, Guite argues that these eminent scientists are right about the science but wrong about the philosophy of their science, and therefore, they are fundamentally wrong to think atheism is, or can be based on science. Ergo, atheism is itself an act of faith without evidence - that is, blind faith.

Regardless of whether one agrees with his conclusions, what makes Guite's book uniquely alluring is the novelised format he adopts. Written along the lines of Jostein Gaarder's outstanding bestseller, Sophie's World, but on a topic far more relevant and fascinating than Gaarder's, this new philosophical work is for non-philosophical readers who wish to enter the perennial conversation, and be initiated into philosophy.

Indeed, it is billed as "the world's first philosophical novel for God", whose author is arguably the first Indian civil servant to write on philosophy since John Stuart Mill published On Libertyway back in 1858.

Without deploying unnecessary jargon, Guite writes the book as a non-fiction novel, as a series of conversations, dialogues and adventures of the two main protagonists - the atheistic journalist Mr Albert Dyers who has a near-death experience; and the angelic entity Mr. Walker who appears in his experience. Woven into the plotline of the novel itself is the central contention of the book: that, whether he believes in the reality or unreality of the near-death experience, Dyers does so on blind faith.

Is the topic of God of an interest to you? If so, this is what Dr CK Mathew, former chief secretary of Rajasthan and visiting professor at Azim Premji University, and himself an unbeliever no less, has this to say in the book's foreword: "a masterpiece ... pick it up then, and read it. It will change your mind, and the way you think!"

(Confessions Of A Dying Mind: The Blind Faith of Atheismwill be released in New Delhi on May 25 , 2017. Pre-release orders can now be made on amazon.in)

Also read:Can I be a Hindu and still an atheist?

Link:
Has God become obsolete? - DailyO

By Justin Scott, guest columnist

Apr 18, 2017 at 11:39 am | Print View

After this month, hopefully its a little easier to be an atheist in Iowa.

On April 5, I proudly stood in the Iowa State Capitol and delivered what is believed to be the first ever atheist prayer (aka secular invocation) in the peoples house. Atheism was finally given the same platform and respect that had been extended to other religions and worldviews for years to start off a session of the Iowa Legislature.

The historic invocation garnered headlines across Iowa putting the words atheism and atheist front and center for many lawmakers and communities across Iowa. It also put our state government on notice that not all Iowans are Christians or even religious and that we deserve the same access to our statehouse.

While Im not so naive to believe that achieving an equal voice at the statehouse and the subsequent attention it gained for atheism in and of itself will end bullying, bigotry and discrimination against atheists in Iowa, it is my belief yes, atheists believe in some things, just not in the supernatural sense that Iowans will begin to better understand that atheists are an essential part of the Iowa experience.

Atheists are presidents of companies, theyre doctors and surgeons, they may even be your childs public school teacher. Heck, they very well could be the pastor of your church and just havent admitted to themselves and their congregation that they simply no longer believe what it is that they have made a career preaching about.

Dont just take my word for it. Studies by the Pew Research Center continue to show the increase in the number of atheists and people leaving religion, declaring that they are religiously unaffiliated. They also show the rapid decline of religion and religious affiliation. Its been reported that one out of every three millennial considers themselves a religious none. Add that to the number of us known as religious dones that grew up in religion but have studied our way out of it (like me) and you now have one of the largest and most influential groups in the country, one that will likely influence public policy and our society for generations to come.

And while I fully understand and admit that this doesnt mean that these nones and dones dont necessarily identify as atheists, theyve already taken the first step to embracing atheism (which is simply the rejection of the god belief). Having future generations that exclusively use what I described in my invocation as the holy trinity of science (a phrase that was originally coined back in the 1850s by the infamous Great Agnostic Robert Ingersoll) the human race can finally break free from the chains that have been holding down scientific discovery and advancement for centuries.

Just like the LGBTQ movement of the 1970s, the atheist movement is starting to grow legs and become better organized and galvanized both here in Iowa and across the country. Atheist groups like mine, the Eastern Iowa Atheists, continue to appear and network with other groups, creating a powerful force of godless citizens that are committed to demanding atheist rights while defending the Constitutional Separation of religion and government. (Keep your theocracy off our democracy thank you very much!)

Theres a tidal wave of atheism and secularism thats been building for years and its about to crash onto the shores of religious America. If youre an atheist or on the fence about your religious beliefs or upbringing, now is the time to own who you are and come catch the wave with other Iowa atheists!

Justin Scott is the founder and director of Eastern Iowa Atheists. More information: http://www.facebook.com/easterniowaatheists

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It's time for atheists to speak up - The Gazette: Eastern Iowa Breaking News and Headlines

U.S. surveys in recent years have calculated atheists make up between 3 percent and 10 percent of the population.

But the percentage may actually be much higher, because the stigma surrounding disbelief in God likely prevents people from honestly answering pollsters questions about their beliefs, according to a newreport by University of Kentucky psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle.

Theres a lot of atheists in the closet, Gervais said in a recent interview with Vox.

Gervais and Najles report, to be published in the next issue of the journalSocial Psychological and Personality Science, concluded the true number of American atheists may be as high as 26 percent of the population.

