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.

In February of 1906, Pope Pius X issued an encyclical titled "Vehementer Nos", which denounced France for its passage of a revolutionary law establishing the separation of church and state. This document contained a blunt insight into the Catholic view of the relationship between religion and government:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error.

Happily, France ignored this musty blast from a figure who - then, as now - serves as the most prominent representative of superstitious medievalism. Today, as Catholicism continues to decline in Europe, the French state can proudly point to its strong constitutional guarantee, as well as widespread popular support, for the principle of laicite, or secularism.

However, I want to focus on a different part of this encyclical. In another section, there's a revealing passage which lays out the Catholic, and arguably the Christian, view of what a just society would look like.

The Scripture teaches us, and the tradition of the Fathers confirms the teaching, that the Church is the mystical body of Christ, ruled by the Pastors and Doctors — a society of men containing within its own fold chiefs who have full and perfect powers for ruling, teaching and judging. It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of persons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful. So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end of the society and directing all its members towards that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors.

This section puts plainly into words something that atheists have long pointed out: one of the primary purposes of religion is to accustom people to unquestioningly follow an autocratic elite. In many systems, such as Roman Catholicism, the members of this hierarchy choose their own successors, thereby ensuring that lay members have no voice whatsoever in how the organization is run - the perfect antithesis of democracy. Pius' words drive home that, in his belief system, he and his trusted lieutenants are to make every decision, while the ordinary believers are expected to conform and obey "like a docile flock" - in other words, without dissent, without questioning, and indeed, without independent thought.

Pius was not the only one to envision the ideal society as a rigid hierarchy of obedience. On the Protestant side, C.S. Lewis likewise endorsed this view when he wrote that obedience is "intrinsically good" - regardless of what the specific command is. Like Pius, he stated that when we obey others, we fulfill the role we were always meant to play.

These religious leaders view their followers as a flock of sheep, placid and obedient. That being the case, there's only one role left over for atheists to play: the wolves. Fiercely independent and solitary, we lurk just outside the fold, serving as figures of terror and dismay to those who huddle within its safe boundaries. (Given the chance, I'd much rather be a wolf than a sheep...)

Of course, in an important respect this analogy is reversed: in this case it's the shepherds whose intent is malicious, exploiting and - where necessary - sacrificing the sheep for the sake of their own power and prestige. They fear us lone-wolf atheists not because we'd do their followers harm, but because we could wake them up to how they're being taken advantage of.

It's no surprise, then, that religious authorities throughout history have sought to depict atheists as unnatural, terrifying figures whose ways the faithful would be best off not inquiring into. But when those shadows of ignorance are dispelled, we emerge into the light as human beings just like everyone else. The religious elite whose own power is sustained by keeping their followers in the bonds of sheeplike obedience may have reason to fear us, for our rise means the downfall of their pretensions and the loss of all their ill-gotten gains. But the lay believers who stand to gain a better life, free from the confines of blind and senseless obedience, have every good reason to welcome us.

The Washington State Tri-City Herald ran a lovely story last month profiling a local atheist: Atheism - A belief in the here and now. Fernando Aguilar, the story's subject, is the kind of person every atheist should strive to be like: a dedicated and courageous humanitarian, an outspoken activist, and a loving family man.

When mortar shells were exploding near Fernando Aguilar in Iraq, he didn't pray to God for help.

He doesn't believe God exists. And his long-held conviction didn't change when he traveled to a war zone.

Aguilar, 55, of Walla Walla, is a civil engineer and his work has taken him to some of the most dangerous places in the world. He's been to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once since 2003, helping to build water systems, hospitals and schools.

He's also done relief work in Southeast Asia and volunteered in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

Using the skills he has to benefit others is part of the code Aguilar lives by.

I thought at first that Aguilar was a soldier, but I misread the article the first time: he's a civil engineer whose work rebuilding vital infrastructure took him into active combat zones. Still, in either case, he's another living refutation of the cowardly and slanderous insult that claims there are "no atheists in foxholes". Atheists, no less than anyone else, can and do believe in improving the lives and welfare of their fellow human beings, even to the extent of putting themselves in danger to do it. This is an inspiring illustration of the humanist principle that happiness and well-being are values to be pursued with the greatest of passion.

Aguilar is also an activist who's worked to defend the separation of church and state from those who would infuse religion into government:

Aguilar realized he was an atheist when he was 24.

He's not afraid to speak his mind when it comes to God. He believes people should be able to pray, read Scriptures and practice their faith. But he doesn't think religion belongs in courts or schools.

