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.

Inspired by an interview on a recent episode of Freethought Radio, I want to talk about a term that greatly annoys me: "values voters". This term is used by American religious conservatives to describe themselves, and all too often, we see the media playing along and using it to describe this voting bloc as well.

"Values voters" is widely understood to refer to the heavily religious Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, who reliably vote Republican. This group generally supports the war in Iraq, opposes social welfare programs, advocates government support of religion and abstinence-only education in public schools, and favors outlawing abortion, gay adoption, and gay marriage. It's a term invented by conservative religious strategists to frame the issue in a way favorable to their side, similar to the way Republican politicians speak of the "death tax" rather than the "estate tax" (the latter term is far more accurate, since this is not a tax levied on all people at death, but only on multimillion-dollar estates).

I find this term to be incredibly arrogant, insofar as it implies that the religious right is the only group that has values which guide its decisions in the voting booth. This is not just false, it's absurd. Does the religious right have a monopoly on "values"? Of course not. Every political faction has a set of values which guide its decisions and policy stances. I value equality under the law for all people, sustainable use of the environment, showing compassion for the needy, defending science and reason, and keeping church and state separate. I choose candidates to vote for based on these values. Why am I not a "values voter"?

Even more common among religious conservatives, and even more arrogant and offensive, are the terms "pro-life" and "pro-family". These terms signify opposition to legal abortion and opposition to gay marriage, respectively. But here, too, the religious right has taken positive terms of general applicability and tried to claim exclusive ownership of them by associating them solely with their political positions.

Of course, the progressive side does this too, such as with "pro-choice". Arguably, however, in this case the term is more accurate, because it does delineate a clear difference between the two sides. When it comes to abortion, some people are pro-choice; they believe that whether to have an abortion or not should be the choice of the woman. Other people are not pro-choice; they believe that the woman should not be permitted to choose.

When it comes to "pro-life", however, the distinction is less clear. Obviously, we who support abortion rights are not opposed to life. Life is a wonderful thing! When a child is wanted, and the parents are capable and prepared, a birth is a joyous event that brings love and hope into a household. No one is disagreeing with that point. The only point of difference is whether a woman who sought to avoid pregnancy, but became pregnant anyway through accident or rape, should be forced to carry that pregnancy to term against her will. It's in that sad circumstance that we believe the bodily autonomy of the woman must be the overriding concern. Some countries, such as El Salvador, ban abortion even if the fetus has no chance of survival and the mother's life is gravely endangered by continued pregnancy (such as in an ectopic pregnancy). In that horrible scenario, we might wonder, who is really "pro-life"?

An even worse term is "pro-family". This term is a total inversion of the truth. When it comes to gay marriage and adoption, the people who usually style themselves "pro-family" are actually enemies of these families and are working their hardest to discriminate against them, outlaw them and tear them apart.

Consider the many U.S. states that have unconditionally banned gay people from acting as foster parents or adoptive parents, regardless of their qualifications or their ability to provide a stable, loving home environment. Evidently these anti-family crusaders would rather children have no home at all than that they have a home with a gay parent. Some religious conservatives, even more flagrant in their hateful prejudice, have proposed laws that would prevent gay people even from adopting children that were related to them. In one instance, the religious right proposed a law that would break up preexisting adoptions by gay parents that were performed legally in another state if the parents traveled through the state in question with their child.

The situation is the same with gay marriage. Members of the religious right want to deny gay people one of the most basic rights of all: the right of two people in love to have that relationship recognized and spend their lives together, with the same benefits we grant to heterosexual couples. The many state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage are bad enough, but this trend of bigotry goes beyond that. In many states, the religious right has worked to pass laws that forbid even private employers from offering domestic partner benefits to gay couples. It is truly evil for them to attempt to force all members of society to perpetuate their loathsome bigotry, even those who otherwise would not.

It's a vile lie for people who support such policies as this to call themselves "pro-family". The real pro-family groups are those who support all families, even those that do not fit the traditional model. People who try to wield the power of the state to break up and discriminate against certain kinds of families have no right to make such a claim.

As for me, I am both pro-life and pro-family. I think both life and families are good things that society should commit to supporting and encouraging. What I do not believe is that I have a license to force others to conform to my opinions or take away their autonomy so they don't do anything I disapprove of. This dictatorial attitude, more than anything else, is what guides the religious right, and the terms we use to describe them should reflect that truth.

