Gilmore 1

Brendasha Gilmore

Professor Nwachukwu

ENC 2135

March 2017

An Unknown Religion to Me: Atheism

In America, there is a very wide range of different communities of religion. You have

Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholic, and many more. All religions can relate with each

other by believing in and giving worship to a God or gods. Well, theres a community of people

that doesnt believe in a God or gods. I didnt learn about this group until I was in high school

and a student I had decided to befriended told me about it because they were a part of the

community themselves. The group is classified as Atheism. The people in this group likes to be

classified as Atheist. To me, Atheists are very rare to come across because many people still

uphold their religion from their parents, like myself. I have only come across a few people that

would classify themselves as an atheist. An Atheist is a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in

the existence of God or gods. I, myself, is classified to be in a complete opposite religious

community than Atheism. I am a very heavy believer in my religious community so I built my

research paper on getting a better concept of Atheism and why Atheists chose to be nonbelievers

in a God or gods. In my research paper I will talk about the basics dealing with Atheism; I will

talk about how Atheism had come upon, I will talk about the beliefs they have, and I will talk

about all the important key elements of Atheism, and much more.
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Although, I say it is rare for me to come across an Atheist, their community has many people

involved in it and the people involved are worldwide. According to Pew Research Center, the

population of Americans that identify as an atheist has multiplied by two over the years. You may

not think that is a lot but you have to really think about how many people are in the world. For

their community to double in population, that means it is a lot of people that have joined. As I

continued to read Pew Research Center article, I found out that an atheist is most likely to be

identified as male and young. The few people that I know that are classified as atheist is

female and male and they are all considered to be young. The person I decided to interview for

my research paper is African-American, female, and young. I would have thought that the

Atheism community would be more diverse than it is considering the fact that many people loses

their faith in God and turn to disbelievers. I also would have thought that the Atheism

community would be more diverse than it is just because of the simple fact that many religious

communities is very diverse, but it is really not. People in the Atheism community are mainly

filled with Caucasians that are high educated, according to Pew Research Center. Many people

that are highly educated do not believe in existence of God or gods because they believe

everything happened from natural causes dealing with science. In high school, almost all of my

science teachers didnt believe in God or gods. One of my teachers was fairly open about his

religious beliefs. He told my classmates and I that he believed we came from fish and developed

our body parts from natural causes; a process called evolution. He told my class that he will

always be identified as an atheist until it is proven that a God or gods do exist with given facts.

In the article Atheist Wonderland, Edmund Little stated, Richard Dawkins proclaims that a

person who rejects evolution is probably ignorant, stupid, insane, or even wicked. Science and
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religious faith, he proclaims, are incompatible. Darwinism has made it possible for him to be an

intellectually fulfilled atheist. Digging deeper into my research I found out a lot of interesting

information on Atheism. Pew Research Center also stated that atheism encourages and support

same sex marriage, legal abortions, and many different things other religious communities, like

my very own, would never encourage nor support. They believe in encouraging and supporting

those things because they believe everyone lives their how they want to, so they do not judge

people for their decisions. Atheism are a lot less judgmental unlike many religious communities.

You would think that because the atheism community would not have anything to believe in

but they do, they believe in universal spirits, at least a few of them do. That was stated in the Pew

interesting to note that some anti-religious atheists are open to the idea our universe has a

naturalistic designer-creator. My friend, Kene Gamble, talks about her worshipping the universe

and sending good vibes into the atmosphere so she would have good karma, good vibes, and

good energy. She talks a lot about the universe when I ask who and or what she worships and

praises every day. She classifies herself as an atheist. She became an atheist our junior year in

high school. I will be talking about her a lot further in my research paper. It is so ironic to me

that atheists do not believe in a God or gods but they believe in a universal spirit. Although, the

God or gods people believe in have names, they are still spirits people believe in. The Atheism

community and all the religion communities have something in common after all.

A mass majority of atheists say that religion is not important in their lives nor their families

lives. Merrick, an atheist also the author of the article Lifelong Atheist: How to Live without

Despair, stated Religion seems to obviously be an attempt to suffuse meaning into meaningless

world and remove the fear of death. As I read through the comments, many people agreed with
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what Merrick had stated. As I was trying to grab an understanding of what that line meant, I

begin to understand it more and more as I read it, and then I finally understood. My

understanding of the statement is that without religion the world would be meaningless as ever,

religion brings purpose into how people live their lives. That is why its a lot of different

religion; to bring different meanings and purposes into everyone life.