This stands in stark contrast to surveys conducted by Pew Research Center and Gallup highly reputable polling operations. A 2014 Pew survey found the percentage of Americans who said they were atheists to be just over 3 percent, with 9 percent of adults reportingthey didnt believe in God, which is the definition of atheism.

A 2016 Gallup pollfound that 10 percent of Americans reported they did not believe in God.

Gervais isnt buying that data.

We shouldnt expect people to give a stranger over the phone an honest answer to that question, Gervais told Vox.

The University of Kentucky study aimed for a more accurate analysis using whats called the unmatched count technique.Gervais and Najle sent a poll to two nationally representative samples of 2,000 adults.Instead of asking respondents directly about their belief in God, the researchers asked participants to read through a list of statements, including things like, I own a dog, and I enjoy modern art. One group of respondents had the statement, I believe in God, included on their list.

The participants were asked to write down the number of statements that were true for them. Gervais and Najle operated on the assumption that the two groups should have roughly the same number of dog owners, art lovers, et cetera.Any major differences would account for those who dont believe in God.

Gregory Smith, associate director of research at Pew Research Center, was skeptical of the new report. I would be very reluctant to conclude that phone surveys like ours are underestimating the share the public who are atheists to that kind of magnitude, Smith told Vox.

But there is social stigma surrounding atheism in the U.S., which Gervais argued may lead people to tell pollsters they believe in God even if they dont. A January 2017 Pew survey asked respondents to rate different groups on a feeling thermometer ranging from 0 to 100. On average, atheists received a rating of 50, the second-lowest rating for a religious group, after Muslims.

An analysis of datafrom the 2014 Boundaries in the American Mosaic Survey found that 42 percent of U.S. adults say atheists dont share their vision of American society.

Given the centrality of religious belief to many societies, and the degree to which many equate religious belief with morality, there are profound social pressures to be or at least appear religious, Gervais and Najle wrote in the report.

Continued here:
New Study Suggests U.S. Has A Lot Of 'Closet' Atheists | The ... - Huffington Post

Redated from Jan. 13, 2010.

Today I want to kill one of atheisms sacred cows. I want to kill one of atheisms most popular and resilient retorts.

One of atheisms sacred cows is the Who designed the designer? response.Heres how it works:

THEIST: There is so much complexity in the world, it must have been designed by an Intelligent Designer. The best explanation for our world is an Intelligent Designer.

ATHEIST: But then who designed the Designer?

THEIST: Nobody. (Or perhaps: I dont know.)

ATHEIST: Well then you have explained nothing.

This is a highly popular objection. For example, heres Christopher Hitchens:

the postulate of a designer or creator only raises the unanswerable question of who designed the designer or created the creator. Religion and theology have consistently failed to overcome this objection.

Or, philosopher Rebecca Goldstein:

Who caused God? [Theists offer] a prime example of the Fallacy of Passing the Buck: invoking God to solve some problem, but then leaving unanswered that very same problem when applied to God himself.

So this is fatal to theism, right?

No. Wrong. The atheist has not offered a strong objection.

Let me be clear. I agree that God did it is generally a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad explanation for complexity or, well, pretty much anything. God did it does generally fail as an explanation.

But it does not fail merely because the theist has no explanation for his explanation (God). That is not the problem with offering God did it as an explanation.

The problem with offering God did it as an explanation is that such an explanation has low plausibility, is not testable, has poor consistency with background knowledge, comes from a tradition (supernaturalism) with extreme explanatory failure, lacks simplicity, offers no predictive novelty, and has poor explanatory scope. It fails to provide almost everything philosophers and scientists look for in a successful explanation. That is why God did it is generally a horrible explanation, not because it leaves the explanation itself (God) unexplained.

Let us ask ourselves what would happen if we required that a successful explanation must itself be explained.

This would lead immediately to an infinite regress of explanations. We would need to have an explanation of the explanation, and an explanation of the explanation of the explanation, and an explanation of the explanation of the explanation of the explanation on into infinity. And thus, we would never be able to explain anything.

Moreover, this is not how science works. Examples from physics are the most obvious. In order to explain certain quantum phenomena, scientists have posited the existence of dozens of invisible particles with very particular properties that yield predictable results. These have been some of the most successful explanations in all of scientific history, yielding the most accurate experimental results we have ever achieved. And yet we have no explanations whatsoever for the particles that we have offered as explanations for the quantum phenomena.

The reason that the details of the Standard Model of Particle Physics are accepted as good explanations for quantum phenomena is because these explanations are plausible, they are extremely testable, they have strong consistency with background knowledge, they come from a tradition (natural science) with great explanatory success, they are relatively simple, they offer much predictive novelty, and they have strong explanatory scope. It doesnt matter that we have no explanation whatsoever for the explanations themselves.

One more example. Ludwig Boltzmann explained heat by positing tiny, unobserved particles (which we now call atoms). Boltzmanns theory was superior to earlier phenomenological theories of heat, even though his explanation (a mess of tiny particles) was itself totally unexplained.