A recent column by Katha Pollitt, The Atheist's Dilemma, laments how atheists would like to take away what people value and offer nothing in return:

But if all you can offer people is reasons to quit their religion—which also often means their community, their family, their support system and their identity—you're not going to have many takers. For every brilliant angry teenager you strengthen in doubt, there's a mosque- or churchful of people who'll choose the old-time religion if the only other choice is nothing.

I can't disagree with Pollitt's point as she phrases it. What I want to discuss instead is her apparent misconception that atheism offers no sense of community or social support system. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Admittedly, ten years ago, this would have been a fully valid concern. As recently as a few years ago, the atheist community was still embryonic, offering plenty of rhetoric and reasoned argument but little in the way of tangible support networks for the nonbeliever. And it's true that we have a lot of work left to do in this area. But when it comes to building a secular community, we've already made a great deal of progress.

Consider this recent report, Sunday School for Atheists. The article concerns the Humanist Community Center in Palo Alto, California, which has instituted a weekly class for the children of nonreligious and freethinking parents that gives students instruction in ethics and critical thinking. Similar community programs in other cities will begin next year.

The Palo Alto Sunday family program uses music, art and discussion to encourage personal expression, intellectual curiosity and collaboration. One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I'm Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home.

The article also notes the humanist summer camp, Camp Quest, which now has programs in five states and Canada, as well as the Carl Sagan Academy in Tampa, Florida, a public charter school dedicated to the principles of humanism.

Other humanist social programs are springing up elsewhere around the country. The Bostonist recently ran an article on the monthly social events organized by Boston Atheists, which include dining out, conversation and community. The organizers admit that getting atheists together can be like "herding cats", but they've shown dedication in their work toward building a true community. This is an effort that always takes time to reach critical mass, whether for atheists or for the religious, but their efforts toward creating an atheist "congregation" have already begun to bear fruit.

In addition to these programs and others like them, atheist and freethought groups continue to gain numbers and traction around the country and elsewhere in the world. Last month I filed my own report from the Center for Inquiry's diverse and well-attended 2007 convention. The Freedom from Religion Foundation recently had its own annual, even larger convention in Wisconsin with over 750 attendees, not to mention their Freethought Radio show going national. (I covered these developments and others in "Finding Our Voice", this past October.)

And when it comes to the most important aspect of building a secular community, namely raising families, atheists have not been slack either. There are wonderful books on humanist parenting, such as Parenting Beyond Belief, whose author I interviewed in March. Matt Cherry of the Institute for Humanist Studies supplies another excellent example, a "Welcome to the World" ceremony for his newborn twin daughters, held at the Atheist Alliance International convention last September.

Evidence like this shows that a secular community is taking shape. In true atheist fashion, it's organizing in a fashion that's spontaneous, decentralized, and dependent on no single authority, so its growth can be hard to track, but it is nevertheless happening. Granted, we have a long way left to go until there are freethought organizations even in every city, let alone in every town. But our movement is still very much brand-new, still finding its voice and defining itself, and the progress we have already made is an important clue that there will be more to come.

Religious people who believe their own spin sometimes erroneously conclude that the "new atheism" has nothing to offer but anger and vitriol. Since they're not looking for what they don't expect to find, they tend to overlook the nascent secular community, which is why Christian apologists like this one are puzzled by our success:

I wrote earlier this year about the new atheism and Richard Dawkins. I was hoping his form of aggressive and militant atheism would decline quickly. It is not happening.

In reality, atheism has much more to offer than just criticism of religion. Rationalism and naturalism can serve as a worldview in their own right, and the foundation for a true community of like-minded freethinkers. Inspiring stories like those of Jonathan Edwards, an Olympic athlete and former devoted Christian turned atheist, show that even as a purely individual movement, atheism offers great benefits:

The upheaval of recent months has not left Edwards emotionally scarred, at least not visibly. "I am not unhappy about the fact that there might not be a God," he says. "I don't feel that my life has a big, gaping hole in it. In some ways I feel more human than I ever have. There is more reality in my existence than when I was full-on as a believer. It is a completely different world to the one I inhabited for 37 years, so there are feelings of unfamiliarity.

