I'd like to write today about two stereotypes of atheism that are common among some quarters of religious apologists: that we are moral nihilists, recognizing no such concepts as right and wrong; and that we are Satanists who worship, or at least admire, the adversary power of monotheism. The atheists who advocate these concepts, rare though they are, are exploited

Is what I just wrote a contradiction? I don't think so. I find no inconsistency in saying that a depiction of some group is a stereotype, even if it is actually held by some members of that group. The purpose of a stereotype is as a misleading, derogatory depiction of some group as a whole. Even if a very few members do fit that description, it's untruthful and insulting to imply that all of them do. As I hope to show, atheists who are nihilists and Satanists do exist, but their numbers are so small that they are essentially negligible in comparison with atheists as a whole. They do not represent the views and beliefs of the larger majority of atheists any more than ranting lunatics like Fred Phelps represent all of Christianity.

I'll begin with Satanists. Most people who call themselves by that name today are devotees of a church founded in the 1960s by the eccentric occultist Anton LaVey. Satanism as such does not include the literal worship of demons. Instead, Satanists believe in the exaltation of the individual, hedonism and self-will as the supreme virtues, and the desirability of a society of Spencerian social Darwinism. (If anything, Satanism is most similar to Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, which LaVey acknowledges having been influenced by.)

Satanism is not a large movement. Self-identified Satanists were not even numerous enough to register in the 2001 ARIS study, which counted religious groups as small as 4,000 members nationwide. I know of no survey undertaken since which has come up with any greater numbers.

Nevertheless, they do exist. As with any tiny religious movement, they have a web presence - here's an excerpt from one of their essays, written by the current head of the church, Peter Gilmore.

As you can see, there are no elements of Devil worship in the Church of Satan. Such practices are looked upon as being Christian heresies; believing in the dualistic Christian world view of "God vs. the Devil" and choosing to side with the Prince of Darkness. Satanists do not believe in the supernatural, in neither God nor the Devil.

So, Satanists say that they don't literally believe in Satan; fair enough. But if that's true, why do they define themselves in terms of the language and symbology of a religious tradition which they supposedly reject? Why do they name themselves after that which they do not believe in? This inconsistent behavior indicates a seriously confused state of mind, to say the least.

My strong suspicion is that Satanism is a faith crafted to appeal to the rabble-rousers, the self-chosen outsiders, that are bound to be present in any large enough group of people. They adopt these terms because they enjoy shocking others, because they revel in the sense of excitement that comes from deliberately transgressing social norms, and because they find a shared identity with others who feel the same.

Next is a marginally more serious position: the atheists who proclaim themselves to be moral nihilists. (Regular Daylight Atheism readers may know the one or two examples who occasionally comment here.)

It seems to me, as I think it would seem to any rational person, that it's a contradiction for Satanists to draw their identity from the religion they reject. I think this point applies with even more force to the nihilists.

Religious apologists assert, continually, unendingly, and in the face of a vast amount of contrary evidence, that atheists can have no basis for morality, and that only people who believe in God have any good justification for ethical behavior. In my experience, most atheists see through this flimsy slur and recognize that morality can be based on conscience and reason. But, inevitably, some people will be taken in. If the religious say often enough that only through religion can you find morality, some people will begin to believe them; and when those people rightfully notice that the factual claims of religion are a morass of wishful thinking and fallacy unsupported by evidence, they often conclude: so much the worse for morality.

In an important sense, the nihilists are the product of religion in a way that most atheists are not. We humanist atheists find a reason to recreate morality apart from supernatural claims, based on the facts of this world. The nihilists, meanwhile, are still stuck in religious stereotypes about how the non-religious "should" think and behave. They've had the insight to see religious superstitions for what they are, but not enough to take the next step and adopt a worldview completely free from them. Instead, the religious outlook still tinges their beliefs and their thinking.

With both nihilists and Satanists, we can see how religion creates its own enemies. Rather than face our position as it truly is and try to refute it, most religious apologists spend their time exclusively thrashing at strawmen of their creation. They push these stereotypes so persistently that they end up being actually adopted by a handful of real people. Predictably, these few are then pointed out and played up to exaggerate the seriousness of the "threat", and their existence used as a broad brush with which to tar all atheists.

"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it."

—Matthew 16:18 (RSV)

The biblical metaphor of the church built on rock is interwoven throughout Christianity, used as a metaphor for the presumed stability and eternality of the faith. The Catholic church points to two thousand years of continuous tradition as proof that they are the rock in question, while other denominations cite their alleged correct interpretation of scripture, the belief that God is on their side, their anticipation of end-times vindication, or other details.

I say, let them have their analogy. We have a better one.

I wrote in "Belaboring the Obvious" that there are many pundits who confidently assert the futility of debating religion, claiming that no one ever changes their mind. I was very happy to see a substantial number of commenters step up to count themselves among that allegedly non-existent multitude. And, as I've pointed out, our numbers are growing generation by generation and even year by year. We're still nowhere near a majority, but our growth is ongoing.

If reason seems futile, that's only because it doesn't produce dramatic changes of opinion in every case, or even in most cases. Human psychology just isn't that malleable. The persuasive power of reason is less like a great torrent that sweeps away houses, more like the gentle dripping of water on stone. It may seem like a weak force, a tiny, imperceptible thing against the massed strength of rock. What could a few drips of water ever do to the hardness of stone?

But be not deceived: gentle as it may seem, weak as it may seem, water is the stronger of the two. It may work at a rate too slow for humans to perceive, but it has been one of the major forces shaping the surface of our planet. Given a million years, the soft, ceaseless pounding of waves can pulverize rock into soft sand. Given ten million years, it can erase impact craters or carve vast canyons through stone. Given a hundred million years, it can wear away mountains to nothing.