So the problem with the atheist sacred cow of Who designed the designer? is that it misses the point. God did it is a horrible explanation, but not because theists cant tell us what the explanation for the designer is. There are other reasons why God did it is generally a horrible explanation, and that is what atheists should be trying to communicate.

Despite repeated attempts to explain all this to my atheist readers, many still insist that successful explanations must themselves be explained. At this point, I dont know what else to do except to quote some scholars in an attempt to bludgeon my fellow atheists into accepting this basic principle in philosophy of science. 🙂

Heres atheist philosopher of science Peter Lipton:

The why-regress is a feature of the logic of explanation that many of us discovered as children, to our parents cost. I vividly recall the moment it dawned on me that, whatever my mothers answer to my latest why-question, I could simply retort by asking Why? of the answer itself, until my mother ran out of answers or patience

[But] explanations need not themselves be understood. A drought may explain a poor crop, even if we dont understand why there was a drought; I understand why you didnt come to the party if you explain you had a bad headache, even if I have no idea why you had a headache; the big bang explains the background radiation, even if the big bang is itself inexplicable, and so on

the [why-regress] argument brings out the important facts that explanations can be chained, and that what explains need not itself be understood

Or consider atheist philosopher of scienceMichael Friedman. Notice that he assumes our explanations may not themselves be explained, but that explanations succeed in increasing our understanding of the world:

[Consider] the old argument that science is incapable of explaining anything because the basic phenomena to which others are reduced are themselves neither explained nor understood. According to this argument, science merely transfers our puzzlement from one phenomenon to another The answer, as I see it, is that.. we dont simply replace one phenomenon with another. We replace one phenomenon with amore comprehensive phenomenon, and thereby genuinely increase our understanding of the world.

And heres atheist philosopher of religion Gregory Dawes:

Richard Dawkins, for instance, writes that to explain the machinery of life by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing. Why? Because it leaves unexplained the origin of the designer.

[Dawkins' idea is] that religious explanations are unacceptable because they leave unexplained the existence of their explanans (God). Dawkins apparently assumes that every successful explanation should also explain its own explanans. But this is an unreasonable demand. Many of our most successful explanations raise new puzzles and present us with new questions to be answered.

Finally, atheist philosopher of metaphysics John Post:

there cannot be an infinite regress of explanations Again the reasons are not practical, such as the finiteness of our faculties, but logic or conceptual, entailed by the very notions of explanations involved. Even for an infinite intellect, regresses of such explanations must end.

Why do I want to kill this sacred cow of atheism?

First, because I am not loyal to atheism per se, but to truth and reason.

Second, because I want atheists to stop giving arguments and objections that are so easily rebutted.

Third, because I want atheists to focus on objections that really matter. When a believer offers God did it as the best explanation for something, our question should not be Well then who designed the designer? but instead Why is God the best explanation for that? Will you explain, please?

The theist has a good answer to the first question. He wont have a good answer for the second one. Not if youre prepared:

This great book shows why God is a poor explanation for anything.

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Who Designed the Designer? - Common Sense Atheism

Discrimination against atheists, both at present and historically, includes the persecution of those identifying themselves or labeled by others as atheists, as well as the discrimination against them. Discrimination against atheists may also refer to and comprise the negative attitudes towards, prejudice, hostility, hatred, fear, and/or intolerance towards atheists and/or atheism. As atheism can be defined in various ways, those discriminated against or persecuted on the grounds of being atheists might not have been considered as such in a different time or place. As of 2015, 19 countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 13 of those countries it is punishable by death.[2]

In some Islamic countries, atheists face persecution and severe penalties such as the withdrawal of legal status or, in the case of apostasy, capital punishment.[5]

Sometimes such discrimination is called atheophobia,[6]atheistophobia,[7]anti-atheist discrimination,[8] or anti-atheist sentiment.

Scholars have argued that some small underdeveloped glimpses of atheism existed in the ancient world, though not in a modern sense because people had not developed a language for nonbelief; theistic beliefs in 5th Century BC Greece were not very active in public life the way they are in the modern world, and polytheism made it difficult to centralize beliefs of any region or culture.[9]Lucien Febvre has referred to the "unthinkability" of atheism in its strongest sense before the sixteenth century, because of the "deep religiosity" of that era. Karen Armstrong has concurred, writing "from birth and baptism to death and burial in the churchyard, religion dominated the life of every single man and woman. Every activity of the day, which was punctuated by church bells summoning the faithful to prayer, was saturated with religious beliefs and institutions: they dominated professional and public lifeeven the guilds and the universities were religious organizations. ... Even if an exceptional man could have achieved the objectivity necessary to question the nature of religion and the existence of God, he would have found no support in either the philosophy or the science of his time."[10][11][12] As governmental authority rested on the notion of divine right, it was threatened by those who denied the existence of the local god. Those labeled as atheist, including early Christians and Muslims, were as a result targeted for legal persecution.[13][14]

During the early modern period, the term "atheist" was used as an insult and applied to a broad range of people, including those who held opposing theological beliefs, as well as suicides, immoral or self-indulgent people, and even opponents of the belief in witchcraft.[10][11][15] Atheistic beliefs were seen as threatening to order and society by philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas. Lawyer and scholar Thomas More said that religious tolerance should be extended to all except those who did not believe in a deity or the immortality of the soul.[13]John Locke, a founder of modern notions of religious liberty, argued that atheists (as well as Catholics and Muslims) should not be granted full citizenship rights.[13]

