irishjayhawk
10-06-2007, 03:13 PM
Atheists on the rise
Those who don't believe in God are finding strength in numbers in public and political arenas
By JACQUELINE L. SALMON and MARY JORDAN
The Washington Post
In England and its offspring, the United States, a legion of the godless is rising up against the forces of religiosity.
“People who were ashamed to say there is no God now say, ‘Wow, there are others out there who think like me, and it feels damned good,’ ” said Margaret Downey, president of the Atheist Alliance International, whose membership has almost doubled in the last year to 5,200. It had a 500-person waiting list for its convention in Arlington, Va., last month.
Books like The God Delusion, by Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins, attempting to debunk religion have been surprise best-sellers the last two years, outselling such religious works as Pope Benedict XVI’s book on Jesus and popular Christian novelist Tim LaHaye’s latest book, Kingdom Come, according to Nielsen BookScan.
And atheists themselves are becoming much more vocal. Take columnist and author Christopher Hitchens. Recently he said a new book laying out Mother Teresa’s secret struggles with her doubts about God showed her spiritual wavering was actually atheism.
“She couldn’t bring herself to believe in God, but she wished she could,” said Hitchens, whose God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is among atheist best-sellers.
Representatives of atheist and humanist groups say the books probably haven’t converted many religious people. But, said Lori Lipman Brown, a lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America, which represents eight atheist or humanist organizations, the books “tremendously increase the visibility of nontheist rights.”
“Nontheist” is another term for atheist, or someone who does not believe in a supreme being.
New groups of nonbelievers are sprouting on college campuses, anti-religious blogs are expanding across the Internet, and, in general, more people are publicly saying they have no religious faith.
More than three out of four people in the world consider themselves religious, and those with no faith are a distinct minority. But especially in richer nations, and nowhere more than in Europe, growing numbers of people are saying they don’t believe there is a heaven or a hell or anything other than this life.
A study released in June by the Barna Group, a religious polling firm, found that about 5 million adults in the United States call themselves atheists. The number rises to about 20 million — about one in every 11 Americans — if people who say they have no religious faith or are agnostic (they doubt the existence of a God or a supreme deity) are included.
They tend to have more education and be more affluent and more likely to be male and unmarried than those with active faith, according to the Barna study. Only 6 percent of people older than 60 have no faith in God, and one in four adults 18 to 22 describe themselves as having no faith.
Many analysts trace the rise of what some are calling the “nonreligious movement” to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The sight of religious fanatics killing 3,000 people caused many to begin questioning — and rejecting — all religion.
“This is overwhelmingly the topic of the moment,” said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society of Britain. “Religion in this country was very quiet until Sept. 11, and now it is at the center of everything.”
Since the 2001 attacks a string of religiously inspired bomb and murder plots has shaken Europe. Muslim radicals killed 52 people on the London transport system in 2005 and 191 on Madrid, Spain, trains in 2004.
People apparently aiming for a reward in heaven were arrested in Britain last year for trying to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners. And earlier this month in Germany, authorities arrested converts to Islam on charges that they planned to blow up American facilities there.
Many Europeans are angry at demands to use taxpayer money to accommodate Islam, Europe’s fastest-growing religion, which now has as many as 20 million followers on the continent. Along with calls for prayer rooms in police stations, foot baths in public places and funding for Islamic schools and mosques, expensive legal battles have broken out over the niqab, the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes, which some devout women seek to wear in classrooms and court.
Christian fundamentalist groups who want to halt certain science research, reverse abortion and gay rights and teach creationism rather than evolution in schools are also angering people, according to Sanderson and others.
“There is a feeling that religion is being forced on an unwilling public, and now people are beginning to speak out against what they see as rising Islamic and Christian militancy,” Sanderson said.
Though the number of nonbelievers speaking their minds is rising, academics say it’s impossible to calculate how many people silently share that view. Many people who do not consider themselves religious or belong to any faith group often believe, even if vaguely, in a supreme being or an afterlife. Others are not sure what they believe.
