Atheism

By RNS Press Release Distribution Service On Saturday International Association of Atheists (IAA) announced their newest initiative, #oneATHEIST, an effort to build a positive, outspoken community under the label atheist and remove the stigma. “Atheists have struggled with the stigma associated with being non-religious for far too long. It’s time to prove to the world what I know …

By Hemant Mehta In October, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office in Washington will require employees to attend a two-day “Bulletproof Warrior” training seminar. The seminar received renewed attention a couple of years ago when it was discovered that the cop involved in the murder of Philando Castile had been an attendee. It also doesn’t help that the …

By Hemant Mehta One month ago, Vice President Mike Pence visited First Baptist, the Dallas megachurch of Pastor Robert Jeffress, for an event called “Celebrate Freedom Sunday.” If you heard anything about it in the news, it may have been because we learned after the event that several members of the church’s choir and orchestra had tested positive for COVID before Pence gave …

By Ryan P. Burge, Eastern Illinois University One of the primary threads in the study of American politics and religion is the ever increasing God Gap. Simply put, the Republican Party is one that caters to people of faith (specifically theologically conservative Christians), while the Democrats find a good portion of their base among people who …

By Hemant Mehta Since 2007, Rep. Doug Lamborn has represented Colorado’s 5th District in Congress. This is a guy who has argued Humanist chaplains should not be allowed in the military because the “chaplain corps is historically a religious institution.” His protests led to the rejection of one well-qualified applicant in 2018. One reason he’s been able to promote this form …

By Hemant Mehta Humanist weddings — officiated by non-pastors yet carrying all the appropriate legal weight — have been legal in Scotland since 2005. And now, according to new data from the National Records of Scotland, Humanist weddings are more popular than Christian ones. In 2019, there were 5,879 Humanist weddings, constituting 23% of all marriages. There …

By Hemant Mehta Last year, when Humanists International released its annual “Freedom of Thought Report” describing serious cases of discrimination and persecution against atheists around the world, the bottom line was that 69 countries still believed blasphemy was a crime. The death penalty applied in six of them. 18 countries punished apostasy (leaving religion), and 12 of …

By Ryan P. Burge and Paul A. Djupe Since the beginning in this country, it has been socially desirable to be religious. Americans have positive feelings toward religious people, on the whole, and negative feelings toward those who reject religion, which puts pressure on individuals to at least pretend to be religious. That was the …

By Priyanka Sharma Javed Akhtar’s transformation from being a writer of diverse cinematic stories and songs to an unflinching voice advocating secularism and freedom of speech has been noteworthy, but he never thought his ideas would travel as far as Center for Inquiry, which has honoured him with the prestigious Richard Dawkins Award. Akhtar is …

By Hemant Mehta In 2015, atheist Mark Janny was released from jail. (The reason he was there is irrelevant to this story.) His parole officer, John Gamez, told Janny that if he wanted to remain out of prison, he would have to live at the Denver Rescue Mission, a Christian homeless shelter. That shelter’s rules required residents to …

By Terry Firma Fodder for the right-wing outrage machine: The percentage of Democrat and Democrat-leaning voters who identify as Christian has sharply declined since 2008, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center. [The] report … found that while 73% of Democrat voters were Christian in 2008, by 2019 the percentage had dropped to 52%. The large decline came …

By Layla Mahmood “I am going to kill you. I am going to find you. I am going to cut your head off,” was one of the threats that Ayaanle, a Canada-based Somali atheist, received. “[But] that’s kind of normal,” the founder of the True Somali Freedom Page (TSFP) says sardonically as he talks about …