Village Atheists

A compelling history of atheism in American public life A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to the entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists, Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. He rebuilds the history of American secularism from the ground up, giving flesh and blood to these outspoken infidels. Village Atheists demonstrates that the secularist vision for the United States proved to be anything but triumphant in a country where faith and citizenship were—and still are—closely interwoven.

If the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects religious liberty, why doesn’t it protect atheists? God occupies our nation’s consciousness, even defining to many what it means to be American. Nonbelievers have often had second-class legal status and have had to fight for their rights as citizens. As R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick demonstrate in their sharp and convincing work, avowed atheists were derided since the founding of the nation. Even Thomas Paine fell into disfavor and his role as a patriot forgotten. Popular Republican Robert Ingersoll could not be elected in the nineteenth century due to his atheism, and the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton was shunned when she questioned biblical precepts about women’s roles. Moore and Kramnick lay out this fascinating history and the legal cases that have questioned religious supremacy. It took until 1961 for the Supreme Court to ban religious tests for state officials, despite Article 6 of the Constitution. Still, every one of the fifty states continues to have God in its constitution. The authors discuss these cases and more current ones, such as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., which address whether personal religious beliefs supersede secular ones. In Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic, the authors also explore the dramatic rise of an "atheist awakening" and the role of organizations intent on holding the country to the secular principles it was founded upon.

This volume offers theoretical, historical, and legal perspectives on religious freedom, as an experience, value, and right. Drawing on examples from around the world, its essays show how the terrain of religious freedom has never been smooth and how in recent years the landscape of religious freedom has shifted.

The number of people claiming no religious affiliation has skyrocketed in recent years, and that growth shows no signs of slowing down. But while the religiously unaffiliated demonstrate a variety of attitudes toward religious belief-including, in many cases, a complete lack of interest-a prominent subset of nonbelievers has claimed the mantle of "atheism." For them, atheism has become a marker of identity and a source of community. However, atheists themselves often disagree about core ideas, values, affinities, and attitudes. Contemporary atheist culture is marked by debates over deconversion, the relationship between science and religion, and the role of authority. What exactly does it mean to be an "atheist" beyond a simple lack of belief in a higher power? Hannah K. Scheidt's Practicing Atheism: Culture, Media, and Ritual in the Contemporary Atheist Network examines the variety of cultural products, both corporate-driven and grassroots, that carry messages about atheism and its relationships to religion. Through primary source materials such as Internet communities, popular television programming, and cultural representations of the movement such as those found in atheist fan art, the book paints a portrait of a culture in unique tension with religion, and provides a unique perspective on whether or not organized atheism constitutes a belief system in itself.

The two-volume Cambridge History of Atheism offers an authoritative and up to date account of a subject of contemporary interest. Comprised of sixty essays by an international team of scholars, this History is comprehensive in scope. The essays are written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including religious studies, philosophy, sociology, and classics. Offering a global overview of the subject, from antiquity to the present, the volumes examine the phenomenon of unbelief in the context of Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish societies. They explore atheism and the early modern Scientific Revolution, as well as the development of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and its continuing implications. The History also includes general survey essays on the impact of scepticism, agnosticism and atheism, as well as contemporary assessments of thinking. Providing essential information on the nature and history of atheism, The Cambridge History of Atheism will be indispensable for both scholarship and teaching, at all levels.

Why study atheism among scientists? -- "Tried and found wanting" : how atheist scientists explain religious transitions -- "I am not like Richard:" modernist atheist scientists -- Ties that bind : culturally religious atheists -- Spiritual atheist scientists -- What atheist scientists think about science -- How atheist scientists approach meaning and morality -- From rhetoric to reality : why religious believers should give atheist scientists a chance.

Through close readings of Frost's poetry and often ignored prose, Mark Richardson argues that Frost's debates with Van Wyck Brooks, Malcolm Cowley, and H. L. Mencken informed his poetics and his poetic style just as much as did his deep identification with earlier writers like Emerson and William James.

