I've written on the meanings of freethought and secularism, and in the third entry of this series, I want to discuss humanism. More so than the other two, humanism is a complex and fully formed life philosophy, so it'll take the most effort to adequately define.

Most concisely stated, humanism is the worldview which treats human beings - our lives, our needs, and our concerns - as of supreme importance. Humanism recognizes our deep and profound interconnection with the natural world and with all living things on Earth, yet it values human beings above all else - not because of unjustified bias, but because that humans are the only living beings who are moral agents: the only ones who are able to reason out the consequences of their actions and choose to act based on that evaluation. Other animals lack that moral competence, and so regardless of what considerations we owe them, they are not of equal importance with us.

On the other side of the scale, humanism gives greater weight to human concerns than to matters of faith or dogma. To a humanist, the decree of a religious authority, scripture, or creed can never take precedence over the life and well-being of a conscious, feeling person. This doesn't mean that a humanist must be an atheist; there are theistic humanists, although in my experience, the secular kind is more common.

Statements like the Amsterdam Declaration and the Humanist Manifesto have defined in detail what humanists believe. My interpretation of the tenets of humanism would add the following:

Humanism is strongly ethical. The most fundamental principle of humanism is that all human beings are equal in moral worth and dignity. By virtue of being conscious, reasoning, foresightful beings, we gain the privileged status of personhood that confers us with rights; and we likewise incur a responsibility to treat others in accordance with this principle. Thus, we should refrain from doing harm or oppressing others, and to the greatest degree possible, we should respect their freedom to make their own choices and lead their own lives as they see fit. Humanists believe that morality is not a matter of following the decrees of authority, but of the sense of conscience that every person possesses, guided and informed by reason.

Humanism is rational and undogmatic. Humanists hold that no belief is too sacred to question, and are always willing to engage in self-examination, to revise our prior beliefs in the light of new evidence, and to accept newly discovered truths. More fundamentally, humanism supports free inquiry in all its forms and opposes censorship in all its forms. Humanists recognize the scientific method as the most reliable and effective method of gaining knowledge about the world, though we don't discount the value of art, music, literature and other modes of cultural expression to bring people to recognition of truths they had overlooked.

Humanism is both individual and collective. Although people's freedom to choose their own course is of paramount importance, humanists also recognize that we are social creatures, and that we find the greatest fulfillment by interacting with others and joining communities based on a shared identity or common interests. Although solitary geniuses and entrepreneurs have contributed to human progress, the greatest works of artistic creativity and intellectual achievement have come about only through connection in a shared culture.

Humanism encourages us to turn our attention to this world. As part of respecting the freedom and dignity of individuals, humanists seek to build a society where all people can flourish to their greatest extent. In addition to ethical behavior on the level of individual interactions, then, humanists are willing to contribute to the greater good, to devote their efforts toward creating a freer, more rational, more just civilization. Where we see injustice, we seek to correct it; where we see evil and tyranny, we battle against it; where we see senseless waste and destruction, we work to put a stop to it.

Humanism encourages the full development of human potential. It states that human nature is neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically evil, but that we have instincts that tend in both directions. Through education and training, we can learn to encourage the better instincts and rechannel the worse ones. Although the project of moral education is a difficult undertaking, it's a worthy and important one. Humanists recognize that the improvement of society's attitudes benefits all people who live in it, and only through this means can we end poverty, war, climate change and other global threats that demand collective effort to solve.

Editor's Note: Earlier this month, I wrote an essay encouraging atheists to join the Foundation Beyond Belief, a new charitable group doing good for human beings and the world in the name of freethought. I also offered to write a front-page post interviewing anyone who agreed to join the Foundation as a result of hearing about it on my site. This is the next in that series of interviews, which will be posted each weekend. Please welcome TPO!

Tell us a little about yourself. Who are you, where do you live, what do you do?

I'm a happily married man in my late 30's who enjoys hiking, astronomy, earth science, science fiction and many other activities you may or may not care about. I live in lower Alabama just a couple of miles from the Florida State line and I am a network administrator for a local Air Force squadron.

If you're an atheist, when did you first become an atheist, and how long have you been one? If you're not an atheist, how would you define your beliefs?

I spent the most part of my first fifteen years going to a small Pentecostal church which exposed me to the whole speaking in tongues and flopping on the floor with the Holy Spirit spectacle on a weekly basis. I pretty much became an atheist over the summer of my fifteenth year when my church had a bible reading contest. Before this event, which I won, I was the type of kid who would admonish my peers and even older teenagers for cursing on one of the larger Baptist churches' basketball courts I frequented after school. Once I actually read through the "King James" version of this book, not once, but twice, I decided that I could not in good conscience worship the god depicted within its pages. I stopped going to church after this and studied up on several other religions over the next couple of years but I think I became an atheist that summer in 1986.