During the Inquisition, several of those accused of atheism or blasphemy, or both, were tortured or executed. These included the priest Giulio Cesare Vanini who was strangled and burned in 1619 and the Polish nobleman Kazimierz yszczyski who was executed in Warsaw,[10][16][17] as well as Etienne Dolet, a Frenchman executed in 1546. Though heralded as atheist martyrs during the nineteenth century, recent scholars hold that the beliefs espoused by Dolet and Vanini are not atheistic in modern terms.[12][18][19]

During the nineteenth century, British atheists, though few in number, were subject to discriminatory practices.[20] The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from the University of Oxford and denied custody of his two children after publishing a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism.[21] Those unwilling to swear Christian oaths during judicial proceedings were unable to give evidence in court to obtain justice until this requirement was repealed by Acts passed in 1869 and 1870.[20]

Atheist Charles Bradlaugh was elected as a Member of the British Parliament in 1880. He was denied the right to affirm rather than swear his oath of office, and was then denied the ability to swear the oath as other Members objected that he had himself said it would be meaningless. Bradlaugh was re-elected three times before he was finally able to take his seat in 1886 when the Speaker of the House permitted him to take the oath.[21]

In Germany during the Nazi era, a 1933 decree stated that "No National Socialist may suffer detriment... on the ground that he does not make any religious profession at all".[22] However, the regime strongly opposed "godless communism",[23][24] and all of Germany's atheist and largely left-wing freethought organizations were banned the same year; some right-wing groups were tolerated by the Nazis until the mid-1930s.[25][26] During negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of April 26, 1933 Hitler stated that "Secular schools can never be tolerated" because of their irreligious tendencies.[27] Hitler routinely disregarded this undertaking, and the Reich concordat as a whole and by 1939, all Catholic denominational schools had been disbanded or converted to public facilities.[28]

In a speech made later in 1933, Hitler claimed to have "stamped out" the atheistic movement.[22] The word Hitler used in this speech, "Gottlosenbewegung", means "Godless Movement" in German, and refers to the communist freethought movement, though might not refer to atheism in general. The historian Richard J. Evans wrote that, by 1939, 95% of Germans still called themselves Protestant or Catholic, while 3.5% were so called "gottglubig" (lit. "believers in god", a non-denominational nazified outlook on god beliefs, often described as predominately based on creationist and deistic views[29]) and 1.5% atheist. According to Evans, those members of the affiliation gottglubig "were convinced Nazis who had left their Church at the behest of the Party, which had been trying since the mid 1930s to reduce the influence of Christianity in society".[30]Heinrich Himmler, who was fascinated with Germanic paganism, was a strong promoter of the gottglubig movement and didn't allow atheists into the SS, arguing that their "refusal to acknowledge higher powers" would be a "potential source of indiscipline".[31]

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is designed to protect the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. In 1993, the UN's human rights committee declared that article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights "protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief."[32] The committee further stated that "the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views." Signatories to the convention are barred from "the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers" to recant their beliefs or convert. Despite this, minority religions still are persecuted in many parts of the world.[33][34]

Modern theories of constitutional democracy assume that citizens are intellectually and spiritually autonomous and that governments should leave matters of religious belief to individuals and not coerce religious beliefs using sanctions or benefits. The constitutions, human rights conventions and the religious liberty jurisprudence of most constitutional democracies provide legal protection of atheists and agnostics. In addition, freedom of expression provisions and legislation separating church from state also serve to protect the rights of atheists. As a result, open legal discrimination against atheists is not common in most Western countries.[13] However, prejudice against atheists does exist in Western countries. A University of British Columbia study conducted in the United States found that believers distrusted atheists as much they did rapists. The study also showed that atheists had lower employment prospects.[35][36]

In most of Europe, atheists are elected to office at high levels in many governments without controversy.[37] Some atheist organizations in Europe have expressed concerns regarding issues of separation of church and state, such as administrative fees for leaving the Church charged in Germany,[38] and sermons being organized by the Swedish parliament.[39] Ireland requires religious training from Christian colleges in order to work as a teacher in government-funded schools.[40] In the UK one-third of state-funded schools are faith-based.[41] However, there are no restrictions on atheists holding public office the former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg, is an atheist.[42] According to a 2012 poll, 25% of the Turks in Germany believe atheists are inferior human beings.[43][44] Portugal has elected two presidents, Mrio Soares and Jorge Sampaio, who have openly expressed their irreligion. On the contrary, in Greece, the right-wing New Democracy government stated that "the Greek people have a right to know whether Mr. Tsipras is an atheist", citing their political opponent's irreligiosity as a reason he should not be elected, even though they granted that "it is his right".[45] In the Elder Pastitsios case, a 27-year-old was sentenced to imprisonment for satirizing a popular apocalyptically-minded Greek Orthodox monk, while several metropolitans of the Greek Orthodox Church (which is not separated from the state) have also urged their flock "not to vote unbelievers into office", even going so far as to warn Greek Orthodox laymen that they would be "sinning if they voted atheists into public office."[46][47]