Provides a contemporary view of the intertwined relationship of communication and religion The Handbook on Religion and Communication presents a detailed investigation of the complex interaction between media and religion, offering diverse perspectives on how both traditional and new media sources continue to impact religious belief and practice across multiple faiths around the globe. Contributions from leading international scholars address key themes such as the changing role of religious authority in the digital age, the role of media in cultural shifts away from religious institutions, and the ways modern technologies have transformed how religion is communicated and portrayed. Divided into five parts, the Handbook opens with a state-of-the-art overview of the subject’s intellectual landscape, introducing the historical background, theoretical foundations, and major academic approaches to communication, media, and religion. Subsequent sections focus on institutional and functional perspectives, theological and cultural approaches, and new approaches in digital technologies. The essays provide insight into a wide range of topics, including religious use of media, religious identity, audience gratification, religious broadcasting, religious content in entertainment, films and religion, news reporting about religion, race and gender, the sex-religion matrix, religious crisis communication, public relations and advertising, televangelism, pastoral ministry, death and the media, online religion, future directions in religious communication, and more. Explores the increasing role of media in creating religious identity and communicating religious experience Discusses the development and evolution of the communication practices of various religious bodies Covers all major media sources including radio, television, film, press, digital online content, and social media platforms Presents key empirical research, real-world case studies, and illustrative examples throughout Encompasses a variety of perspectives, including individual and institutional actors, academic and theoretical areas, and different forms of communication media Explores media and religion in Judeo-Christian traditions, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, religions of Africa, Atheism, and others The Handbook on Religion and Communication is an essential resource for scholars, academic researchers, practical theologians, seminarians, and undergraduate and graduate students taking courses on media and religion.

In the aftermath of World War I, an Englishwoman emigrates to British Columbia where she falls in love with an Irish trapper who is escaping a past.

The vast amount of suffering in the world is often held as a particularly powerful reason to deny that God exists. Highly accessible and carefully argued, Peter van Inwagen's book maintains that such reasoning does not hold, and that suffering should not undermine belief in God.

Is modern racism a product of secularisation and the decline of Christian universalism? The debate has raged for decades, but up to now, the actual racial views of historical atheists and freethinkers have never been subjected to a systematic analysis. Race in a Godless World sets out to correct the oversight. It centres on Britain and the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, a time when popular atheist movements were emerging and scepticism about the truth of Christianity was becoming widespread. Covering racial and evolutionary science, imperialism, slavery and racial prejudice in theory and practice, it provides a much-needed account of the complex and sometimes contradictory ideas espoused by the transatlantic community of atheists and freethinkers. It also reflects on the social dimension of irreligiousness, exploring how working-class atheists’ experiences of exclusion could make them sympathetic to other marginalised groups.

Antitheism (sometimes anti-theism) implies an opposition to theism. The etymological roots of the word lie in the Greek anti-and theismos. The term has had a range of applications; in secular contexts, it typically refers to a direct opposition to organized religion or, to the belief in any deity. While in a theistic context, it sometimes refers to opposition of a specific god or gods. The anti-theist is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "One opposed to belief in the existence of a god." The earliest citation given for this meaning is from 1833. An antitheist may be opposed to belief in the existence of any god or gods, not merely one in particular. This book is not necessarily written to convert anyone to a recognition or belief in our creator but, if such were to be the case, that's all to the good. Rather, the book is meant to provide the reader with some logical and thoughtful reasoning concerning those who do believe in a creator and those who proclaim that such does not exist. We don't wish to "sell" anyone on anything, especially, any particular belief system, The purpose is to acquaint the reader with the rich heritage of theistic and anti-theistic thought that many of us, both those living and those not, have had to say on the subject. Today, not all, but a majority of atheists are liberals, progressives, far leftists, socialists and communists. Mostly, they are markedly un-patriotic, few hunt and fewer under fifty ever served in our armed forces. As a group, they divorce more often than Christians, voted for obama and espouse and support such nebulous issues as 'social justice' and the nihilistic 'occupy' movement. Few of them have any real knowledge of the bible or religion and therefore don't really understand what it is they are professing not to believe in. Having spent many decades as an airline pilot, I have had countless occasion to gaze at the stars and wonders of our world and our universe. Of all my many compatriots, those who shared my skies, I would say that none were or are atheists or agnostics. The wonders and balance of nature and the marvelous physics of flight present the truths of our creator in ways simply too overwhelming to discount. Some of the lost souls in non-believer camp have the gift of intellect and it is for them this book is written. I ask those prescient few to thoughtfully examine their anti-theist positions in light of the concepts, thoughts and facts we present. If even one of them comes to the realization of their Creators realty, the book will have served its purpose. The title of the book is, of course, insulting to those who do not share my beliefs and it is purposely so. If you reject the notion of our Creator, I wish the book to give you pause. It can only be through ignorance, serious error and lack of imagination that an individual can adopt the negative and empty mindset of the anti-theist. Sadly, however, I have learned that the majority of atheists are indeed stupid and that such a level of reasoning is forever beyond them. Be you one, I offer no hope, go your lonely way then...