Do you have a blog of your own, or another site you'd like us to know about?

Yes, I run a blog titled "The Perplexed Observer" which focuses on Skepticism, Science, Environment, Religion and many other subjects from an Atheist/Secular Humanist perspective.

Have you given to other charities before joining the Foundation Beyond Belief? If so, which ones are your favorites?

Yes, some of my favorites are Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Oxfam America and the Red Cross.

What membership level did you join the Foundation at?

I could only afford to join at the second level at this time.

How do you plan to divide your initial donation?

Equally among the different categories.

Is there anything else you'd like to say to atheists who are considering supporting the Foundation or other charitable groups?

Yeah, and you can read it here: http://theperplexedobserver.blogspot.com/2010/01/secular-charities-humanist-philanthropy.html.

Editor's Note: This past week, I wrote an essay encouraging atheists to join the Foundation Beyond Belief, a new charitable group doing good for human beings and the world in the name of freethought. I also offered to write a front-page post interviewing anyone who agreed to join the Foundation as a result of hearing about it on my site. This is the first of those interviews, which will be posted each weekend. Please welcome Daylight Atheism commenter Peter N!

Tell us a little about yourself. Who are you, where do you live, what do you do?

My name is Peter Nothnagle. I live in Iowa City, Iowa, USA, where I am a self-employed recording engineer specializing in recording and editing classical music CDs.

If you're an atheist, when did you first become an atheist, and how long have you been one? If you're not an atheist, how would you define your beliefs?

By a happy accident of birth, my parents seemed to have only the minimum socially-required religious leanings for educated people in the '50s and '60s. Thus, although I was dragged to the Catholic church on Sundays, I was never required to buy in to the teachings and traditions, and I never did. I was always interested in both history and science, and by my teens it was obvious to me that Christianity was just a mythology like all the rest.

Do you have a blog of your own, or another site you'd like us to know about?

Nope.

Have you given to other charities before joining the Foundation Beyond Belief? If so, which ones are your favorites?

I have sporadically donated to Doctors Without Borders, International Planned Parenthood, and various medical research foundations. I also get my long-distance phone service from CREDO, which overcharges shamelessly but remits the excess to worthy causes.

What membership level did you join the Foundation at?

I scrolled down the list of contribution levels until I hit one that hurts, just a little. But it's a good kind of hurt. I will work just a few extra hours each month, which is a ridiculously easy way to help people in desperate need, as well as supporting the cause of reason.

How do you plan to divide your initial donation?

I divided it among human services options: education, child welfare, and poverty.

Is there anything else you'd like to say to atheists who are considering supporting the Foundation or other charitable groups?

I am happy to support an explicitly nonreligious charity like this. Together we encourage other atheists to come out and stand up. I hope the Foundation has a lot of success and by their example, other atheist-themed public service institutions will be established.

Over the past year or so, I've become increasingly aware that, for the atheist movement to make a difference, speaking out isn't enough. Speech is a valuable tool, but it isn't the only tool. Almost as important is our money and our effort - the way we spend it, and the causes we support. To build the world we want to see, we must be willing to act in concrete ways that advance the goal of creating a secular community.

This concern of mine is bolstered by surveys which show that evangelical Christians and other members of religious groups give more - not a lot more, but more - to charitable causes than atheists. This holds true even if you don't count donations to a believer's own church. (NB: I have serious concerns with this study's methodology, especially the way it lumps committed atheists in with infrequent churchgoers as "secularists". Nevertheless, I think the larger point has validity.)

Obviously, I don't think that this is because religious people are more generous or more caring than atheists. I think the explanation is much simpler, as I wrote in a post from 2007 which predicted this finding: religious believers give more because they have more opportunities to give.

If you're a member of a church that passes the collection plate every week, that regularly organizes blood drives, soup kitchens, after-school programs, and that regularly exhorts its members to volunteer and to participate, then of course you're more likely to give, simply because the possibility is always before your eyes. Atheists have no comparable social organization, and that makes charitable giving take more time and effort. When you do it yourself, you have to do all the legwork: remembering to make your donation, deciding on a cause, compiling a list of suitable charities, researching their background, and selecting criteria to choose a winner. It's just easier when all this work is done for you, and the only thing you have to do is sign on the dotted line.