"There have also been issues to address in terms of my relationships with family and friends, many of whom are Christians. But I feel internally happier than at any time of my life, more content within my own skin. Maybe it is because I am not viewing the world through a specific set of spectacles."

But in a true secular community, this sense of happiness and purpose could well be multiplied manyfold. We have all the reason in the world to encourage this budding society of free minds, and do our best to see that it continues to flourish and grow.

Last month, while I was on vacation in Puerto Rico, I had a chance to visit the great radio observatory at Arecibo. That was one of the highlights of my trip, but there was another.

Puerto Rico has the only tropical rainforest in the United States national park system. On the northeast coast of the islands, at the foot of the Luquillo Mountains, is the 28,000-acre preserve of El Yunque National Forest. Set aside in 1876 by the Spanish king Alfonso XII, El Yunque is one of the oldest nature reserves in the Western Hemisphere.

There wasn't the chance to do much hiking, but even the paved roads in the park cut through deep jungle. The walkway leading into El Portal, the visitors' center, was elevated to treetop height, so visitors on their way in were at eye level with the canopy of the rainforest. The sunlight streaming down through the trees gave a gloriously beautiful cast to it all:

A view from the walkway into the treetops:

I did my best, but I doubt any camera could capture the most overwhelming impression of the forest: the sheer sense of rich, exuberant life, unbounded in its creativity. Every ecological niche was filled by an exultant diversity of species, living side by side in a dense, thriving tangle abounding with interaction and competition. Everywhere you looked, there were whole ecological communities in miniature - in the steaming light of the trees' high branches, in the cool, mossy damp at their feet, in the crumbling remnants of fallen logs - like a fractal web of life, revealing more scales of complexity the deeper your search goes. In all of Earth's multibillion-year history, the tropical rainforest is likely the richest and most diverse ecosystem that has ever existed. Standing beneath the tall trees' cathedral light, it wasn't at all difficult to believe that.

Of course, not all the rainforest's countless interactions are harmonious. Despite the environment's richness - or more accurately, because of its richness - life in El Yunque is a constant struggle, a silent battle being waged on every scale of space and time. Individuals of different species, and of the same species, are always fiercely thrusting each other aside, striving for space, for light, for nutrients, for water. In the midday silence of the forest, it almost seemed possible to hear natural selection: a quiet, relentless ratcheting pressure on every side, like the grinding of interlocking gears. In the cauldron of the forest, gene frequencies are shifting, mutations arising, and new innovations being born in the great evolutionary chess game of move and countermove. Sadly, it's a conflict that many of the native species are losing: some of the most common plant species to be seen in El Yunque, including bamboo and palm trees, are alien interlopers, introduced either deliberately or accidentally and now thriving at the expense of the natives.

There was one feature of my trip there that I treasure above all others. While we were at the visitors' center, the thing that I had been hoping for happened: it started to rain. (Admittedly, not a rare event in a place that gets 240 inches of rain each year.) The visitors' center was like a long passageway with a high, vaulted ceiling: open to the air, but with a roof, so there was no need to get rained on. However, I wanted to be rained on.

I stood on an outlook overseeing the endless green of the forest and the shimmering blue of the ocean in the distance beyond, and let the rain come. It was a gentle shower, not a hammering deluge: the kind of rainfall that comes on sunny spring days and soon passes by, leaving the world washed in glistening brightness. In the humid, earthy heat of the forest, it was welcoming, warm like lifeblood. As the rain fell on me, I reached out and brushed the broad, dripping leaf of a tree growing within reach of the balcony, and thought of the unbroken chain of generations that united us both with our long-gone common ancestor.

It wasn't long before the rain cleared and the sun returned. But the memory of that shower is still with me; even now, I know, I carry some of those molecules of water in my skin. And as far as I'm concerned, the priests in their dusty churches can keep their silly, self-important dabblings and splashings. Let them persist in their delusion that muttering archaic words over a basin of water makes it specially holy. I've stood beneath the sweet sacred rain of El Yunque, and I think it was a finer baptism than any that human beings have yet invented.