A 2009 survey showed that atheists were the most hated demographic group in Brazil, among several other minorities polled, being almost on par with drug addicts. According to the research, 17% of the interviewees stated they felt either hatred or repulsion for atheists, while 25% felt antipathy and 29% were indifferent.[48]

Canadian secular humanist groups have worked to end the recitation of prayers during government proceedings, viewing them as discriminatory.[49][50]Scouts Canada states that while a belief in God or affliation with organized religion is not a requirement to join, members must have "a basic spiritual belief"[51] and one of the core values is "Duty to God: Defined as, The responsibility to adhere to spiritual principles, and thus to the religion that expresses them, and to accept the duties therefrom."[52]

Discrimination against atheists in the United States occurs in legal, personal, social, and professional contexts. Many American atheists compare their situation to the discrimination faced by ethnic minorities, LGBT communities, and women.[53][54][55][56] "Americans still feel it's acceptable to discriminate against atheists in ways considered beyond the pale for other groups," asserted Fred Edwords of the American Humanist Association.[57] The degree of discrimination, persecution, and social stigma atheists face in the United States, compared to other persecuted groups in the United States has been the subject of study and a matter of debate.[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][excessive citations]

In the United States, seven state constitutions include religious tests that would effectively prevent atheists from holding public office, and in some cases being a juror/witness, though these have not generally been enforced since the early twentieth century.[69][70][71] The U.S. Constitution permits an affirmation in place of an oath to allow atheists to give testimony in court or to hold public office.[69][72] However, a United States Supreme Court case reaffirmed that the United States Constitution prohibits States and the Federal Government from requiring any kind of religious test for public office, in the specific case, as a notary public.[69][73][74] This decision is generally understood to also apply to witness oaths.[75]

Several American atheists have used court challenges to address discrimination against atheists. Michael Newdow challenged inclusion of the phrase "under God" in the United States Pledge of Allegiance on behalf of his daughter, claiming that the phrase amounted to government endorsement of discrimination against atheists.[76] He won the case at an initial stage, but the Supreme Court dismissed his claim, ruling that Newdow did not have standing to bring his case, thus disposing of the case without ruling on the constitutionality of the pledge.[77][78] Respondents to a survey were less likely to support a kidney transplant for hypothetical atheists and agnostics needing it, than for Christian patients with similar medical needs.[79] As the Boy Scouts of America does not allow atheists as members, atheist families and the ACLU from the 1990s onwards have launched a series of court cases arguing discrimination against atheists. In response to ACLU lawsuits, the Pentagon in 2004 ended sponsorship of Scouting units,[80][81] and in 2005 the BSA agreed to transfer all Scouting units out of government entities such as public schools.[82][83]

Despite polling showing that nonbelievers make up an increasingly large part of the population there is only one public atheist in all of the state legislatures across the nation. Few politicians have been willing to acknowledge their lack of belief in supreme beings, since such revelations have been considered "political suicide".[84][85] On September 20, 2007, Pete Stark became the first nontheist United States congressman to openly acknowledge a lack of belief, joining the millions of Americans whom have long kept their views secret for fear of discrimination in their communities.[57]Cecil Bothwell, who has publicly stated he doesn't believe in gods and that it's "certainly not relevant to public office", was elected on November 3, 2009, to the Asheville, North Carolina city council after he won the third highest number of votes in the city election. Following the election, political opponents of Bothwell threatened to challenge his election on the grounds that the North Carolina Constitution does not allow for atheists to hold public office in the state. However, that provision, dating back to 1868, is unenforceable and invalid because the United States Constitution prevents religious tests for public office.[86] A 2015 Gallup survey found that 40% of Americans would not vote an atheist for president,[87] and in polls prior to 2015, that number had reached about 50%.[88][89] A 2014 study by the University of Minnesota found that 42% of respondents characterized atheists as a group that did "not at all agree with my vision of American society", and that 44% would not want their child to marry an atheist. The negative attitudes towards atheists were higher than negative attitudes towards African-Americans and homosexuals but lower than the negative attitudes towards Muslims.[90] Many in the U.S. associate atheism with immorality, including criminal behaviour, extreme materialism, communism and elitism.[91] The studies also showed that rejection of atheists was related to the respondent's lack of exposure to diversity, education and political orientations.[92] Atheists and atheist organizations have alleged discrimination against atheists in the military,[93][94][95][96][97][98] and recently, with the development of the Army's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, atheists have alleged institutionalized discrimination.[99][100] In several child custody court rulings, atheist parents have been discriminated against, either directly or indirectly. As child custody laws in the United States are often based on the subjective opinion of family court judges, atheism has frequently been used to deny custody to non-religious parents on the basis that a parent's lack of faith displays a lack of morality require to raise a child.[101][102]