The other advantage religious people have over us is that their donations are highly visible. When a theist gives to, say, Catholic Charities or Lutheran World Relief, there's no doubt about where that organization's budget is coming from and who's supporting them. By contrast, atheists often give to non-sectarian groups like Feeding America or Doctors Without Borders - and there's nothing wrong with that, but because people of all creeds support those groups, there's nothing to mark our charitable dollars as coming from atheists. This makes our good works invisible, which often leads ignorant religious apologists to claim that atheists have never done anything for our fellow human beings.

What we need is an option to give to charity in a way that does good for others, while also making it clear that atheists and nonbelievers are underwriting the effort. And there are already ways to do this - as I've mentioned before, there's Kiva, the microfinance site whose largest lender community is made up of atheists. But Kiva is a long-term effort, aimed at the eradication of poverty through capitalism, and there's still a call for groups that answer urgent needs.

Well, now there's a group that answers all these challenges at once. I'm happy to report on the recent launch of the Foundation Beyond Belief, a meta-charity helping atheists and freethinkers to do good (and I love that logo!). The Foundation was the brainchild of Dale McGowan, the secular parenting author whom I've interviewed before. There are some other familiar faces on the board of directors as well, including fellow blogger Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist.

The Foundation is not itself a charity. Rather, it has a list of major issues it seeks to address - environment, poverty, education, child welfare, and so on. Each quarter, it picks an existing charitable group serving each of those issues, one that has a track record of effectiveness and that doesn't proselytize. Foundation members' donations are funneled to those charities, divided among them according to the individual member's choice. You can choose to split your donation equally among all the charities, or give it all to a few or to one.

The Foundation's business model answers both of the challenges I posed above. As an explicitly secular organization which only supports non-sectarian charities, it makes our donations visible in the same way that religious charities are visible. As Dale McGowan puts it, through the FBB, our donations become "a positive collective expression of our worldview". And while the Foundation does accept one-time donations, that's not its preferred means of giving. Instead, it encourages people to sign up as members, committing to donate a fixed amount per month - as low as $5. This helps give atheists that regular reminder that we've been lacking until now.

I'm tremendously excited about the potential of this project! I became a member of the Foundation a few days ago, and I've started at $50 per month, but that's just a beginning. If I'm satisfied with how my money is spent, I plan to ramp up my contribution very soon, and I hope to eventually do the majority of my charitable giving through Foundation Beyond Belief. If the goals of this project are ones that you also share, I encourage you to join me there.

And to sweeten the pot a bit, I'm going to make a special offer. If you join the Foundation as the result of reading this post, and if you leave a comment and tell me about it, I'll do a front-page interview with you about yourself, your blog if you have one, and your reasons for joining. This offer may not remain open forever, so take advantage of it soon!

I've often used the terms "freethought" and "freethinker" on this blog, but I've never explicitly defined them. In this post, continuing my efforts at defining words that are important to the atheist movement, I want to speak briefly about how I use these terms and what I understand them to mean.

As the Freedom from Religion Foundation defines it, a freethinker is a person who forms their opinions about religion based on reason, independently of established belief, tradition, or authority. I think established belief and tradition are more or less the same thing, and I want to add another condition: a freethinker also forms their opinions without relying on revelation.

To expand on what each of these mean:

• Independent of revelation: Freethinkers do not consider irreproducible, subjective personal experiences to be a valid basis for making up one's mind about what does or does not exist in the external world. We recognize that individual human beings are fallible; that the brain is prone to hallucinate, to personify natural phenomena, to find spurious significance in randomness, and to deceive and mislead itself in countless other ways that bias its decisions towards what we most want to be true. Given all these manifest examples of our fallibility, we conclude that a mere emotional experience, unless it contains an objective component that can be replicated or examined by others, is insufficient as a basis for belief.

And since we reject personal revelation as a basis for decision-making, it goes without saying that we reject other people's reports of revelations they may have experienced. Such reports can never be anything more than unverifiable hearsay, and their uselessness is proven by the fact that countless people of wildly different and incompatible religions all report having them and all claim to fervently believe them.

• Independent of tradition and established belief: Freethinkers do not consider a claim more likely to be true just because it is widely believed, or historically has been widely believed, in the society we live in. We recognize that most people simply absorb their most important beliefs from the surrounding culture - for example, people born in America are far more likely to be Christians, whereas people born in Indonesia or Saudi Arabia are far more likely to be Muslims, and people born in India are far more likely to be Hindus. As in the last point, these conflicting belief systems cannot all be true; but even if any one of them is true, given the sheer number of human societies past and present and the even greater number of different ideas they hold, it is extremely unlikely that you or I, by pure chance, just happened to be born into the one culture in human history that believes all the right things.