He's been active in the national American Atheists organization and once clashed with the Walla Walla City Council because members were starting the meetings with prayer. The council eventually went to having a moment of silence.

And, like many atheists, Aguilar lives out the philosophy that life's brevity is what makes it precious and valuable, and is why we should make the best use of it we possibly can. He exemplifies that principle in raising a happy and prosperous family, and in using his abilities to help others wherever possible:

He believes that when you die, your mind and consciousness die too. That urgency gives his life meaning.

He tries to be a good partner to Yvonne and a good father. He has a daughter in college and son who's a teacher, and he beams when he talks about them.

He tries to help other people when he can. That's what he believes in.

Real atheists like these provide a powerful counterexample to the stereotypes we too often encounter. I've often said that, the more the public gets to know actual atheists and see what we really stand for, the more sympathy and accord we will win. We've long been kept down by insulting caricatures, but if we want to refute those, the very best way is not through argument, but through the examples of our own lives.

No doubt there are countless people like Aguilar and his family out there, people who've simply never attracted the media attention enjoyed by more prominent commentators. But we don't need to go through the media to reach others. By showing that atheists are good people in our own lives, we can make a difference for those around us. It may take longer than using the mass media, but I believe that it's ultimately a far more effective and persuasive method.

The rise of the atheist movement is drawing attention in popular society, even from bastions of the traditional press. However, most of the media organizations paying attention to atheism show little interest in why atheists are finding a voice, instead preferring to repeat the usual stereotypes. A recent column in Newsweek, "Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield", is no exception. I've criticized them before; it's time to do so again.

The article opens with an acknowledgement that atheists have the same right to participate in the political process as anyone else, acknowledging the widespread criticism of Mitt Romney's December anti-atheist speech. However, the author, Lisa Miller, is still determined to condescend:

This victory, if you want to call it that (an overwhelming number of Americans still say they would not vote for an atheist presidential candidate), was hard won. It owed much to the loud and intransigent rhetoric of its main proponents...

Though the editorial offers no examples of this "loud and intransigent" rhetoric, it does fire a few revealing shots at today's most prominent atheists - revealing in the sense that they expose the author's own prejudice.

Instead of fire and brimstone, you had the hyperrational insistence of Sam Harris...

The what? "Hyperrational" insistence? What on earth does that even mean? This reminds me of a passage from one of Carl Sagan's books where he mentioned a true believer who criticized James Randi for being "obsessed with reality".

...the high-minded bomb throwing of Hitchens, and the wacky relentlessness of Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford who spends so much time on his own Web site that it's hard to imagine he has time to do his job.

Ah, yes, Richard Dawkins' dedication to speaking out for what he believes is "wacky". Those silly, comical atheists! It's just so funny how upset they become when they see people murdering and torturing each other in the name of God!

As is usual in attack pieces like this, Miller relies heavily on an attitude of belittling dismissal, but provides no examples of anything atheists are saying that is incorrect. Nor does she provide any examples of anything we're saying that she thinks is an unfair criticism or an ad hominem attack. Instead, the mere fact that we're taking a position and standing forthrightly to defend it is what draws her ire. She bemoans the "ruthless certainty" of many atheists and calls it "dangerous" - as if it was conviction in one's own position that was the problem, rather than the willingness to do violence to those who disagree.

In the end, this piece boils down to the same old complaint: Those angry atheists are speaking out again, and they have the audacity to actually take up a position they believe in and argue for it! Why can't they be more like us sophisticated media types? We know that only crude, lowbrow bomb-throwers actually have opinions. Informed, sophisticated observers like us don't do that - instead, we study issues from every possible angle and remark on how complex and fascinating they are. But we would never dare say that anyone is actually right or wrong. That would be biased, you see.

Sarcasm aside, I'm not against humility or doubt in the appropriate proportion. We should all keep in mind the possibility that anyone might be wrong - and atheists do this, mostly by explaining of exactly what it would take to change our minds. (By contrast, the vast majority of believers are not so open-minded.) But being willing to change your mind if the right evidence turns up does not rule out believing your position is true and defending it strongly in the meantime.

It seems clear that what Miller and other media types are asking is for a state of perpetual doubt and uncertainty, for no one to ever have opinions or take positions on anything. (Miller praises a book which she describes as "an... attack on everybody who's sure of the right answer". Only in religion is being ignorant viewed as a good thing.) It brings to mind a comment I read last year:

In short, a lot of the so-called moderates weren't for moderation or anything: They were for maintaining the status quo, which happened to include a lot of double-standards favoring the fundies on the far right.

