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The below
republished here with appreciation to the Laurie Goodstein and the New York
Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/us/27atheist.html?_r=1&th&emc=thApril
27, 2009
CHARLESTON,
S.C. — Two months after the local atheist organization here put up a billboard
saying “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone,” the group’s 13 board members
met in Laura and Alex Kasman’s living room to grapple with the fallout.
The
problem was not that the group, the Secular Humanists of the
Lowcountry,
had attracted an outpouring of hostility. It was the opposite. An overflow
audience of more than 100 had showed up for their most recent public symposium,
and the board members discussed whether it was time to find a larger place.
And
now parents were coming out of the woodwork asking for family-oriented programs
where they could meet like-minded nonbelievers.
“Is
everyone in favor of sponsoring a picnic for humanists with families?” asked
the board president, Jonathan Lamb, a 27-year-old meteorologist, eliciting a
chorus of “ayes.”
More
than ever, America’s atheists are linking up and speaking out — even here in
South Carolina, home to Bob Jones University, blue laws and a legislature that last year
unanimously approved a Christian license plate embossed with a cross, a stained glass
window and the words “I Believe” (a move blocked by a judge and now headed for
trial).
They
are connecting on the Internet, holding meet-ups in bars, advertising on
billboards and buses, volunteering at food pantries and picking up
roadside trash, earning atheist groups recognition on adopt-a-highway signs.
They
liken their strategy to that of the gay-rights movement, which lifted off when
closeted members of a scorned minority decided to go public.
“It’s
not about carrying banners or protesting,” said
Polls
show that the ranks of atheists are growing. The American Religious
Identification Survey, a
major study released last month, found that those who claimed “no religion”
were the only demographic group that grew in all 50 states in the last 18
years.
Nationally,
the “nones” in the population nearly doubled, to 15 percent in 2008 from 8
percent in 1990. In South Carolina, they more than tripled, to 10 percent from
3 percent. Not all the “nones” are necessarily committed atheists or agnostics,
but they make up a pool of potential supporters.
Local
and national atheist organizations have flourished in recent years, fed by
outrage over the Bush administration’s embrace of the religious right. A spate
of best-selling books on atheism also popularized the notion that nonbelief is
not just an argument but a cause, like environmentalism or muscular dystrophy.
Ten
national organizations that variously identify themselves as atheists,
humanists, freethinkers and others who go without God have recently united to
form the Secular Coalition for America, of which Mr. Silverman is president.
These groups, once rivals, are now pooling resources to lobby in Washington for
separation of church and state.
A
wave of donations, some in the millions of dollars, has enabled the hiring of
more paid professional organizers, said Fred Edwords, a longtime atheist
leader who just started his own umbrella group, the United
Coalition of Reason, which
plans to spawn 20 local groups around the country in the next year.
Despite
changing attitudes, polls continue to show that atheists are ranked lower than
any other minority or religious group when Americans are asked whether they
would vote for or approve of their child marrying a member of that group.
Over
lunch with some new atheist joiners at a downtown Charleston restaurant serving
shrimp and grits, one young mother said that her husband was afraid to allow
her to go public as an atheist because employers would refuse to hire him.
But
another member, Beverly Long, a retired school administrator who now teaches
education at the Citadel, said that when she first moved to Charleston from
Toronto in 2001, “the first question people asked me was, What church do you
belong to?” Ms. Long attended Wednesday dinners at a Methodist church, for the
social interaction, but never felt at home. Since her youth, she had doubted
the existence of God but did not discuss her views with others.
Ms.
Long found the secular humanists through a newspaper advertisement and attended
a meeting. Now, she is ready to go public, she said, especially after doing
some genealogical research recently. “I had ancestors who fought in the
American Revolution so I could speak my mind,” she said.
Until
recent years, the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry were local pariahs. Mr.
Silverman — whose specialty license plate, one of many offered
by the state, says “In Reason We Trust” — was invited to give the invocation at
the Charleston City Council once, but half the council members walked out. The
local chapter of Habitat for Humanity would not let the Secular Humanists
volunteer to build houses wearing T-shirts that said “Non Prophet
Organization,” he said.
When
their billboard went up in January, with their Web site address displayed
prominently, they expected hate mail.
“But
most of the e-mails were grateful,” said Laura Kasman, an assistant professor
of microbiology and immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina.
The
board members meeting in the Kasmans’ living room were an unlikely mix that
included a gift store owner, a builder, a grandmother, a retired nursing
professor, a retired Navy
officer, an administrator at a primate sanctuary and a church musician. They
are also diverse in their attitudes toward religion.
Loretta
Haskell, the church musician, said: “I did struggle at one point as to whether
or not I should be making music in churches, given my position on things. But
at the same time I like using my music to move people, to give them comfort.
And what I’ve found is, I am not one of the humanists who feels that religion
is a bad thing.”
The
group has had mixed reactions to President Obama, who acknowledged
nonbelievers in his inauguration speech. “I sent him a thank-you note,” Ms.
Kasman said. But Sharon Fratepietro, who is married to Mr. Silverman, said, “It
seemed like one long religious ceremony, with a moment of lip service.”
Part
of what is giving the movement momentum is the proliferation of groups on
college campuses. The Secular Student Alliance now has 146 chapters, up from 42 in 2003.
At
the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, 19 students showed up
for a recent evening meeting of the “Pastafarians,” named for the Church
of the Flying Spaghetti Monster — a popular spoof on religion dreamed up by an opponent
of intelligent design, the idea that living organisms are so complex that the
best explanation is that a higher intelligence designed them.
Andrew
Cederdahl, the group’s co-founder, asked for volunteers for the local food bank
and for a coming debate with a nearby Christian college. Then Mr. Cederdahl
opened the floor to members to tell their “coming out stories.”
Andrew
Morency, who attended a Christian high school, said that when he got to college
and studied evolutionary biology he decided that “creationists lie.”
Josh
Streetman, who once attended the very Christian college that the Pastafarians
were about to debate, said he knew the Bible too well to be sure
that Scripture is true. Like Mr. Streetman, many of the other students at the
meeting were highly literate in the Bible and religious history.
In
keeping with the new generation of atheist evangelists, the Pastafarian leaders
say that their goal is not confrontation, or even winning converts, but
changing the public’s stereotype of atheists. A favorite Pastafarian activity
is to gather at a busy crossroads on campus with a sign offering “Free Hugs”
from “Your Friendly Neighborhood Atheist.”
*Ed. Note: Mathematician, thinker and perennial
adfly Dr.
December
2006—Rosh Hashanah Sermon by Herb Silverman
February 2006--
Herb Silverman Offers Reward: There is No God in the Constitution
December 2005--
Herb Silverman Carries the Day: The Oxford Union Debate
April 2005--
Positive Atheism by Herb Silverman
October 2004-- A
Modest Proposal on Iraq by Herb Silverman
The
Chickasaw Plum - Volume VI - Number 5 - May 2009
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