Many religions has been around for several centuries. Well, as I dug deeper into my research,

I found out that Atheism was absence during the Middle Ages. In the articleAtheism in

Antiquity, the author Jan Bremmer stated In 1942 the French historian Louis Febvre published

his epoch-making study of Rabelais, in which he noted the absence of atheism in the Middle

Ages. Febvre explained this absence as a kind of blockages mental. In the life of society and the

individual, Christianity was of overriding importance. I believe Atheism did not exist during the

middle Ages because the importance of Christianity and other religions. People use to get

disowned and sometimes killed when they went against their religion that they were taught since

given birth. Jan Bremmer also included in the article, Its festivals constituted the rhythm of the

year; important transitions in the life of the individual birth, marriage and death were

completely integrated into religious life, as were everyday activities. I think that Atheism would

not have been able to exist even if someone really tried to pursue it because Christianity was a

main religion and factor in everyone lives during the olden days. I am pretty sure that anyone

that would have confidential stood up and said they did not believe in the existence of a God or

gods during the Middle Age would have been killed. As I did more research for my paper, I came

across an article called Disbelieve it or not, Ancient History Suggests that Atheism is as natural

to Humans as Religion. In this article the author, Tim Whitmarsh a G Leventis Professor
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of Greek Culture and a Fellow of St Johns College, University of Cambridge, stated Despite

being written out of large parts of history, atheists thrived in the polytheistic societies of the

ancient world raising considerable doubts about whether humans really are wired for religion

a new study suggests. Tim Whitmarsh believed that atheism was commonly known about

during ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome. He always believes that Atheism was flourishing

more during ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome than in any other civilization ever since.

Tim Whitmarsh wrote a book called The Battle of the Gods, and he in the book it argues that

Atheism and disbelief is actually as old as the hills. He stated that Early examples, such as the

atheistic writings of Xenophanes of Colophon (c.570-475 BCE) are contemporary with Second

Temple-era Judaism, and significantly predate Christianity and Islam. Even Plato, writing in the

4th Century BCE, said that contemporary non-believers were not the first to have had this view

about the gods. Although, times were rough and religion was very important during Middle

Ages, I do believe that before the Middle Ages Atheism did exist because during ancient Greece

time science was something important. Therefore, I agree with both, that Atheism came from

ancient Greece and was absent during the Middle Age.

Many may wonder how atheist members reach out to each other. Well, they have many ways.

No, they do not get together every Saturday or Sunday, like other religions, praising the universe

or whatever else they decided to praise and worship.

Finding genres of communications was kind of that difficult to find because they do not come

together to talk about how they are nonbelievers. They do not have church sermons like religions

do. Although, it was difficult I found a few ways of genre of communication. A way of genre of

communication is through books. Many atheists have books published that talks about
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varies things. A few of my sources are from books written by atheist. The books that I came

across talked about history dealing with atheism and people living their lives as atheist. With

many atheist writing books, it lets other atheist know about people who are also living the

nonreligious lifestyle. They also have learn about the history and information dealing atheism;

how it came to be, people whose commonly would be an atheist, and much more. Author Sam

Harris, is an Atheist. He wrote the books called The End of Faith, which talks about Atheism.

Another book written about Atheism is The Portable Atheist, by Christopher Hitchens. He also

wrote the book God Is Not Great. There is so many other books out about Atheism.

Another genre used for communication are articles. Majority of my sources are articles. The

articles I came across talked about many things dealing with Atheism. The articles all talked

about varies things. The articles talked about their personal lives as an Atheist and how they

became an Atheist. There has been article written in the New York Times, and CNN. In CNN

article they had story highlights about what atheists stated. One of the highlights stated Atheists

point to Internet as one reason some Americans are losing their faith. I totally agree with this

statement. The internet has a big impact on the youth nowadays because they are easily

influenced. I, personally, was influenced by the internet. Therefore, I know that that statement is

very real and reasonable.

Webpages is another genre of communication for Atheists. I found a webpage for Atheists. The

webpage is called Atheist Republic. On the webpage, they have several tabs. The tabs say forum,

blogs, news, op-ed, gallery, podcast, resources, store, about, volunteer, donate, and contact. It is

something different under each tab. This webpage really lets members of the atheist community

know they arent alone. On this webpage, they let people sign up to participate in
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discussions on their forums. You can also subscribe to their newsletter. You can also sign up to

become a member of the AR management team. There is several other atheist webpages such as

Reddit Atheism, Richard Dawkins, Pharyngula, Friendly Atheist, Common Sense Atheism,

Unreasonable Faith, and many more I could name. All of the webpages I listed are different. The

backgrounds, the purpose of them, the meaning, and other things. All the webpages shows that

the members of the Atheism community has different meanings, understandings, and feelings

about Atheism.

