Atheism

By Ryan P. Burge, Eastern Illinois University It’s become almost a trope at this point among people who study and write about American religion and politics – evangelicals punch way above their weight. Their voter turnout has stayed relatively steady despite their drop in population share. But, I was working through some data today and noticed something that …

By Hemant Mehta Cardinal George Pell, the Catholic leader who was convicted of raping little kids until Australia’s highest court, this week, overturned his sentence, delivered an Easter message full of the same ignorance we’ve come to expect from a man whose own lawyer once described his actions as nothing more than a “plain vanilla sexual penetration case …

By Julie Zauzmer When Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) found out that a Trump administration rule that restricts research using fetal tissue from elective abortions was hampering scientists seeking treatments for the novel coronavirus, he had a coterie of like-minded members of Congress ready to help him protest. The group is called the Congressional Freethought Caucus — …

By Hemant Mehta Here’s some good news in the midst of our national chaos. It starts with a question: Who has legal authority to perform a wedding ceremony? In most states, the answer includes certain government officials like judges (if you’re getting married in court) or religious ministers. It’s not like your best friend could …

By Joseph Laycock The Coronavirus is changing America’s religious landscape as social distancing forces most religious communities to cancel in-person services and invent new online forms of worship. One might assume that Satanists would be unaffected by social distancing or even take a misanthropic delight in it. In 2017, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson advised Satanic …

By Hemant Mehta When Humanists International released its annual “Freedom of Thought Report” in November, describing serious cases of discrimination and persecution against atheists around the world, the nation of Sudan was ranked 187 out of 196. (Saudi Arabia ranked last.) It’s not a place where religious freedom is taken seriously. One of the reasons …

By Hemant Mehta Who is the first person who comes to mind when you think of atheism? Mind you, that doesn’t mean the person is the most famous atheist. Just the name that comes up when you think of the word. The Pew Research Center asked that question, along with similar ones concerning the major world …

By Ryan P. Burge, Eastern Illinois University It’s a rare day when I don’t do some type of statistical analysis with survey data related to religion and/or politics. When I am presented with a question about what the public feels or how they behave in these areas, I immediately know which datasets would yield the …

By Hemant Mehta Carol Iannuzzi, a self-described “humanist,” won her Democratic primary last night in a race for the U.S. House from District 26 in Texas. She will face incumbent Rep. Michael C. Burgess this November. Iannuzzi comes from a family of activists, saying on her campaign website, “When my dad passed away in 2017, I felt the activist baton …

By Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme and Joel Thiessen Abstract Drawing on a representative survey sample of just over 2,500 young adult respondents between the ages of 18 and 35 from across the USA and Canada, our study seeks to understand who exactly takes part in organized and digital nonbelief activities. Our findings show that (a) there is …

By Yonat Shimron For the past 25 years, the number of Americans claiming no religion has steadily ballooned as more and more people quit church, synagogue or mosque and openly acknowledged being a  “none.” The reality is particularly stark when looked at from a generational perspective. If 10% of people from the silent generation (born …

By Hemant Mehta Every few years, Gallup asks Americans a version of this question: “If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be _____, would you vote for that person?” Just about every time they’ve asked that question, “atheist” has been at the bottom of the list. (Atheists are unelectable! the …