Over the span of a human lifetime, stone seems invulnerable. But if we could see with the eyes of geological time, it would be ephemeral as mist. We could see mountains upthrust, sharp and craggy, and then sink again as they were gentled by the scouring of erosion and carried piece by piece to the sea. We could see roots split stone, acid dissolve it, and lichen eat it away, transforming it into soil. We could see frost wedge itself into cracks and expand, pushing apart solid rock. We could see stone of all kinds crushed, metamorphosed, and ultimately subducted and melted.

The mightiest mountain is inevitably worn down to nothing by erosion, and in like manner, even the most powerful religion can be undercut by reason and fade away, brought low by forces it once scorned as beneath notice. So, let them have their rock - we are wind and water. We are a million falling drops, a million wind-blown particles, slowly wearing away at their supposedly solid foundation one grain at a time. And given enough time, we are the stronger. They may not notice the spreading cracks, but they are there nonetheless. We have seen what the future brings, and we know the trend is on our side.

Last year, around the time I inaugurated my Poetry Sunday series, I contacted Prof. Philip Appleman to ask for permission to reprint some of his work which I'd seen in Freethought Today. He graciously assented to my request, and even said a few kind words about "The Gods", my own brief foray into free verse, which I had the brashness to ask for his opinion on.

He called my poem "hopeful," which was an honor to me, but there was one other thing he said which I've been dwelling on - that he was pleased because hopefulness, these days, is a rare virtue. And, I have to say, I understand very well what he meant.

I've been reading more science fiction this past year or two, and one major theme I've noticed is that we have so many dystopias. I've lost count of how many fictions I've read where things fail, where everything goes disastrously wrong, where humanity shatters itself or dwindles away. Why, I wonder, are we so obsessed with our own destruction? Why is it that we seem to delight in imagining the most horrendous fates possible? Writing like this can serve as a warning, I know. But shouldn't we also want something to inspire us, to give us hope? Shouldn't we want to set a goal we can aspire to?

Part of it may be a contingent fact, a sign of the times. Every time there is war, disaster, uncertainty, people feel more pessimistic about the future, and a spasm of despair passes through humanity's literary output. And so far, the first decade of the twenty-first century has given the world a great deal to be anxious about - the resurgent threat of terrorism, the growing danger of global climate change, rising energy prices and food instability, and increased tension in many historic trouble spots. Perhaps the pessimism of our creations is just a symbol of what's on everyone's mind?

But if that's the explanation, we have to face the fact that the world has always been a troubled place. There was never a time in human history when the globe was universally peaceful and life was everywhere good. On the contrary, there have always been wars, famines and disasters; there has always been corruption, greed and poverty; and people have always been lazy, ignorant, corruptible, selfish and credulous. In fact, one might argue that war and violence has taken a greater toll on humanity in every era, culminating in the world wars of the twentieth century, the bloodiest and most destructive conflicts humanity has yet witnessed. Is this a trend which we can expect to continue? As the twenty-first century proceeds, we've seen the rise of several new nuclear powers, the spread of virulent religious fascism, a swelling human population testing the limits of what the planet can sustain, and the natural resources upon which we all depend growing increasingly stretched and thin. It's entirely possible that this century may witness truly apocalyptic wars, with the most awful loss of life ever. And it's not inconceivable that, if such wars happen, even the survivors may be left so bloodied and fragmented as to herald the beginning of a long, slow fall back into darkness - the dystopia of our grimmest fantasies, this time enacted in reality.

Even beside these nightmare scenarios, the more mundane, chronic problems of our planet can still seem overwhelming. Every day, millions of people around the world languish in poverty, feel the bite of hunger, and suffer from entirely curable epidemics. Millions more live in fear under totalitarian governments or in war-torn failed states. Even where life is relatively peaceful, sometimes it seems as if the masses are content to live in stupor, willing to march to war at the command of jingoistic politicians or trade precious, hard-won liberties in exchange for pop-culture anesthesia. Granted, there are brave souls who labor their lives to improve the situation; but against the pervasive backdrop of human misery, and the widespread apathy and self-interest that permits it to continue, their efforts sometimes seem futile. The problems that face us have their own inertia, and some days it seems towering, far too massive to shift. Are there really enough people who care to make a difference?

Then again, perhaps I judge humanity too harshly. I have to admit that I understand why so many people don't choose the course of activism. When you see a problem in the world, or something that disturbs your conscience, you have three options. You can take action to make it better, but that requires time and effort. If you believe it can be fixed but don't take action to do so, this causes uncomfortable moral dissonance. By far the easiest course of action is to persuade yourself that it's a bad situation, but there's really nothing that can be done, or that it doesn't involve you. The course of apathy is soothing and keeps people's consciences intact in the face of evils they can do nothing about. Once again, it's a Prisoner's Dilemma: the more who opt out of action, the greater the pressure becomes on everyone else to do the same.

I am an optimist by nature and temperament, but even I keep being pulled back by the realities of our world. There are days when the effort of caring seems futile, pointless, and the temptation to write it all off and let humanity build its own pyre is strong. I haven't yielded to it so far, but how can I justify being hopeful? Is there any justification for an informed optimism that confronts the daily reality of suffering and is not bowed under?

I believe that there is. Optimism can be and often is caricatured as a starry-eyed, head-in-the-clouds naivete about "the way things really are", as opposed to unflinching, clear-thinking cynicism. But I much prefer a tough, informed optimism, one that takes in all that is wrong with the world and accepts things as they are, yet does not proclaim that losing hope is the appropriate response.