Since the chances of coming to hold all the right beliefs by an accident of birth are extremely low, this cannot be a workable way to make up our minds. Instead, we should apply reason and critical thought to the popular wisdom of our culture, judging for ourselves which widely held beliefs are good and should be kept up, and which are bad and should be replaced with something better.

• Independent of authority: Most importantly, freethinkers believe and act on a proposition because we ourselves judge it to be true using our best reasoning, not because we're told to believe it by people in power.

The wealthy and powerful in any society urge the rest of us to believe a large number of propositions, most for fairly obvious reasons of self-interest. Advertisers for large corporations try to convince us that buying their products will bring happiness and contentment. Politicians pledge to be the guardians of traditional morality, or make us feel afraid and then promise protection, if we'll vote for them and support their campaigns. Religious leaders claim that their sect has the keys to salvation, and we can enjoy eternal bliss if we tithe to them and attend their church. The super-rich argue that society will be more prosperous if their income taxes are lowered. In each case, it's obvious what the people who make these claims stand to gain if we believe them.

Now, some of these claims may in fact be true, despite their self-serving nature. But most of them probably aren't. Believing the authorities without skepticism is an excellent way to spend your life being exploited and taken advantage of. A freethinker, by contrast, casts a critical eye on assertions that originate with other people, and believes something because the evidence supports it and not because the authorities wish us to.

• Based on reason: If a freethinker doesn't rely on revelation, tradition or authority, then how do freethinkers make up their minds? The answer is that we use our own best judgment, guided by logic and reason, starting from a solid foundation of evidence viewed through the lens of critical thinking. Where possible, we don't make up our minds in isolation, but investigate the reasoning and the conclusions of a community of other people who use the same method - with the hope being that any individual errors or biases will be canceled out by the consensus judgment.

The method of reason isn't perfect, because we aren't perfect. It may sometimes lead us astray. But it still has a higher probability of leading us to the truth than any other method. And for further proof of this, consider the historical track record: Millennia of obeying tradition, revelation and authority produced virtually no human progress and left us mired in prejudice and superstition, while societies that adopted reason and the scientific method have seen dramatic improvements in both their standard of living and their moral attitude. To be a freethinker is to be an ally of that progressive trend, and to declare your opposition to all the irrationality that has kept humankind ignorant and prevented us from achieving our true potential.

Most Americans have heard of the movie critic and writer Roger Ebert. But what most people probably didn't know - what I didn't know - is that he hasn't been able to eat, drink or speak since 2006. That was the year when most of his jaw had to be surgically removed, the result of complications from thyroid cancer that nearly cost him his life. This information comes via a surprisingly moving article in Esquire by Chris Jones, which describes how Ebert's life has been altered by his illness. And the reason I bring it up is this:

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear, he writes in a journal entry titled "Go Gently into That Good Night." I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

Despite losing his voice, Ebert has penned an eloquent and articulate stream of thoughts on his own blog, which is now his primary window on the world. Even while he refuses to accept the usual labels, he defines himself in lucid and beautiful terms that any secular humanist would recognize immediately:

I wrote an entry about the way I believe in God, which is to say that I do not. Not, at least, in the God that most people mean when they say God. I grant you that if the universe was Caused, there might have been a Causer. But that entity, or force, must by definition be outside space and time; beyond all categories of thought, or non-thought; transcending existence, or non-existence. What is the utility of arguing our "beliefs" about it? What about the awesome possibility that there was no Cause? What if everything...just happened?

...But certainly, some readers have informed me, it is a tragic and dreary business to go into death without faith. I don't feel that way. "Faith" is neutral. All depends on what is believed in. I have no desire to live forever.

..."Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

Though Ebert isn't in imminent danger of death, his illness has brought him to recognize more clearly that we all must die eventually, and that what matters most about our lives is what we did with them - whether we cultivated happiness in ourselves, as well as in others. Even in spite of our misfortunes, we can still find reason for joy:

There is no need to pity me, he writes on a scrap of paper one afternoon after someone parting looks at him a little sadly. Look how happy I am.

Ebert's thoughts, and the Esquire article, are written with a gentle, luminous courage that I've rarely seen. This is true spirituality: not clinging to the false comfort of myths interpreted literally, but solace in human kindness, memories of the good things in life, and accepting frailty and mortality with quiet resolve. It's the kind of powerful and moving affirmation of secular humanism that I wish everyone could see more often.

This month, I want to write about some words important to the atheist movement that are frequently misused and abused by religious apologists. The first of these words is secularism.

In the rhetoric of spokespeople for the religious right, secularism is often assumed to be the desire to ban all forms of religious expression from public view. As is usual in these polemics, this is a falsehood, created by taking a true statement and then twisting and distorting it almost beyond recognition. The polemicists who make this accusation have invented a far more sinister and far-reaching goal that we've never advocated or supported, and assumed, without any evidence, that it must be our secret desire.