Other genres can be social media accounts like twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and many others.

Theres several Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts, Instagram accounts, and other accounts

made for Atheists to follow and keep up with. I found several twitter accounts for atheist. Twitter

is a very common genre of communication for any community to communicate on. Many

communities that I am in and participate in are on twitter and are active. There is many pages on

Facebook for Atheist. The write posts on the pages about information, and events. Facebook is

the most effective genre of communication because it is easier to write a post with everything

you want to say about being a nonbeliever and why they do not believe in God or gods.

Facebook is also a way for people to share your posts and have a lot of people see it. Instagram is

another genre that the Atheism community used for communication. They are able to post

pictures, cartoons, symbols, and other stuff and write a long post on how they feel about it. Many

other social media accounts are effective, but those are the most effective.

Atheism has a lot more genres of communication but those were some of the main ones that

they use. Atheists really do not have constraints of specific genres within the community. I am

sure the only restriction they have is speaking out at religious sermon or event. I am sure that is
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the only restriction because I am sure they are not disrespectful just so people can understand

how they feel about God or gods. I tried researching constraints of specific genres within the

community but there was not anything good or extraordinary to add.

Many people do not realize the relationship between community members and genres. The

community members has to have a relationship with the genres they use. All the different genres

impact the Atheism community members by them being able to communicate to each other.

Genres also impact the Atheism community members by them being able to let them know they

are not alone. When I interview my friend Kene, I asked her how she think the different genres

impact the Atheism community members. She stated, and I quote Different genres have several

impacts on the members of the Atheism community. When I first came out about being Atheist,

my family and friends downed me about it. I turned to social media, blogs, and articles to reach

out to others. It was really helpful because it let me know that I wasnt alone, and it was people

out here that could relate to my life. The genres has an impact on the community members, but

the community members also has an impact on the genres. The Atheism community members

impact the genres by always communicating through all the different genres. I asked Kene during

the interview How do you think community members impact genres? Kene stated, and I quote

The Atheism community members has an impact on genres by using them effectively. The

Atheism community members use every genre effectively and to their advantage. They dont just

use one genre but all of them. They bring attention and more people to the different genres. At

first I did not know there was articles, blogs, and books out until I learned through twitter.

Those were the only main questions I wanted her to answer that I was going to put in my paper,

but I told her to tell me a little about her Atheism lifestyle and she stated, and I quote My
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Atheism lifestyle is a lot less stressful than my life was when I was a Christian. She also stated

I still participate in Christian traditions like Christmas, Easter, and other stuff. My family is

more open to me being Atheist than they were when I first told them. My friends and I are still

close. My life is better in my perspective. I am happy and that is all that matters in my life. My

interview with Kene went really well. It was cut short because she had to go to work and I did

not want to make her late.

In conclusion to my research, I just want to state that I now know more about Atheism and I

get a better concept and understanding that I did not have before. I got a better understanding of

the history dealing with the development of Atheism. I learned that Atheism was here during

ancient Greece but was absence during the middle age time period. I never wouldve thought that

Atheism was existent during ancient Greece. I thought Atheism came about a few centuries ago.

I also learned basic information dealing with Atheism. I learned that people that Atheist are

mainly male, young, Caucasian, and highly educated. Before I learned that I thought that the

Atheism community was diverse like many religions. I also learned Atheist are opened to a lot of

things; same sex marriages, legal abortions, sex before marriage, and many others examples. I

learned about different genres the Atheism community uses rather than social media. They use

books, articles, webpages, blogs, and much more other things. I did not find many restrictions on

genres dealing with the Atheism community. During my research paper I got to get a better

concept through a primary source. I was able to interview a friend and get a better understanding

of her life. She was helpful with my essay. She taught me how genres and community members

have impacts on each other. This research paper really opened my eyes about a community I

never been involved in.

 Works Cited

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<http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/28/opinions/atheists-q-and-a/>.

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Bremmer, Jan. "ATHEISM IN ANTIQUITY" (2006)Web.

Gilmore, Brendasha. From Christianity to Atheism Ed. Kene Gamble, 2017. Print.

Jackson, Allie. "Atheist Republic." Atheist Republic. 2012. Web. 2012

<http://www.atheistrepublic.com/>.

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<http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/01/10-facts-about-atheists/>.

Merrick. "Lifelong Atheist: How to Live without Despair?" (2013)Web.

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March 4, 2010 <http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=7496>.

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(2012): 75-83. Print.