A radically new way of understanding secularism which explains why being secular can seem so strangely religious For much of America’s rapidly growing secular population, religion is an inescapable source of skepticism and discomfort. It shows up in politics and in holidays, but also in common events like weddings and funerals. In The Secular Paradox, Joseph Blankholm argues that, despite their desire to avoid religion, nonbelievers often seem religious because Christianity influences the culture around them so deeply. Relying on several years of ethnographic research among secular activists and organized nonbelievers in the United States, the volume explores how very secular people are ambivalent toward belief, community, ritual, conversion, and tradition. As they try to embrace what they share, secular people encounter, again and again, that they are becoming too religious. And as they reject religion, they feel they have lost too much. Trying to strike the right balance, secular people alternate between the two sides of their ambiguous condition: absolutely not religious and part of a religion-like secular tradition. Blankholm relies heavily on the voices of women and people of color to understand what it means to live with the secular paradox. The struggles of secular misfits—the people who mis-fit normative secularism in the United States—show that becoming secular means rejecting parts of life that resemble Christianity and embracing a European tradition that emphasizes reason and avoids emotion. Women, people of color, and secular people who have left non-Christian religions work against the limits and contradictions of secularism to create new ways of being secular that are transforming the American religious landscape. They are pioneering the most interesting and important forms of secular “religiosity” in America today.

Ronit Stahl traces the ways the U.S. military struggled with, encouraged, and regulated religious pluralism and scrambled to handle the nation’s deep religious, racial, and political complexity. Just as the state relied on religion to sanction combat missions and sanctify war deaths, so too did religious groups seek validation as American faiths.

George Ricker's latest book, mere atheism, no gods no problem!, describes what he sees as the essence of atheism. In the title essay he writes, "Nothing about atheism prevents me from thinking about any idea. It is the very epitome of freethought. Atheism imposes no dogma and seeks no power over others." Written with the same candor and conversational style that characterized his earlier work, this selection of material from the Godless in America web site ranges from rebuttals of criticisms of atheism, "Answering atheism's critics," to essays on science, "Genes don't care," and some hot-button issues, "A death in the life of a controversy," to reflections on the joy of sailing and the impact of the world outside on the world within in "Mockingbird." The twenty-four essays cover a wide variety of subjects, and the collection concludes with the one-act play, "A last rite and some wrongs with apologetics." "Many people still cling to the notion of the village atheist, obsessed by gods and religions, bitter and lonely, living on the edge of town with no friends and no family willing to acknowledge the kinship," Ricker says. "I hope this book will help change that perception."

The Cleaner of Kastoria enters the past and present of Dina, a young village girl whose wild decision sets her on an unforgetable odyssey through the horrors and tragedy of the Greek civil war. Leading her Democratic Army unit of girls through icy rivers and bloody battles she is haunted by memories of her young husband. Dina still guards her dark secrets in the aftermath of the Colonels' dictatorship of 1974. As a housecleaner Dina faces her final challenge from Vassiliki the monarchist

Examines the science versus religion debate by interviewing scientists regarding their own faiths.

As Editor-in-Chief of World, Marvin Olasky has offered his views on current events and culture for more than twenty-five years. In this collection of columns, he shows readers how Christians can speak biblical truths while also living out the biblical values of grace and mercy in today's world.

Share Jesus with Your LDS Friends and Family One of our greatest challenges as Christians is sharing the truth with those who believe they’ve already found it. When witnessing to current or former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it’s essential that you can compassionately delineate biblical teachings from Mormon doctrine while tactfully advocating for Christ. For every believer who prays for loved ones in the LDS Church—or loved ones who gave up on religion after leaving Mormonism—Introducing Christianity to Mormons is the guidebook you need to witness to them. Inside, you’ll find real-life conversations that give you helpful ideas for what to say in your discussions contrast points between Mormonism and Christianity that illuminate God’s truth biblical apologetics that allow you to minister to former LDS members wounded by their experience with the Church Get ready to present the case for Christianity with confidence and grace. This book will empower you to share your faith and give you the language to do so effectively with people in the Mormon community.

People need a creed and a cause, and today millions of patriotic Americans are finding their voices. They say the best indicator of the future is history. How things have been can be a powerful signal of how they will be. But what will be our role in shaping the future for this country? In The Coming Revolution Dr Richard G. Lee powerfully explains that a new revolution is coming. It may be in the streets of our nation’s capitol—as we saw in Europe last year—or, better yet, in voting booths across America. Signs from our nation’s past and present ring out the truth: a second American revolution is near at hand. Using this country’s rich heritage of liberty and democracy as a roadmap toward where we could be headed, Dr. Lee brings thoughtful clarity to the ever-growing probability of such a revolution in America; illuminating the important reminder that the voices of every revolution have been—and always will be—the ordinary everyman. Discover how you can be a part of this country’s social, political, and moral reform and how faith in God serves as the one truth that can provide both individual and national guidance for America’s next revolution. “A powerful reminder about why America is great and worth fighting for.” —Lt. Colonel Oliver L. North, USMC (Ret.) “Within this book Dr. Richard Lee clearly reveals how the intolerable conditions being forced upon the American people by Washington’s current administration will lead to a certain and powerful explosion of predictable consequences.” —Michael Reagan