Pessimism is too easy. In a way, it's cowardly. As I said, the pessimist's choice can be a soothing one, a position which reassures its holder that apathy and inactivity are morally acceptable. After all, if you believe that failure is inevitable, it relieves you of the responsibility to have to do anything. To be frank, it's easy to believe the worst of everyone and everything. Even a foolish optimist risks disappointment; the hardcore pessimist never does.

In that sense, pessimism is a self-fulfilling guarantee of failure. True pessimists believe that failure in a worthy endeavor is impossible, so they don't participate; and if that endeavor should fail because of their lack of participation, that becomes a self-justifying excuse not to participate in the future. By contrast, even an optimist will fail on occasion, but optimism, unlike pessimism, does not cause its own downfall.

The usual solution to a Prisoner's Dilemma is regulation by a higher authority, but there is none in this case. We can't force people to be dedicated to worthy causes or to care about the welfare of others. The only other solution is for individuals to freely step up and answer the call of need, and trust that their actions can inspire others to do the same. That's the goal I try to strive for. My optimism is not the sort that says success is inevitable, but merely that it's possible - and that this possibility is reason enough to try.

I don't deny the badness in humanity, but we possess many good and noble qualities as well. The naive optimists and the embittered cynics, both of whom deny one of these aspects completely in favor of the other, are both equally in error. The exact balance between our light and dark sides is a matter of dispute, but I'm inclined to say that the goodness of humanity must outweigh the evil. We couldn't have come as far as we have, built as much as we have, if that were not the case. We would never have risen above a state of anarchy. The goodness of people consists in many small, quiet acts, often overlooked against the backdrop of thunderous strokes of evil - but they are there, nonetheless.

And if you look at human history, we do see a trend of increasing moral knowledge and progress. It's not a steady climb, rather a zigzag rise with many backward steps and local reversions, but it is there. Our wisdom still lags our technological prowess, but that is growing as well. It's by no means guaranteed that the one will overtake the other in time. But neither is it guaranteed that this will not happen. The future is open, and we can write the outcome through our efforts. That knowledge - the knowledge that the story is not yet over, that we have the power to control our own destiny, and that we can still choose a good one - is what informs my optimism, and what gives me the continued motivation for hope.

This past Sunday, I went to church and had a wonderful time.

No, I haven't converted, nor am I thinking of doing so. I was there to accompany my girlfriend, who's a lapsed Catholic and is seeking a new church to attend. We went to a Unitarian Universalist church on Long Island. That Sunday there was a relatively small congregation, I'd guess between thirty and fifty people. The church itself was a pleasant modern building with a high, sloping ceiling and tall picture windows in the back. There were bookshelves along the back walls and tall, potted plants everywhere. One wall held two long lines of plaques commemorating the people through history who were persecuted or martyred for their belief in Unitarian Universalism - a startlingly large number. Evidently, the idea that all human beings will be saved has often been a dangerously heretical proposition.

I've been to UU services before, in college, and this one had many of the same elements. The service opened with a ceremonial ringing of chimes and then lighting the chalice, a traditional Unitarian Universalist symbol, as well as a peace candle. One member then led the group in a recitation of UU's seven principles, followed by a hymn.

The next part of the service was also at the UU service I attended in college. It was called "Joys and Sorrows," in which each member of the congregation who had either joyous or sorrowful news was invited to come forward, share their story with everyone present, and light a candle to signify the emotional resonance of the event. A lot of people had stories to share, perhaps a dozen, and everyone who participated seemed genuinely eager to step forward.

Most of the service after this was broken up into several brief speeches and sermonettes, each given by a member of the congregation. A young lady who couldn't have been more than 13 or 14 spoke on the topic of "What Would a Unitarian Universalist Do?" For her age, she was one of the best speakers there that day. I think there are great things in her future if she stays on this path.

Continuing this theme, the day's sermon was titled "Living Our Principles." The minister (who hadn't spoken until now, and who didn't do all that much talking compared to the length of the entire service) spoke about working at an interfaith clothing drive, and how she reminded herself to show patience and compassion while dealing with the people who made use of it.

Afterward, there was coffee and food. There seemed to be a real sense of community and friendship among all the people there, most of whom stayed after the service to chat. I had wondered if anyone would recognize my girlfriend and I as newcomers, and at least two people did: the director of the church's youth program, as well as the minister herself, came over to meet us and asked us if we were new. This church must have a very good community indeed if its employees can tell by sight whether someone is a regular visitor.

All in all, I'm happy that I went. I've always had a soft spot for the Unitarian Universalists, and if I were religious, that's almost certainly what I would be. The closing hymn at the service I went to was John Lennon's "Imagine" - how could an atheist not love that? I don't plan on making attendance a weekly habit - I just don't feel the need - but I wouldn't be opposed to going back.

I like the idea of a religion built on community rather than on shared dogma, which lines up nicely with the humanist churches I imagined in "What Will Replace Religion?" UU is itself a thoroughly humanist belief system, with nothing in its principles I could disagree with. I think the UUs largely lack the dangerous exaltation of blind faith and dogmatism that characterizes so many other religions, and if UU gained more ground, I wouldn't be at all upset.

However, I think a person coming from a traditionally religious background might have some difficulty understanding the appeal of UU. After all, it's nearly unique among established religions in not having any established dogma or official creed. A churchgoer who's used to being told what to think each week from the pulpit might find the doctrinal looseness disorienting. And people for whom belief in God is an integral part of their lives are unlikely to feel satisfied here. The only time God was mentioned during the service, in my recollection, was to point out that it doesn't matter whether he exists, because that wouldn't change the moral obligations we have toward each other.