And yet, I think I understand those believers a little better now. I think what I felt was the origin of the religious doctrine of immanence, the belief that God's spirit imbues the things of the natural world. But I think the theologians who invented this concept have misconstrued its origin. Before an awe-inspiring natural landscape, we imagine that we feel a vast love surrounding us - and, in fact, we do. But it's not God's love surrounding us from outside, as many religious believers would have it. What it is, instead, is our own love for the world, projected outward. It's the rapture of being alive, of realizing our true depth of interconnection and solidarity with all living beings, that priests and churches try to recapture with ritual and ceremony. But their efforts are, at best, a pale shadow of the real thing.

If more people knew what this feeling really is and what really causes it, we might be able to foster a true sense of human spirituality: one that captures what is best in the religious impulse, without tying it to the barren earth of ancient myth and superstition. My brief time beneath the living green of El Yunque persuades me that it is possible. I only wonder if enough people can be brought to the same realization while there are still places like this left.

This Thursday, November 22, is - at least for my American readers - the holiday of Thanksgiving. Despite the religious connotations that have been attached to this day since the beginning, I think this is a good holiday for atheists. It's one of the few whose message can be rendered in entirely secular terms. Thanksgiving as traditionally practiced is a time to come together with family and friends, to enjoy the simple pleasures of life's abundance, and to give thanks for all the good that has come to us. All of these are things that an atheist should be able to do just as well as anyone else.

Sadly, atheists still face misunderstanding from a hostile religious public. Around this time last year, a Christian visitor left the following comment in the thread "An Atheist Dinner Benediction":

What's the point in thanking people that you don't know? Will your niceness somehow come back to you by some psychic force of the cosmos?

An atheist's answer to the latter question is no, of course. We do not give thanks because, by some cosmic law of karma, our gratitude finds its way back to the giver and magically influences their life. Nor do we do it to earn merit points in some unseen deity's gradebook. Instead, we give thanks for the most basic and humanist of reasons: because it teaches us to be mindful of the contributions others have made to ease our lives, and encourages us to show others that same consideration in turn. A person who's aware of how greatly their well-being depends on the good will of others, and whose actions reflect that understanding, is apt to be kinder, more generous and more moral than a person who selfishly and wrongly imagines that they owe nothing to anyone.

On the other hand, while I think humans should be grateful to each other for the good we've received at others' hands, I don't think it serves any useful purpose to thank God. After all, there's no evidence whatsoever of a deity intervening in our lives to grant us good fortune. As far as the evidence shows, the natural world contains no external consciousness, only the winds of chance that sometimes blow in our favor and sometimes against. There's no reason to believe that there is any higher power to whom we owe a debt.

Worse, when religious believers get in the habit of thanking God for every good that comes their way, I think it tends to make them less compassionate than their fellow human beings. For those who believe that God ultimately directs every action that unfolds in accordance with his hidden plan, there's little reason to believe that human beings played any role in getting us to where we are in life. God made it happen because he wanted it that way, and humans are at best his tools, his puppets. The ingratitude shown by those who give God the credit for every good thing that happens to them leads to an attitude that's disrespectful and dismissive toward the effort of human beings.

There's a classic guest essay on Ebon Musings, "The Work Gods Are Too Busy to Tend To", written by an atheist and former member of the U.S. Coast Guard who performed dangerous rescues for eight years in the treacherous waters off New England:

In contrast, I have heard a number of people exclaim, "Thank God you came." I wanted to puke every time I heard that. A god had nothing to do with my crew and me being there. A god was not helping us save them at the risk of our own lives. Our skill, training and luck is what saved them, not some mythical being.

The other classic example of this phenomenon is those who go in for some risky surgery or medical procedure, pull through, and then give all the credit to God for their survival, rather than thanking the human beings who made it possible: the hard work and skill of their doctors, the dedication of those who trained them, and the painstaking labor of scientific research carried out by thousands of human beings over hundreds of years to learn how the body functions so that we can better repair it. At no step of the way did a god assist in this process. The labor and the effort were ours, and the credit should be ours as well. In this season of thanksgiving, if more people recognized that, it might bring about a change for the better in our world.

A few days ago, I had an e-mail query from an atheist looking for advice. I answered him as best as I was able, but his was a question that I think could benefit from some additional perspectives. With my correspondent's permission, I'm reprinting his query below. If you were in his situation, what would you do?