To be secular means, simply, to be without religion. But this adjective applies very differently to countries than it does to people. For a person to be secular means that they do not subscribe to the creed of any existing religion (as in "secular humanist"). A secular person, by the usual and conventional meaning of the term, is therefore a nonbeliever, an atheist.

For a state to be secular has a superficially similar meaning: that that state is not ruled by a religious authority, nor are its laws derived from the tenets of a religious creed, nor are its citizens required to give assent to a particular set of religious beliefs. A secular state is one that has no official religion, no favoritism or preference shown by the government for one church over another, or for religious belief in general as opposed to nonbelief.

But this does not mean that a secular state must be one that officially bans the holding of religious beliefs among its citizenry or takes positive steps to disadvantage religion. Just because a state is secular says nothing about the religious affiliations of the people who make up that state. The people themselves may be devout followers of any number of faiths. Even the elected leaders can hold whatever beliefs they like, so long as they make laws based on religiously neutral considerations of public policy, and not on the edicts of any particular sect.

The difference is a crucial one, and partisans of the religious right have effectively stirred up confusion on this point in order to argue that because a secular person has no religion, a secular state must also contain no religion whatsoever. But this is not true. Because people are unified wholes, a secular person has no religious beliefs and that's that. But states and countries are not single entities, but assemblages of large numbers of people who may believe all sorts of different things. The key is that the different beliefs of all these people "average out", so to speak, producing a government that treats them all as equals before the law, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof.

The Army veteran and atheist Ron Garrett put this point succinctly in an essay on Ebon Musings:

Who gets to decide we have to believe in one god, or many gods, or no gods? Under our Constitution, only I get to decide that for me, and you for you, and neither of us gets to use our temporary control of the government to bully others into agreement, or program children in a public school classroom to believe in someone else's gods and prophets against the parent's wishes, or even in accordance with them, because the government can't do that under our law.

The problem arises when the government does not treat all people as equals, but begins to show special favoritism or grant official privileges to certain religious beliefs and not others. This is when advocates of secularism - who may, or may not, be secular people themselves - step in to demand that the government cease this favoritism and return to its neutral position. And this, inevitably, is when the religious right partisans appear to create confusion. They argue that what we secularists (secretly) want is not neutrality of government towards religion, but official support for atheism and positive hostility of government towards religion.

Phrased in this way, the argument is absurd. First of all, as I previously mentioned, many people who support secularism are not secular people themselves: they are religious believers who recognize the value of government remaining neutral toward religious beliefs. (For example, Barry Lynn, the current director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.) Second, if that was what secular people wanted, we wouldn't merely be demanding that the government cease its official endorsement of religions we don't belong to; we would be demanding that the government take our side. We would be demanding not that "under God" be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance, but that it be replaced with "under no God". We wouldn't be asking for an end to official prayer before city council meetings; we'd be asking for an official reading from the books of Richard Dawkins or Robert Ingersoll.

The rampant dissemination of falsehoods about secularism has led to absurd situations where religious fundamentalists and secularists have exactly the same goal, only the former group doesn't realize it. For instance, there have been many cases where a state or township put some intrusive religious monument on public property like a school or a courthouse, was sued by a church-state separation group, and after a protracted and bitter legal fight, finally agreed to move the monument to private land, like a church lawn, in exchange for the dropping of the complaint. Inevitably, religious fundamentalists cheer this outcome as if it represented a victory over those evil secularists, when in fact it's the very thing we were asking for all along.

Private individuals and religious groups can promote their religion to their heart's content, on their own property and with their own money. But the government is supposed to represent all of us, to respect everyone's freedom to believe or not believe as they see fit, and to refrain from any action which sends the message to a particular religious (or atheist) group that they are favored, privileged insiders, or that they are disfavored, rejected outsiders.

And lastly, why do we advocate secularism in government? The answer is that, in the long run, it's better for everyone regardless of what beliefs they hold. Prominent advocates of state secularism, like America's founding fathers, had the lessons of history to draw from, and knew full well that when a state is not secular, when its religious belief is determined by its rulers and competing beliefs are outlawed or persecuted, the inevitable result is bitter, bloody religious war. Europe was convulsed by warfare between Catholics and Protestants for centuries for that very reason. Today we see similar strife between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, in countries where the rulers demand allegiance to one or the other of those sects.

One doesn't have to be an atheist to recognize that it's better for everyone when the state doesn't attempt to coerce uniformity among its citizens. Religious belief is and must be a matter of individual conscience, not of coercion imposed by law. That's why secularism in government is good for us all, both for religious people and also for people who are secular themselves.