This is a perfect description of Miller's piece. Instead of attacking atheists - whose worst crime, after all, is the terrible sin of writing books - why doesn't she take on the fundamentalists who are still seeking to conquer the world and impose their will on others by force? The danger they still pose, by any reasonable measure, far exceeds the danger posed by a few atheists speaking their minds. Her call for "moderation" simply seems to be a call for returning to the time when religious groups had unchallenged authority and atheists had no voice at all.

Today is - at least to my northern hemisphere readers - the winter solstice, shortest day of the year. For three months now, we've seen the sun set and the night fall progressively earlier each day. But this date marks the terminus of that trend, and though the heart of winter still lies ahead, from now on the days will start to grow longer again.

The solstice has always been a date invested with great importance. In the bitter depths of winter, our ancestors surrounded themselves with all the plants they could find that stayed green and grew - conifers, mistletoe, holly - perhaps as a form of sympathetic magic intended to speed the return of spring, or perhaps simply to draw comfort from the presence of life around them when so much else was barren and dead. On this day, those defiant celebrations came to their high point. The ceremonial kindling of flame; the feasts and the good cheer; the companionship and gift-giving - all are meant to remind us that the dark and the cold do not have exclusive power over our lives, and that the spring will come again.

As we can imagine, our ancestors were utterly dependent on the cycle of the seasons, and it's no surprise that they imbued this date with vast symbolic significance. Mythologies and traditions clustered around this date, and the calendar soon became cluttered with the dying and rising gods of the harvest. At first these religions were living metaphors, reflecting humanity's rudimentary understanding of the annual pattern of plant death and rebirth. But as time went by, the symbol gradually took precedence until it superseded the reality, to the point that many people today are ignorant of the harvest metaphor and think that the mythology is all. Yet even today, when so many of us are divorced from the land, we still feel nature's rhythms. We too feel the sinking of the sun in our veins, and we too kindle lights in anticipation of the sun's annual return. Not for nothing is the humanist reinvention of these ancient agricultural holidays named HumanLight.

As I say, humanity was once at the mercy of the seasons. Indeed, to a much greater extent than most people realize, that is still very much the case. We depend on the natural world for a huge variety of vital services - fresh air and water, fertile soil, natural waste disposal and remediation, the fertilization of our crops, buffering against storm and drought, ore and timber and fuel, new pharmaceuticals and other products - services that would cost us trillions of dollars if we had to supply them ourselves. The critical drought facing Georgia reminds us that, despite the emancipation of science and technology, our well-being is still very much tied to the ebb and flow of nature.

However, the balance of power is no longer tilted completely to one end. As the natural world influences us, so too do we influence it - and often, not for the better. Rather than treating natural capital as something valuable in its own right, both economically and for less tangible reasons, humanity for most of its history has taken the view that the world is valueless until we harvest and exploit it. And now that humanity is a planetary civilization, that outlook necessarily has planetary repercussions.

The most serious of those repercussions that we are now confronting is the threat of climate change, caused by the extraction and burning of fossil fuels which every year sends billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. After many decades of unwise use, we are now facing the real prospect of permanently altering climate patterns worldwide, with drastic consequences both for thousands of other species and for tens of millions of members of the human species. We're gambling recklessly with our own future, and though it's not too late to turn things around and avert the worst possible effects, the time to act is short, and the changes we must still make are vast.

It may help to put our struggle in perspective if we realize that climate change is the defining issue of our time. In two hundred years, or five hundred years, or a thousand years, conflicts like the "war on terrorism" will be historical footnotes however they turn out. But people may be living for tens of thousands of years with the repercussions of what we do to our planet here and now, in this generation. For better or for worse, we will be remembered.

Thankfully, there are signs that the global community has at last woken up to the impact of climate change, and is taking steps - frustratingly slow, but still promising - steps to solve the problem. The recently concluded 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, successor to the Kyoto Protocol, seems to have been a qualified success, with many nations agreeing to take concrete steps toward reducing their emissions - despite opposition by the U.S. that weakened the language of the final agreement. (I'm ashamed that my country, out of all the nations in the world, was the roadblock to solving this serious global challenge. We still have far too many anti-science ideologues polluting our government.) This is a problem that can only be confronted and solved collectively, and much work remains to be done.

Nevertheless, on this solstice season, we have seen the way leading to the future, and there is still reason to hope. Like almost all the problems we face, this is one where we lack neither the ability nor the resources. All we need is the will of the global community of nations and of humankind itself.