My wife is a Christian and I am an Atheist. We have two small children. She knows how I feel about religion and doesn't like it, but we have basically agreed to disagree. I do not try to convince her that her beliefs are false because I do not think she wants to hear it. Her family is Catholic and they do not know that I am an Atheist. Otherwise, we have a wonderful relationship and I love her dearly. However, recently, as I have been learning more and more about religion, it has become more and more difficult to keep my Atheism "in the closet" and hidden from her family. When we are at my in-laws' home and religious issues are being discussed, it is very hard for me to keep my thoughts to myself. I really want to let the world know that I am an Atheist and that Atheism is the answer. However, I also know how much my wife wants her parents and siblings to continue liking me and this would pretty much keep that from ever happening. I also know that my wife is an intelligent lady, but she knows very little about Atheism or even her own religion. She has simply clung to Christianity because that is what her family believes and that is what she finds comfortable. I do not want to cause her little world to come crashing down, but at the same time, I hate pretending to believe in something that I know is false. Don't get me wrong, I do not want to start fights with her family or argue about whose right and whose wrong, I just want to disassociate myself with Christianity.

What do you suggest?

First of all, I think my correspondent is wise to fear a prejudiced reaction. Atheists are more visible than we once were, but no matter how many millions of books Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris sell, there will be millions more believers who have never read them, never heard atheists speak in our own words, and know us only as objects of calumny from their sermons.

On the other hand, the only way we'll ever combat those stereotypes is by stepping out and becoming visible, showing others that we exist and are not the misanthropes we have been demonized as. For this reason, I encourage all atheists whose situations permit it to come out of the closet and declare themselves, and I applaud my correspondent for wanting to do so. At the same time, I sympathize with his desire not to provoke fights. Our purpose in coming out should be to make friends, not enemies. And while many religious people perceive the mere existence of atheists as an insult, I think this hostile reaction can be defused if done with sufficient candor and tact.

I've reprinted below the answer that I gave. If you want to expand on it or offer an alternative, feel free either way.

You said you didn't want to start a fight with your in-laws, and I don't think you have to. The next time you're there and religious issues come up, especially if someone makes a comment that thoughtlessly assumes you're a Christian, I'd just say something like, "Thank you for your concern, but actually I'm an atheist, and here's what I think..." Then give your opinion - not hostile or combative, but a simple statement of what you feel and why. If someone attacks you, defend yourself, but don't get angry or confrontational and don't try to convert them; just emphasize that you're still a good, moral person, like most atheists. If people get agitated, I'd tell them politely that I won't discuss this any more right now, and give them a chance to cool down. If you do this and stick to it, over time they may come to accept you.

Or, another thought: it might be even better for you to arrange for your wife to mention your atheism. Having her break this news to her parents, rather than you, may soften the blow for them.

I stepped out of my house today on a chilly fall afternoon. After an unseasonably late warm spell, as if summer had lingered this year past its appointed time, autumn had arrived at last. The feel of the season was in the air: the misty cool, the forests defiantly ablaze with fiery color, the smell of fallen leaves, wet black and rusty gold, in the grass. There was a sense of hunkering down, of quiet activity in the stillness, as nature prepares for the coming winter foreshadowed in the bare gray branches of the trees.

In autumn, the mind turns naturally to impermanence. I've written about death from an atheist perspective before, but that was several years ago, and this seemed like an appropriate season to revisit the topic.

We must face the facts: our lives, in the grand scheme of things, are short. Like the leaves falling from the tree, we bloom, flourish, and inevitably wither. Vast expanses of time preceded each of us, and equally vast expanses of time will follow us. We were not there, will not be there, to know what happens; we will never meet the people who inhabit those times, as they will never meet us. Our existence is, as Robert Ingersoll said, like a narrow vale between two cold and barren peaks.

And yet, in that narrow valley in between, there is a wondrous thing: a creature who exists, who lives, and who is conscious of that life and that existence. We reflect on the fact of our being and know ourselves for who and what we are. That by itself is a miracle so great that it outshines all the lesser miracles invented by human beings ever since.