I'm intrigued by the phenomenon of people retaining the trappings of their faith for cultural and historical reasons, while casting off the supernatural beliefs and dogmas that long accompanied them. This has long been noted among secular Jewish people, and I see it starting to happen more and more among Catholics as well. Unitarian Universalism is a more explicit step in this process, recognizing the importance of community without requiring the hoary superstitions that have long accompanied it. From origins in liberal Christianity, UU has evolved to a point where it can - and does - embrace atheists and humanists without qualm. (As many as 46% of UUs may be atheists, according to a 1997 poll.) This could well be an effective rebuttal to propagandists who claim that atheists don't do charity work - we do, as part of the UU church and many other organizations - or that religious charity would cease if atheists became predominant. UU is an effective testimony that supernatural beliefs need not accompany the desire to do good.

I've been watching the "Four Horsemen" video, a two-hour conversation among four of today's leading atheists: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. Right at the beginning, Dan Dennett brings up a point that's also been on my mind. Speaking about his pre-publication editing of Breaking the Spell, in an effort not to offend religious readers:

"...it's a no-win situation, it's a mug's game. The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude."

"They play the 'hurt feelings' card at every opportunity and you're faced with the choice of, well, am I going to be rude... or am I just going to button my lip?"

In the media, the "New Atheists" are regularly accused of being disrespectful, uncompromising, polarizing troublemakers who do not think twice about bashing long-held traditions or trampling on the delicate sensibilities of the religious. I cited some examples of this denunciation last year in "On Being Uncontroversial", where I also noted:

...the denunciation of atheists has nothing to do with the language or tone of their criticism, and it especially has nothing to do with the accuracy of their criticism. On the contrary, atheists are called "shrill" and "hysterical" and "extremist" if they criticize religion in any way at all.

A religious reader unintentionally provided a perfect example of this, in the comments to my recent post "Little-Known Bible Verses VIII". This post pointed out that, in flat contradiction to the Catholic church's rule mandating priestly celibacy, the Bible not only allows but arguably mandates that clergy be married. A comment left in response carried the by-now-familiar whiff of outrage:

This [post] proves the old saying, "Scratch an atheist, uncover a fundamentalist".

Evidently, pointing out that a religious sect is disobeying its own holy book is now sufficient to get one labeled an "atheist fundamentalist". You couldn't ask for a better demonstration that, as far as religious apologists are concerned, atheists should be seen and not heard. The defenders of orthodoxy, no matter what they claim, do not want us to be nicer; they simply want us to be silent.

As further evidence, consider this approving review from the conservative Weekly Standard, of André Comte-Sponville's The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality. The full review is behind a paywall, but the giveaway part is visible:

Most important, we discover that Comte-Sponville is not a cranky, cantankerous atheist. He was born into Christendom, and raised there; and though he eventually defected, he was never disinfected of its moral graces. He calls himself a "non-dogmatic atheist," a "faithful atheist," even a "Christian atheist." Comte-Sponville might not believe in God, but he admires Him. An atheist he is; a heathen he is not.

As this review shows, what the religious apologists approve of is atheists who wish they were religious. That subservient, conciliatory posture is what they like to see, since it validates their presuppositions about the importance of theistic belief. By contrast, atheists who are proud and happy to be atheists, who have no need of superstition, and who are not afraid to say so - they will always be perceived as disrespectful and rude. We anger and offend many in the religious majority not because of any specific criticism or tone, but merely because we don't wish we could share in their superstitions.

With that knowledge, let's not worry too much about offending the believing masses. Those pundits and theologians who fret about how boisterous and uncivil we are, and who solemnly advise us that we should be more gentle and conciliatory if we want to succeed, in reality, are just playing a slightly more sophisticated version of the old Br'er Rabbit trick: "Don't throw me into the briar patch!" They do not have our best interests in mind; they counsel us to tone down our message only as the first step of their desire to see us altogether silenced.

I'm not saying that anything goes. We should avoid ad hominem attacks because they are fallacious, even without considering their effect on people's feelings. And we should not deliberately phrase our message with the intent of causing anger or offense. But since some anger and offense is inevitable, we also shouldn't worry too much about sparing people's feelings.

Let's be atheist firebrands. We should boldly speak our minds at every opportunity, and never hold back out of fear of causing offense or a desire to be more popular. Let's say what we believe and make our case with force and courage. History has taught us that, in battles of public opinion, conviction and passion often carry the day; fearful retreat and tepid compromise hardly ever do. Let's ignore those who wish to silence us and let our voices be heard loud and clear. We will attract the kind of response we are hoping for.

When it comes to theist-atheist debates, one sentiment I hear frequently is that there's no point arguing either side of the controversy, because no one's mind is ever changed by such arguments. Last summer, in "Be Hot or Cold", I pointed out two reviewers who both dragged out exactly this same assertion in response to two different atheist books.

There's no doubt that conversions are rare, on both sides. And I also don't think there's any doubt that rational persuasion is usually ineffective. As anyone who's debated a fundamentalist can testify, it's all too often the case that even the most persuasive evidence and reason simply run off a sloping roof of blind faith. So, is there any point in debating believers at all? Are all our books and websites just belaboring the obvious, repeating ourselves to no avail putting forward arguments that are as true as they are ineffective? Are human beings, as a whole, too irrational for rational argument to ever make a difference?

Bearing in mind all I've said in the past about human irrationality, I still don't think the situation is as dire as that. When it comes to matters of personal belief and identity, reason is often not a deciding factor on the individual level, it's true. But on the societal level, it can and does have an impact. It's like continental drift: on small scales it's too slow to be noticeable, but over many generations, it builds up to more noticeable results.

To the atheists who feel frustration at the seeming ineffectiveness of rational argument in changing people's minds, I answer that we have to keep in mind the novelty of the endeavor we're pursuing. Science has been around for a few hundred years, but other than the small minority who make their living at it, most human beings are not used to making decisions on these matters through rational debate and persuasion. Tribal and national loyalty, familial upbringing, culture, local superstition, and youthful indoctrination have traditionally been the means by which people select their religious beliefs, and for most people, they still are.