But I would add that, for individuals, secularism is a good thing as well. Being a secular person means being free from the superstitious and arbitrary impositions of religion, from the chains of senseless dogma and from archaic and irrational rules. Secularism means the freedom to live your life as you see fit, pursuing whatever purpose you choose for yourself, subject only to the limitation that you allow others the same freedom and not interfere with their equal right to set their own course. As Robert Ingersoll put it in his usual poetic style:

Secularism believes in building a home here, in this world. It trusts to individual effort, to energy, to intelligence, to observation and experience rather than to the unknown and the supernatural. It desires to be happy on this side of the grave.

Secularism means food and fireside, roof and raiment, reasonable work and reasonable leisure, the cultivation of the tastes, the acquisition of knowledge, the enjoyment of the arts, and it promises for the human race comfort, independence, intelligence, and above all liberty.

Secularism, in government and in individual life, is something the human race needs more of. We should work to make it so.

I've written in the past about religion's harm to women, and the way modern sexism is aided and abetted by ancient religious prejudices that still survive today. Every major holy book has sexist verses, but some of the most misogynistic and the most virulent can be found in the books referred to by Christians as the Old Testament. Since this text is the foundation for religions that comprise over half the population of the world, it's small wonder that oppressive, sexist ideas still have so much power.

This ancient misogyny is on full display in this article about a group of pious Jewish women who want to pray at the Wailing Wall, the holiest site of Judaism. They're obviously seeking to perpetuate the faith, not rebel against it, and you might think that would earn them respect from their peers. But instead, they've faced insults, taunting, and even arrest, all from ultra-Orthodox men who demand that women be kept separate, silenced, and subordinate:

Men sporting the black coats and wheel-shaped fur hats that identify ultra-Orthodox Jews shouted at the women, calling them "Nazis," and telling them to "go to church".

...Their adversaries, including the rabbi of the wall, say that the women have no business wearing such religious garments as yarmulkes and prayer shawls, or carrying the Torah, the Jewish holy book.

Such things, the ultra-Orthodox Jews say, are reserved for men.

Whatever religious blindness has afflicted these men, I trust that we as atheists can agree that this kind of sexism is unacceptable. This kind of disgusting bigotry should be intolerable in an enlightened world. We, both men and women, have every reason to cooperate in stamping it out wherever it rears its head, and to work for its total eradication.

But one of the biggest mistakes we could make would be to assume that misogyny only manifests itself in obvious ways: as ultra-Orthodox men cursing and spitting at women on the streets, or Muslims committing honor killings against female relatives, or Roman Catholics arguing that abortion should be forbidden even to women with life-threatening ectopic pregnancies. Those are the most visible manifestations, but sexism can take on more subtle forms as well, more difficult to notice and therefore to oppose.

I bring this up because of an appalling editorial published on Comment is Free by Nancy Graham Holm, writing about the ax attack on Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard by a Muslim fanatic. The title of her article was - no joke - "Prejudiced Danes provoke fanaticism", and its argument was that Danish writers and artists are to blame for any violence they suffer as a result of offending the religious sensibilities of Muslims, who demand the right to be exempt from criticism or satire.

This cowardly nonsense was capably dissected by Ophelia Benson, the author of Butterflies and Wheels (and also a columnist for Comment is Free). Holm's article also caught the attention of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, and there, too, most of the commenters on the site's forum responded with appropriate criticism. But there were a few who couldn't stop there - including one whose reaction was to attack Holm as a "stupid bitch".

Ophelia stopped by to point out the inappropriateness of this, and she was met by several commenters who insisted that this was a perfectly acceptable way to criticize a woman, that it wasn't at all sexist, and even if it was, women are just as sexist as men so it's hypocritical to complain about it. Here are a few shining examples:

If you really want to cast a gender in the role of servants or slaves, then a case could be made that MEN have been the servants...

One half of humanity [that would be the male half —Ebonmuse] does not get a say in whether language is sexist?

Ophelia needs to recognize not only that "words change" in general, but that these particular words -- slang terms like bitch -- have changed and acquired a non-sexist sense.

These commenters argued that the word "bitch" is defensible as long as it's being used only against one specific person and not a slur against all women, and if it wasn't meant as sexist by the person who said it, then it wasn't sexist.

While I don't think this kind of attitude poses a threat to the atheist movement as a whole, I do think it's extremely important to ensure that everyone feels welcome among us, regardless of race or gender. That's a goal that the atheist movement still needs to devote more effort to accomplishing, and comments like these don't help. (Several commenters referred to the "locker-room atmosphere" of the comments at the largely unmoderated RD.net forums - although to his credit, Richard Dawkins himself did step in to put a stop to the flame war.)