Prominent atheists and atheist groups have said that discrimination against atheists is illustrated by a statement reportedly made by George H. W. Bush during a public press conference just after announcing his candidacy for the presidency in 1987.[53][103][104][105] When asked by journalist Robert Sherman about the equal citizenship and patriotism of American atheists, Sherman reported that Bush answered, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God."[53][105][106] Sherman did not tape the exchange and no other newspaper ran a story on it at the time.[53]

George H. W. Bush's son, George W. Bush, responded to a question about the role of faith in his presidency during a November 3, 2004 press conference, "I will be your president regardless of your faith. And I don't expect you to agree with me, necessarily, on religion. As a matter of fact, no president should ever try to impose religion on our society. The great - the great tradition of America is one where people can worship the - the way they want to worship. And if they choose not to worship, they're just as patriotic as your neighbor."[107]

On December 16, 2016, President Barack Obama signed H.R. 1150, an amendment to the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act. It includes protections for "non-theistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess or practice any religion at all."[108]

The constitutions of seven "Bible Belt" U.S. states ban atheists from holding public office. However, these laws are unenforceable due to conflicting with the first amendment and article VI of the constitution:[109][110]

An eighth state constitution affords special protection to theists.

Atheists, and those accused of defection from the official religion, may be subject to discrimination and persecution in many Islamic countries.[119] According to the International Humanist and Ethical Union, compared to other nations, "unbelievers... in Islamic countries face the most severe sometimes brutal treatment".[3] Atheists and religious skeptics can be executed in at least thirteen nations: Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.[2][120]

According to popular interpretations of Islam, Muslims are not free to change religion or become an atheist: denying Islam and thus becoming an apostate is traditionally punished by death for men and by life imprisonment for women. The death penalty for apostasy is apparent in a range of Islamic states including: Iran,[121][122] Egypt,[123] Pakistan,[123] Somalia,[124] United Arab Emirates,[125] Qatar,[126] Yemen[126] and Saudi Arabia.[123] Although there have been no recently reported executions in Saudi Arabia,[127] a judge in Saudi Arabia has recently recommended that imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi go before a high court on a charge of apostasy, which would carry the death penalty upon conviction.[128] While a death sentence is rare, it is common for atheists to be charged with blasphemy or inciting hatred.[129] New "Arab Spring" regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have jailed several outspoken atheists.[129]

Since an apostate can be considered a Muslim whose beliefs cast doubt on the Divine, and/or Koran, claims of atheism and apostasy have been made against Muslim scholars and political opponents throughout history.[130][131][132] Both fundamentalists and moderates agree that "blasphemers will not be forgiven" although they disagree on the severity of an appropriate punishment.[129] In northwestern Syria in 2013 during the Syrian Civil War, jihadists beheaded and defaced a sculpture of Al-Maarri (9731058 CE), one of several outspoken Arab and Persian atheist intellectuals who lived and taught during the Islamic Golden Age.[133][134]

Jordan requires atheists to associate themselves with a recognized religion for official identification purposes.[135] In Egypt, intellectuals suspected of holding atheistic beliefs have been prosecuted by judicial and religious authorities. Novelist Alaa Hamad was convicted of publishing a book that contained atheistic ideas and apostasy that were considered to threaten national unity and social peace.[136][137]

The study of Islam is a requirement in public and private schools for every Algerian child, irrespective of his/her religion.

Atheist or agnostic men are prohibited from marrying Muslim women (Algerian Family Code I.II.31).[138] A marriage is legally nullified by the apostasy of the husband (presumably from Islam, although this is not specified; Family Code I.III.33). Atheists and agnostics cannot inherit (Family Code III.I.138).

Several Bangladeshi atheists have been assassinated, and a "hit list" exists issued by the Bangladeshi Islamic extremist organization, the Ansarullah Bangla Team. Activist atheist bloggers are leaving Bangladesh under threat of assassination.[139]

Atheists in Indonesia experience official discrimination in the context of registration of births and marriages, and the issuance of identity cards.[140] In 2012, Indonesian atheist Alexander Aan was beaten by a mob, lost his job as a civil servant and was sentenced to two and a half years in jail for expressing his views online.[141][142]

Since atheism is not a belief or religion, non-believers are not given legal status in Iran. Declaration of faith in Islam, Christianity, Judaism or Zoroastrianism is required to avail of certain rights such as applying for entrance to university,[143][144] or becoming a lawyer, with the position of judge reserved for Muslims only.[145] The Penal Code is also based upon the religious affiliation of the victim and perpetrator, with the punishment oftentimes more severe on non-Muslims.[143][146] Numerous writers, thinkers and philanthropists have been accused of apostasy and sentenced to death for questioning the prevailing interpretation of Islam in Iran.[147][148][149] The Iranian Atheists Association was established in 2013 to form a platform for Iranian atheists to start debates and to question the current Islamic regime's attitude towards atheists, apostasy, and human rights.[150]

Atheism is prohibited in Saudi Arabia and can come with a death penalty, if one is charged as an atheist.[151][152][153]

In March 2014, the Saudi interior ministry issued a royal decree branding all atheists as terrorists, which defines terrorism as "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based".[154]

Although officially a secular state, the vast majority of Turks are Muslim, and the state grants some special privileges to Muslims and to Islam in the media and private religious institutions. Compulsory religious instruction in Turkish schools is also considered discriminatory towards atheists, who may not want their children to receive any religious education.[155] Atheists and agnostics are also not counted in the official census of the country.[citation needed]

See the article here:
Discrimination against atheists - Wikipedia

Heres a simple question: How many Americans dont believe in God?