We atheists are doing something fundamentally new: we're not just introducing one more faith position, we're fighting for a complete reshaping of the underlying basis by which people make these decisions. Compared to what's come before in history, this is indeed a radical change: the idea that people should make decisions about their religious affiliation based on evidence and not on faith. We can't expect such an ambitious project to show results overnight, and we're just getting started in any case. (We have a few bestsellers; they have ministries that churn out apologetics twenty-four hours a day.) But the change, although slow, is real - as we can see from the steadily increasing numbers of unaffiliated in each new generation. To those pessimists who say that rational argument never changed anyone's mind, that people make decisions based purely on emotion and tribe loyalty, I say - just wait and watch. You may be surprised.

I'm not saying that everyone is reachable. Most certainly, there are obstinate believers who will never be budged by rational argument. And my advice, when you encounter such a person, is: Why waste your time? If you can answer their arguments to your satisfaction, and if they're not listening to yours, then there's no good reason to further spend your time and effort. Whenever you enter into debate with a believer, do so with a clear understanding of what you hope to accomplish, and once you've made your points, don't let it drag on. Be aware when your adversary is talking to The Atheist and not to you, and take that as your cue to exit the conversation.

The temptation to keep arguing, even when it's abundantly obvious that no one is going to change their mind, is ever present. I admit, I've done this as much as anyone. Whether it's personal pride, or a determination to break through to the other person, or a mere obstinate stubbornness which refuses to give them the satisfaction of thinking they stumped you - or, most likely, some combination of the three - it's always tempting to fight it out to the bitter end. I've done my best to change this tendency in myself. I'd rather focus my efforts on the people who may be reachable, and spend my time and energy where it's more likely to make a difference. When a person tells me that they'll never change their mind, when they declare their immunity to rational persuasion, that's when I give up on talking to them. But there are those that can be reached, and we would be better served spending our effort on finding them.

In a world of hostile religious believers, a lone atheist is a target. Vjack of the always superb Atheist Revolution provides a chilling example, an atheist family in rural Pennsylvania who incurred severe harassment and reprisal from their believing neighbors after they complained about blatant religious indoctrination in the local public school, culminating with them being driven out of town.

But there's an important lesson to be learned from this sad story: if an isolated atheist is a target for persecution, a community of atheists is far more resistant to such hateful attacks. When we stand together, we multiply our strength manyfold. A community of nonbelievers can support each other in times of need, chase off the bullying bigots who will only pick on the vulnerable, and perhaps best of all, present a united front to show the religious public that atheists are far more numerous and outspoken than they had guessed. Back in December, I wrote about building the secular community, and I want to offer some updates.

First, this lovely story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atheist group calls former church home. According to the article, the Atlanta Freethought Society (an arm of the Freedom from Religion Foundation), has bought a 142-year-old, Civil War-era church building to serve as their new meeting hall. The Atlanta Freethought Society's home page, packed with social events and activities, is to my mind a perfect model of what a freethought group should be, and shows that even in the South, there are still freethinkers!

Meanwhile in Chicago, atheists are an increasingly outspoken minority - so says this CBS News article, interviewing and profiling a local family of atheists. The article has some important points about the greater tolerance for atheists, as well as their increasing numbers, especially among the young. Stories like this serve an important role in expanding the secular community by showing that, by and large, atheists are good, moral people and citizens just like everyone else.

And in Sacramento, a state college is playing host to a new Atheist Student Organization, which has already attracted substantial interest and a faculty host in Prof. Matthew McCormick (also the author of the blog Atheism: Proving The Negative, unless I miss my guess). Due to constant graduations, campus atheist groups have to work harder than most to keep their organization intact. Yet colleges and universities, with their atmosphere of open inquiry and their place during the time when many young people find their own identities, are the ideal place for a strong and visible atheist presence. Groups like the Secular Student Alliance have done fine work, but there's plenty of room left to grow on campus.

To put the icing on this cake, it seems that while we expand the secular community, the forces of organized religion are in disarray. A recent, widely reported Pew survey found that Americans are switching religious affiliation in ever-greater numbers. As expected, Protestants are on the verge of losing their majority status, and a shocking 44% of adults have changed their affiliations or abandoned religious ties altogether. (About 10% of Americans are ex-Catholics, according to the study.) This survey also, for the first time that I'm aware, broke down the 16% of unaffiliated Americans, finding that 6.3% are secular unaffiliated and 5.8% religious unaffiliated. If these numbers are accurate, when added to the 4% or so that Pew found identify as atheist or agnostic, then as many as 10% of Americans - over thirty million of us! - may be nonbelievers. I note that the 4% figure itself represents almost a quadrupling of the number obtained in the landmark 2001 ARIS survey.

Among the traditionally religious, there's a growing fear as they realize that their long-cherished societal dominance is slipping away. The sociologist Stephen Prothero, observing the basically secular bent and loose, unaffiliated spirituality of the young, ponders, "Is religion losing the millennial generation?" And orthodox Christians, despite their facade of confidence, are asking churches to step up their response to "militant" atheism - implying that we are chipping away at them to a greater extent than they'd like to admit.

All told, the future looks bright for atheists. We're nowhere near demographic dominance in the United States, but we've already seen much growth and improved organization over just the last few years, and that trend is set to continue. As Linda Staten of Kansas City says, let us bow our heads in thanks for atheists:

While militant New Atheists fight on intellectual turf to replace dogma with rational thinking, humanists encourage believers and nonbelievers to get the moral work of peace, social justice and saving the environment done together.

