Atheism

By Hemant Mehta I swear that headline is accurate. In November of 2017, Jeff Pastor was elected to the Cincinnati City Council in Ohio. There were nine seats up for grabs and 24 candidates. Pastor edged past the finish line and won the final seat. His campaign biography is interesting enough, but it’s a Medium post from last week that’s getting attention now. …

By Hemant Mehta We posted yesterday about how the First Pentecostal Church in Holly Springs, Mississippi had burned to the ground shortly after the church sued the city over its stay-at-home orders, which were stricter than those for the state as a whole. (That lawsuit was prompted by police going into the church during a Bible study …

By Ramadani Saputra The presence of agnostics and atheists is not often felt in conservative Indonesia, where society largely defines itself along religious lines. Widespread belief in traditional family values stokes fear in nonbelievers that they will be rejected by close relatives for their perspectives and often prevents them from speaking their minds. As Muslims …

By Chrissy Stroop Are the nonreligious a marginalized group in America? When I brought this question up to a friend who lives in New York the other day, he was skeptical. Practically everyone he knows is an atheist, he says, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. As someone who grew …

By Peggy Fletcher Stack It may come as no surprise that Utah respondents to a newly released survey by the American Atheists deemed their state the most religious in the country. It was, after all, settled in the 19th century as a religious haven for Mormons fleeing persecution in the Midwest and remains the headquarters …

By Hemant Mehta Beginning in 2015, Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) introduced a formal resolution in support of the National Day of Reason. His defeat in 2016, despite coming at the hands of another Democrat, put future versions of that legislation in peril. But fellow Californian Rep. Ted Lieu picked up where Honda left off, introducing similar legislation in 2017. In 2018. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), now the only …

By John Riley A newly published survey of Americans who identify as nonreligious finds that more than half say they’ve experienced negativity — including, at times, a lack of support — from family members, and, as a result, are more likely to experience depression or feelings of loneliness. Specifically, of those who experienced familial rejection …

By Bethan McKernan Twenty-two-year old Esra, from Mersin, is even more bored than usual this Ramadan. Universities are shut and Turkey has taken the unusual step of placing under-20s, as well as over-65s, under a curfew, because many Turkish families live in intergenerational households. As a result, Esra can’t see any of her friends. And a few …

By Hemant Mehta Earlier today, Nigerian police arrested Mubarak Bala, President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, for “blasphemy” after he allegedly posted criticism of Islam on his Facebook page. This is the same Bala who was placed in a mental hospital in 2014 for the “crime” of being an atheist. He was later released, but that didn’t stop …

By Juhem Navarro-Rivera One of the demographic aspects of the nones (Americans who answer “atheist,” “agnostic,” or “nothing in particular” when asked their religious affiliation) that’s been well covered in the media is how the group’s growth is fueled by young people, particularly those under the age of thirty. What’s not necessarily known is how …

By Hemant Mehta In 2016, atheist Jeffrey Queen filed an unbelievable lawsuit against the city of Bowling Green (Kentucky) based on what he witnessed while working for the fire department. The lawsuit only came after his complaints were ignored, some by Deputy Chief Dustin Rockrohr (also named in the lawsuit), and after he was formally discharged. Here’s a list of most of …

By Hemant Mehta We already know that most American voters with no religious affiliation support Democrats. Roughly 68% of the “Nones” supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. But that’s lower than the percentage of white evangelicals who backed Donald Trump (81%) even though our numbers are roughly the same. (Nones, evangelicals, and Catholics are each about 23% of the population.) That means …