Pew and Gallup two of the most reputable polling firms in America both come to a similar figure. About 10 percent of Americans say they do not believe in God, and this figure has been slowly creeping up over the decades.

But maybe this isnt the whole story. University of Kentucky psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle have long suspected that a lot of atheists arent showing up in these polls. The reason: Even in our increasingly secular society, theres still a lot of stigma around not believing in God. So when a stranger conducting a poll calls and asks the question, it may be uncomfortable for many to answer truthfully.

Gervais and Najle recently conducted a new analysis on the prevalence of atheists in America. And they conclude the number of people who do not believe in God may be even double that counted by these polling firms.

Theres a lot of atheists in the closet, Gervais says. And ... if they knew there are lots of people just like them out there, that could potentially promote more tolerance.

Currently, if youre seeking data to answer the question, How many Americans do not believe in God? you have two main sources.

First is the Pew Research Center. Most recently, Pew found that around 3 percent of Americans say they are atheists. It also found that a larger group around 9 percent say they do not believe in God or a universal spirit. (Which goes to show that you may not believe in God but could still be uncomfortable calling yourself an atheist because that term implies a strong personal identity and an outright rejection of religious rituals.) Gallup also regularly asks the question point blank Do you believe in God? The last time it asked, in 2016, 10 percent of respondents said no.

Gervaiss experience studying the stigma around atheism the world over made him suspect these numbers are wrong.

Study after study has shown that most people (even other atheists) believe atheists are less moral. Well give participants a little vignette, a story about someone doing something immoral, and probe their intuition about who they think the perpetrator was, Gervais says. And time and time again, people intuitively assume whoever is out there doing immoral stuff doesnt believe in God.

So it would make sense that when Pew or Gallup calls, people who dont believe in God may be reluctant to say so. We shouldnt expect people to give a stranger over the phone an honest answer to that question, Gervais says.

So recently, Gervais and Najle designed a test to find these closet atheists. Their results are currently pending publication in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science (read the preprint of their paper here).

So if you cant ask people outright whether theyre atheist and get an honest response, how do you go about finding them?

Gervais and Najle set up a very subtle test. They sent a nationally representative poll to 2,000 Americans, who were randomly assigned to two conditions.

The first condition asked participants to read through a bunch of statements like, I am a vegetarian, I own a dog, and, I have a dishwasher in my kitchen.

All the participants had to do was simply write down the number of statements that were true for them.

The value of this method is that participants dont have to directly say, I am a vegetarian, or, Im a dog owner they only have to acknowledge the number of statements that apply to them. That alone should zero out any embarrassment or hesitance to admit to a particular item.

Thats important because the other 1,000 or so participants saw the exact same list but with one statement added: I believe in God.

By comparing the responses between the two groups, Gervais and Najle could then estimate how many people dont believe in God. (Because both groups of 1,000 poll takers should, in theory, have the same number of vegetarians, dog owners, and so on in each group, any increases in the number of agreed-to statements from the first group to the second should be reflective of the number of people who dont believe in God.)

One thing is clear from the results: Much more than 10 or 11 percent of the country (as assessed in Gallup and Pew polling) does not believe in God. We can say with a 99 percent probability that its higher than [11 percent], said Gervais.

His best estimate: Around 26 percent of Americans dont believe in God. According to our samples, about 1 in 3 atheists in our country don't feel comfortable disclosing their lack of belief, Najle explains in an email.

Gervais admits this method isnt perfect, and yields an answer with a wide margin of error. (On the other end of the margin of error, around 35 percent of Americans dont believe in God.) But the most fundamental question he and Najle are asking here is do polling firms like Gallup and Pew undercount atheists? And it seems the answer is yes.

Gervais and Najle also concurrently replicated the study with a second sample of 2,000 participants, and got similar results. (In this second sample, they framed the atheism question in the negative I do not believe in God which yielded a slightly lower number of atheists. This could be because people are a bit more anxious to respond to such a definite phrase as, No, I do not believe in God.)

I ran Gervais and Najles conclusion by Greg Smith, who directs Pews polling efforts on religion. Hes not yet ready to buy it.

I would be very reluctant to conclude that phone surveys like ours are underestimating the share the public who are atheists to that kind of magnitude, he says.

For one, Smith says, Pew has asked questions on religion both on the phone and online and didnt see much of a difference. Youd expect if people were unwilling to say that theyre atheists over the phone to a stranger, theyd be slightly more likely to input it into a computer. (Though Pews online questioning still has participants directly answer the question, instead of asking people to merely list the numbers of items they agree with. Even online, people might be uneasy answering the question.)

Also, Smith points out a weird quirk in Gervaiss data.