Right-wing Christianity shook the atheist community out of its complacency with its relentless rhetorical badgering and attempts to co-opt the country. A missing piece of the real picture of America is finally being restored. Amen to that.

I recently received an e-mail from an atheist asking for advice:

I've always been afraid of death, and usually I tell myself that it's pointless. But lately, I've started thinking about my existence and ultimately, my death. I was, and still am to some extent, horribly afraid of losing myself forever, which is quite irrational I suppose. I've cheered myself up, worked through this fear several times. I've made myself realize that life is short and that I should look at death as a reminder to cherish life, to be happy with my past and my present, and to stop focusing so much on something I cannot comprehend. Death will come soon enough, and when it does, it's not the irrationally horrible void that I tend to imagine in my head. I can only live and work with what I have, and what I have is this reality. I've embraced this fact with emotion. I want to be strong. I know I can overcome. I know I have hope inside me. I refuse to live a life of despair when I could live a life of happiness. And yet, the fear keeps lingering.

...Now don't get me wrong. I am in no way suicidal; I want to live as long as possible, as happily as possible. I would never consider ending my life. But I think to myself sometimes: "once I get out of school, I'll work, then I'll have a family, then I'll keep on living until I die." It all seems pretty bleak.

If such thoughts depress you, then I suggest you ask yourself this question: What else do you want there to be?

Answer that, and you'll already have gone a long way toward lifting your bleakness. Your course in life is not set; no one is forcing you to settle down at a job or start a family. If the most common path doesn't appeal to you, then take a different one. Only you can decide what would make your life meaningful to you, so make that decision and then set out to do it. I've had thoughts like this on occasion, and I find that taking this perspective is a good way to vanquish them. From your letter, I take it you're still fairly young, which is even better and gives you much more flexibility to shape your life the way you want.

If indeed there is nothing after life, then is life not pretty pointless?

I don't see the logic behind this statement. If your life is meaningful to you now, then that meaning is real, regardless of what happens in the future. You may no longer experience meaning after you die, but death does not "reach back" and retroactively erase the meaning or purpose from all the prior moments you enjoyed. Those earlier moments do not cease to exist. On the other hand, if your life is not meaningful, then what would you gain by extending it other than more meaningless existence?

To see this from another angle, consider a clever argument from John Allen Paulos' book Irreligion. Let's take some point in time far in the future, long after you've ceased to exist - say, a thousand years from now. Let's assume that nothing we do now will matter in a thousand years. Depressing, no? Well, maybe - but, by the same argument, it would seem that nothing that will matter at that far-future time matters now. In particular, it doesn't matter now that it won't matter then. To put it in simpler terms, why should we care what happens in the distant future, when we'll have no possible ability to influence events? What we should care about is the here and now, the events that do matter to our lives and the ones which we can affect.

I could just as well see life as full of life wonder, an opportunity to enjoy myself, a view which I harbor much of the time, but not all of the time. I fear death. I fear losing my identity, losing my memories, my experience as a human being, not as a system of atoms.

Obviously, no one wants to die; evolution has given us a strong drive to prefer continued living. At an emotional level, I understand the pull of this argument. But on a rational level, I don't see what there could possibly be to fear about death. To regret its inevitability, to wish it were otherwise, yes - but to fear it? That claim seems to me to involve a serious confusion of terms.

Fear, by definition, is the expectation of something bad happening to me. But if there is no "me", then nothing bad can happen to me, so what is there to fear? Claiming to fear being in a state of nonexistence, to me, makes as much sense as claiming to have felt joy before you were born, eagerly anticipating your chance to come into being.

Do you have any advice for a struggling atheist? Any outlooks or personal anecdotes? Have you ever had to deal with such a state of despair or were you always so confident with your mortality?

Yes, I have had these existential fears and doubts from time to time. Everyone does - it's an inevitable part of having limited knowledge, which means it's an inevitable part of being human. The most comforting thing I can say to you is that they'll probably lift on their own, given time. Like any other grief, time heals the hurt.

But that doesn't mean you have to live with it in the meantime. From what you say, it sounds to me as if you've already got a solid, well-grounded humanist philosophy worked out. That will be a tremendous help in overcoming this - it probably is helping already, even if you don't realize it yet. Everyone has to come to terms with their own mortality eventually, as part of becoming a mature human being. Think of this phase as growing pains. It will pass, and you'll be stronger for it; and I have no doubt that you'll rediscover the beauty and the hope that you mentioned, and learn anew to cherish life and live to the fullest because it is brief.

However, on the chance that words can offer you any more assistance, let me offer a few more. Christopher Hitchens' The Portable Atheist closes with this passage from Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It reached in and grabbed me, and it may do the same for you:

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.

This, in my opinion, is how an atheist should view life and its inevitable accompaniment of death. Would I live longer, if given the opportunity? Yes, of course - but I've never believed for a moment that my life must be meaningless unless it's infinite.

What comes after this life, if anything, I don't know. We may be resurrected from the dust by a supernatural being on some future judgment day; we may all be living in a dream; we may be digital souls in an unimaginably powerful computer running a massive simulation of the universe. I don't know, nor do I care. I only care about what is verifiable, what is real. And what I know to be real and true is that this world and this life are enough for me. There is beauty here, wisdom, wonder and love - as much as I could have asked for. It's an embarrassment of riches, and there are so many different paths to happiness that it would be selfish and needless to demand anything additional. I echo Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and I would extend her compelling conclusion to all atheists. We need nothing more.

In the past, I've written much about the philosophy of humanism and how it offers a transcendent, spiritual view of life's purpose that is at least as appealing as anything offered by religion (and in fact, is superior - at least in my opinion).

