3/7/09 NatioNal JourNal
No matter. McDonald is a commit-ted activist, and like any trench warrioror a social and political cause whoseprogress will be measured in years,not days or months, he ocuses on thepositive. The Metroplex Atheists arenot a rich bunch—annual member-ship dues are $1—but the group stillmanaged recently to raise some $2,000to put up a billboard alongside a Texashighway or a month. The catchphraseis “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone,” set against a backdrop o bluesky and white clouds. McDonald, anex-Catholic who was born on a military base in Georgia, said that his e-mail-box teems with condential messagesrom olks eager to coness a ripeningdisbelie in God—yet are earul o be-ing ostracized by amily, riends, and work colleagues i that unsettling truth were known.The Metroplex Atheists are joined by at least a dozen othergroups plowing this ground in the Dallas region. Their ranksinclude students as well as doctors, lawyers, scientists, and otherproessionals. And their activism, deep in the heart o Texas,ties in to a burgeoning grassroots movement that is nationaland indeed global in scope. This is the march o the Godless,the cultural and political mobilization o those who variously identiy themselves as atheists, nontheists, secularists, reethink-ers, humanists, and other labels all intended to denote a lack o belie in a divine entity. Although the precise number o the Godless, in Texas or any- where else, is dicult to gauge, exit-polling data suggest that nonbelievers represent a growing segment o the U.S. elector-ate.
(See chart, p. 26.)
The bloc o voters identiying themselves asreligiously unaliated—which does not directly translate intononbelievers but includes their ranks—has risen in every presi-dential election since 1988: rom 5.3 percent that year to 12percent in 2008. That 12 percent share amounts to 15 million voters—a bigger bloc than the Hispanic vote (9 percent), thegay vote (4 percent), and the Jewish vote (2 percent), and just anotch smaller than the Arican-American vote (13 percent).In the past, politicians in Washington and elsewhere couldlargely ignore the Godless, whatever their numbers. Nonbeliev-ers lacked the consciousness o a political movement; to theextent they were organized at all, it was mostly as members o an intellectual club, refecting on the meaning o a lie without God (and the patent absurdity, as many o these olks think, o a lie
with
God).But those days are over. Now the Godless are making a crucialtransormation toward the status o a my-time-has-come move-ment with a political and legislative agenda to enact—and withthis shit, a host o contentious national issues is being engaged, with the potential to ignite a new round o culture wars in Amer-ican society.In taking their cause to the political arena, the Godless arecheered by the passage o the Dark Age, as they see it, o theGeorge W. Bush era—a time conspicuous, in their minds, orits aith-based, willul abandonment o sound policy in scienceand other domains. “The climate is right in the country today or a major expansion o humanist ide-als and humanist thinking—atheism,ree thought,” Louis J. Appignani, anaging Florida tycoon who is the God-less movement’s No. 1 sugar daddy,said in a rare interview. “I think we areon the threshold o a counter-revolu-tion rom the Bush years.” Appignani has earmarked $30 mil-lion or various Godless causes roma ortune made in a computer educa-tion company, an international chain o modeling schools, and real estate devel-opment. Born in New York City in 1933into a amily o Italian Catholic immi-grants, he came to his Godless views a-ter reading the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, author o such works as
Why I Am Not a Christian.
But what exactly do the Godless want? How would America bedierent i their clout grew to refect their numbers? These arequestions the national political establishment can no longer dis-miss in the perhaps reassuring but nevertheless wrongheadedbelie that all Americans subscribe to the coin slogan “In God We Trust.” As the Godless would have it, the answer is that the nation would be governed more by cool reason than by irrational aith.The end result would be a more peaceul and modern society,less willing to embark on violent conficts o a religious charac-ter in ar-o places like Iraq and more willing to und medicalscience in promising areas like stem-cell research. Euthanasia would be generally permitted, under the signature idea that each person is his or her best decision maker; a pharmacist could not legally reuse, as a matter o religious aith, to ll abirth control prescription; schools could not teach the variousorms o creationism, including intelligent design, under thebanner o science; the Boy Scouts would lose all orms o ed-eral support or teaching that a good Scout has a “duty to God.”(The Girl Scouts no longer insist on that particular duty.) And in a sign o the culture warare to come, the Godless areemerging as an enthusiastic voice on behal o scientic eorts toclone human beings, a technology with the potential to “conquermortality,” as Appignani put it. “There’s nothing immoral about it,” he added, notwithstanding the Vatican’s rm declaration that human cloning amounts to a sacrilegious bid by humankind toplay God. The Godless see themselves as pro-science; they tend tothink that mindless religious scruples prevent the development o such techniques as cloning that could extend the boundarieso human lie.That is the vision and the heart o the long-term Godlessagenda, tantamount to a bid to wrest control o the culture romthe religious-minded. At the moment, though, the movement is engaged in a struggle—reminiscent, activists suggest, o thedemands made by those who have ought to banish discrimina-tion against Arican-Americans and gays—or recognition andrespect. To start with, the Godless want a place at the table. They
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DISBELIEF:This atheistbillboard (opposite) has been putup by groups around the country.The Atheist Alliance Internationalpublishes
Secular Nation.
photos: (l to r) mct/philadelphia inquirer/michael Bryant; courtesy of atheist alliance international
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