To begin, let me pose a question to anyone who thinks that "bitch" is an appropriate term to use in reference to any woman. If you strongly disagreed with an essay written by a gay person, would you write a critique calling them a faggot? If it was a black person, would you express your disapproval by calling them a nigger? If these slurs are unacceptable, as they obviously are, then why is it any different to criticize a woman with an epithet that implicitly demeans all members of her gender? The word, after all, has historically been used to insult any tough, confident or assertive woman by implying that she doesn't "know her place".

To assume that any word can be used in a vacuum, stripped of all its past connotations, simply by willing it to be so is ludicrous. A word's meaning is not wholly determined by context - individual speakers can use words in new and unique ways - but neither is it wholly determined by individual intent - else we wouldn't ever be able to communicate with each other. Even if you use that word with no sexist intent whatsoever - a highly dubious proposition, considering the way we're all influenced by culture - it's hardly reasonable to expect the recipient of your message to understand your pure heart. They're much more likely to see that word as coming with all the sexist and misogynist context that has always been attached to it, understandably so. And condescendingly telling a person that they should just ignore all that and let you decide for them when they should be offended is only going to make things worse.

There are plenty of bad ideas out there that deserve criticism. But when we criticize them, we shouldn't do it in a way that cedes the moral high ground, or that insults or alienates people whose sympathies were already with us. Nor should we tolerate others who do these things. Even the gentlest declaration of atheism is going to anger many irrational people, which is unavoidable and is no reason for us not to speak out. But we shouldn't compound that offense unnecessarily if we want atheism as a movement to flourish and succeed.

I recently finished Daniel Radosh's Rapture Ready!, a book exploring of Christian pop culture and some of its stranger manifestations, from theme parks like Florida's Holy Land Experience to the Ultimate Christian Wrestling pro circuit (no joke). But one event that he paid special attention to was Cornerstone, a Woodstock-like Christian music festival held each year in Illinois that routinely draws hundreds of acts and tens of thousands of people. According to Radosh, Cornerstone had a more open, authentic feeling than most of the events and festivals he attended, and was more welcoming of different perspectives than other Christian gatherings where all attendees are expected to march in lockstep with the religious right's political platform.

Radosh had this to say about the person whom he felt best summed up the Cornerstone ethic:

If there is a quintessential Cornerstone artist, it is probably David Bazan, who played the festival for the better part of a decade with the band Pedro the Lion. Among the qualities that made Bazan such an important figure here was not only the depth of his talent, but the fact that he actually had more credibility in the secular world than the Christian one. Bazan had been raised in a strict Pentecostal household, but had grown into the kind of Christian who treasures the Jesus who freed his followers from religious rules. In the book Body Piercing Saved My Life [get it? —Ebonmuse], Bazan describes his Cornerstone gigs - one of his last remaining attachments to the Christian culture industry - as missionary work... [p.175]

However, he did note that Bazan wasn't at the festival the year he attended (the book was published in 2008), and speculation was running rampant as to why. Some people guessed that he had been kicked off the grounds due to his habit of drinking during his sets (Cornerstone is officially a dry festival), or that he had gotten fed up with festival organizers hassling him about it, or that he had been disinvited because of the occasional cursing in his songs.

Well, as it turns out, the truth is rather different:

I worked as Bazan's publicist from 2000 till 2004. When I ran into him in April — we were on a panel together at the Calvin College Festival of Faith & Music in Grand Rapids — I hadn't seen him or talked to him in five and a half years. The first thing he said to me was "I'm not sure if you know this, but my relationship with Christ has changed pretty dramatically in the last few years."

He went on to explain that since 2004 he's been flitting between atheist, skeptic, and agnostic, and that lately he's hovering around agnostic...

Bazan's latest album, Curse Your Branches, is a confessional chronicle of his deconversion and the personal turmoil he went through as a result. Somewhat surprisingly, he returned to Cornerstone in 2009 to play some songs from it. According to the article, it met with a cautious reception - Bazan's fans from his evangelical days were still drawn to his music, but most of them didn't want to admit he had changed his mind and invented elaborate rationalizations for how his lyrics could be fitted into a Christian worldview. Nevertheless, the fact of his deconversion was widely known, even if not widely acknowledged.