Well and good, but I've been thinking lately that what we need is a set of practical guidelines for living life as a humanist. Holding this lofty view in moments of deep reflection or contemplation is one thing, but how does the humanist philosophy affect what we do in everyday life? What difference does it make in the way we interact with the world? This post will propose some answers to that question.

To derive these guidelines, I take two principles as primary. First, in the humanist view, this life is primary; it is the only one we can know for sure that we have. To that end, it's important to live to the fullest extent possible - not just to live as long as possible, but also to fill life with as much richness and diversity of experience as it can reasonably sustain. To do this, we must be in a position to live independently, able to pursue our desires and take advantage of what life has to offer.

Second, in the humanist view, we exist as part of a community of individuals. Our interactions with our fellow human beings increase the depth and meaningfulness of life and suggest avenues for fulfillment that could never have been attained by individual effort. A humanist, therefore, does not withdraw from the world but seeks to enter fully into it and take part in it.

With these principles in mind, I offer nine guidelines for living the humanist life. They're divided into three groups - one for the body, one for the mind, and one for the community. Though they may seem mundane, I speak from experience when I say that they can make a dramatic difference in your well-being and your mood.

Eat healthy. Our appetites evolved in a world where fat and sugar were rare treats that provided a much-needed burst of concentrated energy. Small wonder that our Paleolithic brains crave them whenever they're available. But in the modern world we're drowning in junk food, and our palates haven't changed to match. It's small wonder that Western societies have seen skyrocketing rates of obesity and all the health problems that come with it - diabetes, circulatory ailments, stroke, and even cancer.

But this can be avoided, if we carefully and rationally oversee our eating habits. The ideal diet, it seems, is one rich in whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and beans. Eat meat and dairy in moderation, preferring reduced-fat dairy products to whole milk and fish and poultry to red meat. If possible, buy locally grown produce (such as at a farmer's market), and prefer free-range or sustainably harvested meat to factory farms. As much as possible, avoid sugar (including high-fructose corn syrup), white flour and saturated fat.

Most fad diets, in my experience, work by requiring a person to eat only one thing; when they get sick of it and stop eating, they lose weight. But this is unsustainable in the short term and unhealthy in the long term. A balanced diet is healthier and much easier to stick to.

Exercise regularly. In a busy modern lifestyle, this can be difficult, but that makes it all the more important. Even with a healthy diet, a sedentary lifestyle can leave you vulnerable to weight gain and all the health problems that come with it. Even a light exercise regimen pays dividends in health and continued fitness throughout life, and it's an incomparable stress and tension reliever. I try to work out for at least 45 minutes to an hour three times a week, mixing weights with aerobics.

Get enough sleep. Our chronically overworked society often views sleep as a luxury. I understand this temptation - I've often wished I could go without it myself. (I'd be far more productive at my writing, if nothing else!) But it can't be done. Trying only makes you miserable and irritable, and leaves the door open for all the ailments that come with chronic stress. Different people need different amounts of sleep, and there's no set number of hours that works for everyone. I do fine with seven hours, I find. Other people may need less or more. The rule I go by is that if you have extreme difficulty getting up in the morning, or if you're constantly drowsy throughout the day, then you're not getting enough sleep.

Read every day. The mind, no less than the muscles, needs exercise. Research has shown that mentally stimulating activities - even something as simple as doing a daily crossword puzzle - improve mental acuity and recall and may protect against neurodegenerative disease later in life. Even beyond its health benefits, reading has many obvious advantages: a well-informed, literate person can better understand the issues of the day, is better able to express themself, and has a broader base of information to help them learn and comprehend new things. I keep track of the books I've read, and I try to read at least two per month - more if possible - on a broad range of topics.

Don't watch too much TV. The benefits of reading are numerous, but by contrast, I don't know of any proven advantages to television. I try to watch as little as possible, and I think that (with a few rare exceptions) it's a bad way to absorb information - for more reasons than one. For one thing, it's slow, limited to the speed at which people talk, whereas I can read at my own pace. This factor also means important issues are rarely presented in depth. It's also cluttered with ads that distract us and create desires for unnecessary things. It's a one-way medium, denying the audience an opportunity to respond; and it far more easily produces a visceral, emotional response than reading, which discourages rational consideration of the message being presented. I watch TV for entertainment or recreation, but to be informed about what's going on in the world, I find that it's manifestly inferior.

Learn a hobby or a craft. The essence of humanism is that each of us has something unique and important to offer. What better way is there to express that truth than by developing skills that reflect our individuality? Like reading, they offer the benefit of keeping the mind active; they also give us something to offer to others in the spirit of generosity. If you're musically or artistically inclined, there are plenty of possibilities. Personally, in the last few years, I've taken up cooking. It's surprisingly easy to learn and to get good at, and it's a practical skill that offers a very tangible sense of accomplishment.

Follow politics, vote and support organizations that advance your interests. Every humanist who has the privilege to live in a democratic society should vote and participate in politics at every reasonable opportunity. As humanists, we should care deeply about the direction our world is taking, and voting is the mechanism by which we guide society along the right path. I consider it not just a privilege, but a positive moral obligation to follow political news, to seek out and critically compare candidates' records and platforms, and to cast informed votes. In addition, every humanist should join and support interest groups that advance the causes we hold dear - freedom of speech, separation of church and state, equality for all people before the law, and all the rest. If you don't vote, not only have you surrendered your own right to representation, you have contributed to a general sense of apathy and cynicism that actually encourages waste, corruption, and poor governance by elected officials. Our only chance to live under good government is to send the message that we will hold our representatives accountable.