In one of the trials, instead of adding the I dont believe in God measure to the list, the survey added a nonsense phrase: I do not believe that 2 + 2 is less than 13. And 34 percent of their participants agreed. Bizarre indeed. The researchers explanation? It may reflect any combination of genuine innumeracy [lack of math skills], incomprehension of an oddly phrased item, participant inattentiveness or jesting, sampling error, or a genuine flaw in the ... technique, Gervais and Najle write in the paper.

But they still think their measure is valid. When they limited the sample to people who were self-professed atheists (as measured in a separate question), 100 percent said they didnt believe in God, which is correct. It is unlikely that a genuinely invalid method would track self-reported atheism this precisely, they write.

Still, more research is needed. In time, we'll hopefully be able to refine our methods and find other indirect measurement techniques, Gervais says. (Overall, kudos to Gervais and Najle for being forthright about their curious finding. In the past, psychologists have had incentives to avoid printing this type of contradictory finding in their papers.)

Theres something else to consider here: Our experience with religion cant really be boiled down to one question Do you believe in God?

Many of us have a complicated relationship with religion. There are plenty of people celebrating Easter and Passover this week not because they have devout faith, but because its a cultural tradition they cherish and identify with.

Pew regularly finds data that supports this multifaceted view. When people in their surveys say, I believe in God, Pew will often ask a follow-up question: How certain are you? And they find that not everyone is so sure.

About a quarter of the US population say they believe in God but are less than absolutely certain of it, Smith says.

The lesson: Belief in God doesnt exist as a binary. Not everyone is certain about what they feel; many people have shades of gray. There are gradations of belief, Smith says. Its not that its wrong to ask yes or no, but its not the whole story.

And Gervais admits: This measure doesnt capture the complex and contradictory feelings many people have about religion. (And Najle adds that these data are limited to the U.S. and should not be generalized beyond that.)

But in the data, they also find some small evidence that the stigma around atheism is changing. When they break the numbers down by demographics, they find that baby boomer and millennials report similar levels of disbelief (even though traditional polling shows baby boomers are more likely to believe in god). This could be because younger people feel less anxious about their atheism.

It could be underlying belief levels havent changed, Gervais says, comparing the generations, but norms have.

More here:
How many American atheists are there really? - Vox

Justin Scott, Iowa View contributor Published 4:32 p.m. CT April 11, 2017 | Updated 9:42 a.m. CT April 12, 2017

Justin Scott(Photo: Special to the Register)

After last week, I hope its a little easier to be an atheist in Iowa.

On April 5, I proudly stood in the Iowa State Capitol and delivered what is believed to be the first ever atheist prayer (a.k.a. secular invocation) in the peoples house.Atheism was finally given the same platform and respect that had been extended to other religions and worldviews for years to start off a session of the Iowa Legislature.

The historic invocation garnered headlines across Iowa putting the words atheism and atheist front and center for many lawmakers and communities across Iowa. It also put our state government on notice that not all Iowans are Christians or even religious and that we deserve the same access to our Statehouse.

While Im not so naive to believe that achieving an equal voice at the Statehouse and the subsequent attention it gained for atheism in and of itself will end bullying, bigotry and discrimination against atheists in Iowa, it is my belief yes, atheists believe in some things, just not in the supernatural sense that Iowans will begin to better understand that atheists are an essential part of the Iowa experience.

Atheists are presidents of companies, theyre doctors and surgeons, they may even be your childs public school teacher. Heck, they very well could be the pastor of your church and just havent admitted to themselves and their congregation that they simply no longer believe what it is that they having made a career preaching about.

Dont just take my word for it. Studies by the Pew Research Center continue to show the increase in the number of atheists and people leaving religion, declaring that they are religiously unaffiliated. They also show the rapid decline of religion and religious affiliation. Its been reported that one of out every three millennials considers himself or herselfa religious none. Add that to the number of us known as religious dones that grew up in religion but have studied our way out of it (like me), and you now have one of the largest and most influential groups in the country, one that will likely influence public policy and our society for generations to come.While I fully understand and admit that this doesnt mean that these nones and dones dont necessarily identify as atheists, theyve already taken the first step to embracing atheism (which is simply the rejection of the god belief). Having future generations that exclusively use what I described in my invocation as the holy trinity of science (a phrase that was originally coined back in the 1850s by the infamous Great Agnostic Robert Ingersoll), the human race can finally break free from the chains that have been holding down scientific discovery and advancement for centuries.

Just like the LGBTQ movement of the 1970s, the atheist movement is starting to grow legs and become better organized and galvanized both here in Iowa and across the country. Atheist groups like mine, the Eastern Iowa Atheists, continue to appear and network with other groups, creating a powerful force of godless citizens that are committed to demanding atheist rights while defending the Constitutional Separation of religion and government. (Keep your theocracy off our democracy,thank you very much!)

Theres a tidal wave of atheism and secularism thats been building for years and its about to crash onto the shores of religious America. If youre an atheist or on the fence with your religious beliefs or upbringing, now is the time to own who you are and come catch the wave with other Iowa atheists!

Justin Scott of Denver, Ia.,is founder/director of Eastern Iowa Atheists. Contact:https://www.facebook.com/easterniowaatheists/

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Atheism Finally Front and Center in State Capitol, Across Iowa - DesMoinesRegister.com