Those who don't believe in God are finding strength in numbers in public and political arenas
By JACQUELINE L. SALMON and MARY JORDAN
The Washington Post
In England and its offspring, the United States, a legion of the godless is rising up against the forces of religiosity.
“People who were ashamed to say there is no God now say, ‘Wow, there are others out there who think like me, and it feels damned good,’ ” said Margaret Downey, president of the Atheist Alliance International, whose membership has almost doubled in the last year to 5,200. It had a 500-person waiting list for its convention in Arlington, Va., last month.
Books like The God Delusion, by Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins, attempting to debunk religion have been surprise best-sellers the last two years, outselling such religious works as Pope Benedict XVI’s book on Jesus and popular Christian novelist Tim LaHaye’s latest book, Kingdom Come, according to Nielsen BookScan.
And atheists themselves are becoming much more vocal. Take columnist and author Christopher Hitchens. Recently he said a new book laying out Mother Teresa’s secret struggles with her doubts about God showed her spiritual wavering was actually atheism.
“She couldn’t bring herself to believe in God, but she wished she could,” said Hitchens, whose God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is among atheist best-sellers.
Representatives of atheist and humanist groups say the books probably haven’t converted many religious people. But, said Lori Lipman Brown, a lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America, which represents eight atheist or humanist organizations, the books “tremendously increase the visibility of nontheist rights.”
“Nontheist” is another term for atheist, or someone who does not believe in a supreme being.
New groups of nonbelievers are sprouting on college campuses, anti-religious blogs are expanding across the Internet, and, in general, more people are publicly saying they have no religious faith.
More than three out of four people in the world consider themselves religious, and those with no faith are a distinct minority. But especially in richer nations, and nowhere more than in Europe, growing numbers of people are saying they don’t believe there is a heaven or a hell or anything other than this life.
A study released in June by the Barna Group, a religious polling firm, found that about 5 million adults in the United States call themselves atheists. The number rises to about 20 million — about one in every 11 Americans — if people who say they have no religious faith or are agnostic (they doubt the existence of a God or a supreme deity) are included.
They tend to have more education and be more affluent and more likely to be male and unmarried than those with active faith, according to the Barna study. Only 6 percent of people older than 60 have no faith in God, and one in four adults 18 to 22 describe themselves as having no faith.
Many analysts trace the rise of what some are calling the “nonreligious movement” to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The sight of religious fanatics killing 3,000 people caused many to begin questioning — and rejecting — all religion.
“This is overwhelmingly the topic of the moment,” said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society of Britain. “Religion in this country was very quiet until Sept. 11, and now it is at the center of everything.”
Since the 2001 attacks a string of religiously inspired bomb and murder plots has shaken Europe. Muslim radicals killed 52 people on the London transport system in 2005 and 191 on Madrid, Spain, trains in 2004.
People apparently aiming for a reward in heaven were arrested in Britain last year for trying to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners. And earlier this month in Germany, authorities arrested converts to Islam on charges that they planned to blow up American facilities there.
Many Europeans are angry at demands to use taxpayer money to accommodate Islam, Europe’s fastest-growing religion, which now has as many as 20 million followers on the continent. Along with calls for prayer rooms in police stations, foot baths in public places and funding for Islamic schools and mosques, expensive legal battles have broken out over the niqab, the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes, which some devout women seek to wear in classrooms and court.
Christian fundamentalist groups who want to halt certain science research, reverse abortion and gay rights and teach creationism rather than evolution in schools are also angering people, according to Sanderson and others.
“There is a feeling that religion is being forced on an unwilling public, and now people are beginning to speak out against what they see as rising Islamic and Christian militancy,” Sanderson said.
Though the number of nonbelievers speaking their minds is rising, academics say it’s impossible to calculate how many people silently share that view. Many people who do not consider themselves religious or belong to any faith group often believe, even if vaguely, in a supreme being or an afterlife. Others are not sure what they believe.