Volunteer and give to charity. In addition to steering our society through the democratic process, humanists who have reasonable opportunity should engage in volunteer and charitable work. As long as there is suffering and need, it is the moral responsibility of every capable human being to work for its alleviation. Even small individual donations to worthy causes - non-profit humanitarian organizations, medical research, humane societies, environmental conservancies - can have a great impact, if many people choose to contribute. If possible, it's even better to contribute effort and time by volunteering.

Live a richly simple life. Our society has whole industries dedicated to fostering the belief that consumerism and the acquisition of material goods can bring happiness. This belief is a mirage. Once a person can provide for their basic material needs, additional possessions bring no further happiness, and may even diminish it. A humanist should recognize this and avoid the folly of becoming trapped on this hedonic treadmill, with its consequent burdens of stress, debt, overwork, and waste.

Instead, what brings happiness is participation - interaction with the world and exploration of all it has to offer, our relationships to friends and loved ones and a larger community, and selfless labor for the good of others. This rich tapestry of experience, even in a life of material simplicity, is what brings true and lasting contentment. This, in my opinion, is the most fundamental lesson that any humanist must grasp, and I think most of the rest of this list flows from it.

Do you have any others I neglected to mention? What other guiding principles are there for humanist living?

He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: "For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer." He believed that happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.

The above passage is an excerpt from a eulogy given by the famous American freethinker Robert Ingersoll for his brother, Ebon. It's one of my favorite passages from Ingersoll, showing the sublime depth and beauty of his humanist views, even in times of sorrow. But behind the poetic language, there's an important truth.

The commonly accepted etymology of the word "religion" derives from the Latin ligare, meaning "bind" or "connect". Religion, then, is the system of obligations that connect human beings to the gods. Sensible enough - except, I have to ask, how exactly are you supposed to form a meaningful connection with an invisible, unseen, unknown, and very likely non-existent supernatural power?

No god has ever offered even the simplest tangible comforts one human being can give another: the contact of a hand, a thoughtful favor or a gift. No god comes to us, speaks to us or reassures us in the ways we all do for each other. No god answers our questions or responds to our petitions. Believers send their prayers into the void, and maybe - maybe - if they're lucky, they'll get a vague warm feeling in their hearts as answer, or a random event that works out in their favor which they take to be a sign. This is not the stuff of a deep and meaningful bond, not in the way we bond with our friends and loved ones. With our fellow human beings we exchange secrets, we share laughter and old jokes, we form memories together, we challenge each other and learn about each other. None of those things ever happen between humans and gods.

Rather than trying vainly to form connections with the uncaring blue sky, we can find a better kind of religion down here on earth. What we need is a religion of humanity - a secular belief system that does unite us in meaningful ways, by teaching the astounding truth that we are all part of the same biological and mental tribe.

On the human family tree, we are all cousins. Though the actual paths of the connections may be lost in the misty past, every human being on the planet is united by ties of blood and kinship every bit as real as the ones that bind us to our parents and our children. Our genes, our bodies and our brains are all nearly identical. And with that biological relationship comes, as well, an emotional and rational relationship. We all occupy the same place on the cosmos' hierarchy of scale; we all look at the world alike, we all experience the same emotions, and we are all rational beings, trying to make our way as best we can through the vast and glorious universe. We share an outlook, a perspective, that gives each of us a deep and intuitive understanding of how all the rest of us think and feel. How could we not desire interconnection with each other? There is every reason in the world to seek it out.

This religion of humanity is not one that will teach us to agree on every issue, for we are too diverse for that. Rather, it will teach us the truth that our similarities are so deep and so pervasive as to completely overwhelm the comparatively shallow things that divide us from each other. And it will encourage us to build on that shared similarity to reason out the issues where we disagree, doing our best to proceed in a spirit of open and communal inquiry and a shared desire to know what is true.

Regrettably, the smaller religions that currently predominate have prevented this from coming to pass. Supernatural religion will only ever divide us, never unite us. In fact, the theist Andrew Sullivan last year put it as well as I've ever seen it put:

...the content of various, competing revelations renders them dangerous. They are dangerous because they logically contradict each other. And since their claims are the most profound that we can imagine, human beings will often be compelled to fight for them. For if these profound matters are not worth fighting for, what is?

Sullivan's proposed solution to this dilemma is that we bear in mind our own fallibility, and never believe that we have discovered the final and absolute truth about God's desires. This, as he must surely know, is naive. In a system of inquiry based on self-correction, such as science, this could work. But religion is not based on this principle, but rather on the opposite: that it is a virtuous and praiseworthy trait to believe, firmly and unshakably, even in the total absence of evidence. (As atheists know, the fact that religious beliefs never change and never compromise is often trumpeted as a selling point by their evangelists.) In fact, in the eyes of many sects, the more strongly a religious belief is contradicted by the evidence, the more virtuous it is to believe it - this constituting a sign of the believer's trust in God over the foolish wisdom of man.

Since there is one world, there must be one true description of it. If religious beliefs were based on the evidence of that world, then we might expect them to converge eventually. But, again, this is not the case: religious beliefs are explicitly not based on evidence. Instead, since they arise from people's wishes and imaginings, they reflect the full range of diversity that can arise from the creativity of the human mind. For this reason, the chances that they will ever converge on the same form are effectively zero.

These shallow supernaturalisms will not bring us together. Even the briefest glance out over human history should make that obvious. At best, some believers have learned to paper over their differences in the name of amity; but those differences still remain, irresolvable, and will inevitably flare up wherever they are put to the test. Their desire for a greater human brotherhood is laudable, but the road they have chosen is unlikely to ever lead to success. As long as people continue to hold belief in dogma as the highest moral value, division and conflict will remain. The highest moral value, in fact, is our common humanity and the obligation it confers on us to be good to each other. When this is more widely recognized - when, not if - then, and only then, we will finally have a religion worthy of our worship.