Bazan himself, however, appears to have come to terms with the change in his beliefs and is far more at peace than he ever was:

After a long few years in the wilderness, Bazan seems happy — though he's still parsing out his beliefs, he's visibly relieved to be out and open about where he's not at. "It's more comfortable for me to be agnostic," he says. "There's less internal tension by far — that's even with me duking it out with my perception of who God is on a pretty regular basis, and having a lot of uncertainty on that level. For now, just being is enough. Whether things happen naturally, completely outside an author, or whether the dynamics of earth and people are that way because God created them — or however you want to credit it — if you look around and pay attention and observe, there is enough right here to know how to act, to know how to live, to be at peace with one another."

And David Bazan isn't the only Christian entertainer who's recently walked away from religion. Another interesting example is from the Coexist Comedy Tour, featuring stand-up comedians from a variety of different faiths. Except as it turns out, John Ross, who was the Christian member of the troupe, isn't a Christian anymore either.

Ross embraced Christianity enthusiastically. He taught youth groups, toured the nation with Christian punk rockers Anguish Unsaid and even got religious tattoos. (The dove on his calf and the "Jesus" in Japanese kanji on his neck now act as sight gags onstage.)

"From the beginning I had questions," Ross said, "but I would just write them off with 'Our understanding is not God's understanding.' Until the last few years. It's hard to keep doing that."

By Ross' account, he converted to Christianity as a means of escape from a broken and chaotic family, gravitating towards the stability that the evangelical church offered. But eventually, he realized that faith had only provided a way to sweep his problems and doubts under the carpet; it hadn't actually gotten rid of them. With that realization in hand, he had the key to freedom, and like David Bazan, he's found a new sense of peace and tolerance for himself:

Having left Christianity, Ross is surprised by how little has changed. "I'm still just as compassionate towards people," he explained. "I'm not going out and living in sin." The only difference "is that I don't feel guilty anymore," he says. "There's no war in my head."

It's worth wondering if the use of irony, which plays a vital role in both good music and good comedy, may have been a factor in both these deconversions. Evangelicalism is a creed built on certainty and on having all the answers, and many evangelical believers insist, or fear, that to doubt or to question any tenet of their faith could bring the whole thing crashing down (something we've seen demonstrated recently). But the nature of music (at least, music more sophisticated than bland, one-note Christian pop), and certainly the nature of comedy, requires self-doubt, introspection, and self-questioning. When these collide with the brittle certainties of fundamentalism, stories like these may be the inevitable result.

As we ring in the new year, here's some news to give you a sense of optimism for 2010. This holiday season, we can add another piece of evidence to the growing pile which indicates that atheists are becoming more numerous and more successful:

This Christmas season, 78% of Americans identify with some form of Christian religion, a proportion that has been declining in recent decades. The major reason for this decline has been an increase in the percentage of Americans claiming no religious identity, now at 13% of all adults.

Granted, 13% doesn't seem like much, especially compared to the size of the Christian majority. But considering it was 2% in 1948, and only 6% even as recently as 1998, it can't be denied that this represents a major demographic boom for atheists and nonbelievers of all stripes. I can't think of any religion, historical or modern, that's ever enjoyed such rapid success. And given the steadily increasing rates of secularism among the younger generations, we can expect this rise to continue.

What this shows, as I've said before and will doubtless continue to say, is that we should ignore the brow-furrowing and finger-wagging of the Very Serious theologians who sternly inform us that we're doing a disservice to our own cause by advocating and defending it in public. We have every reason to believe that atheist campaigns of persuasion are working, achieving their intended purpose of convincing more people to become atheists and weakening the social prejudice that treats religious belief as immune to questioning.

Further evidence of this comes from the Gallup poll, which shows not only that more people are walking away from religion, but also that those who stay are beginning to question whether religious belief has all the answers:

Note that the percentage who say religion is "old-fashioned and out of date" now stands at 29%, significantly higher than the 13% of Americans who say they have no religion. We could call these people "soft atheists". Most likely, the majority of these people aren't formal members of any organized church, and either don't attend religious services or attend only infrequently. But because of societal pressure to conform, or their own belief that belief in God is necessary for virtue or community, they continue to call themselves religious even as they reject most of religion's factual claims.

These people are the low-hanging fruit whom atheists can reach. We need to deliver a strong, effective message that belief in God is not necessary for the things human beings care about - that nonbelievers can justify morality with reason and conscience, and build a secular community without reference to faith. And given that our audience's sympathies are already leaning in that direction, we should continue to make the case that religious belief is archaic superstition, contains many immoral rules, and has no solutions for the ethical problems humanity faces today. Let the theologians and mystics continue to carp and complain that atheists are being disrespectful, that we're not acknowledging the magnificence of the emperor's new clothes. We don't require their consent, and they're not our target audience anyway. The continuing growth of atheism throughout the world is all the encouragement we need to speak out.