Our lives are hedged about with mysteries, many of which are so vast we completely overlook them most of the time. What is the ultimate cause of our existence? Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing? Why do we have the natures we do, and not another? How does the ephemeral crackling of neural activity give rise to a self-aware mind with a sense of what things are like? These are all deep and profound mysteries, and we should not trivialize them. Our species is still young, and we know, at most, a tiny fraction of all there is to know. There are whole lands of knowledge we have barely glimpsed in the distance. Given the limitations we are still under, it would be more than wise to keep an attitude of humility when facing all that we don't yet know.

But our limitation cuts both ways. Religious people often invoke the admittedly imperfect state of human knowledge as reason to believe in God, but the fact remains that their knowledge is just as imperfect and their vision just as limited as anyone else's. Why, then, should we trust them when they claim to have penetrated to the fundamental truths of our existence? What makes them so confident that they have already solved the deepest questions about who we are and why we are here? For, whether they admit it or not, that is precisely what they are claiming.

Apologists through the ages have extolled the beauty of religious myths and origin stories. And I suppose if one views them as imaginative collections of imagery, like poetry or folk tales, there is a kind of antique charm about them. But as actual, honest-to-goodness answers for the most profound mysteries of our existence, I find that they fall far short. When measured against the unimaginable expanses of space and time, against the staggering glories of the cosmos as we so far comprehend it, the stories of religion are so trite, so superficial, so small. Their childlike arrogance in imagining that we are the very center of creation is a dead giveaway to their origins in human imagination and ignorance.

In the face of our imperfect knowledge, what we need is humility and a candid admission of our ignorance. We do not need anyone pretending they know all the answers and dignifying that pretending with the name of "faith". The mysteries we confront are far deeper than that, far too profound to admit of such shallow, simplistic, easily disproven answers. In truth, they are not answers at all; they are baubles, little diversions, stories invented for the comfort of children.

Even more absurd, in my view, is the oft-heard claim that only religion can hope to offer answers to these mysteries - that once we stand on that horizon, we must forsake reason and turn to faith. Richard Dawkins relates an example of this belief, and its refutation, in his book A Devil's Chaplain:

"I once asked a distinguished astronomer, a fellow of my college, to explain the Big Bang to me. He did so to the best of his (and my) ability, and I then asked what it was about the fundamental laws of physics that made the spontaneous origin of space and time possible. 'Ah,' he smiled, 'Now we move beyond the realm of science. This is where I have to hand over to our good friend the Chaplain.' But why the Chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef?" (p.149)

The fundamental questions of our existence stand before us, like a doorway to a vast and unknown realm. But that doorway is the common property of all humankind. We all have the right to look up at it in awe, to run our hands over its massive stones searching for keyholes. There is no clergyman serving as a gatekeeper, no velvet rope before the door limiting access to supplicants who come in the name of faith. If anything, it is only the application of reason that has levered it open even the tiny crack it has so far been opened up.

An even better analogy, to my mind, is this: It's as if the self-appointed spokesmen of religion have hung tattered fragments of brocade on these great gates and then proclaimed that they own the things themselves. Not so! We, atheists, see that sham for what it is. We see through your fragile trappings, and we know that you are not the sole possessors of these gates. We know that you are just as ignorant of what lies beyond them as any of us. And while we may not know what the answers are, that doesn't mean we can't see what the answers aren't.

Even the few, halting steps we have taken under the guidance of reason have revealed to us a wealth of knowledge and wonder, a world such as we never dreamed of in all our long childhood. What we have now are at best a few grains of the truth, a few sparks struck from its unseen surface. Yet they show us the way to go on, and give us confidence that the true answers, whatever they turn out to be, will be stranger, more awe-inspiring, and more wondrous and beautiful than anything we could have ever imagined. That great door may only be open the slightest hairline crack, but there is light streaming through that crack, and faint music coming from beyond.

And so I say, brush aside those fragile trappings. Pay no mind to the people who insist we already know everything, that the deepest answers have already been revealed. Ignore the flimsy and tattered scripts they offer. Those things are thin gruel for the hungry, when solid food is available.

Instead, join us in joyous acceptance of our humility, and exult in the awed recognition of how much there is still left to learn. And then, if the desire moves you, take up the tools we have and use them to strike a few more sparks from that surface. Merely to be able to attempt this is a noble privilege. But greater still will be the day when that door finally opens - whether it be in our lifetime or a million lifetimes from now - and when that day comes, all who step through will know that your work, no less than anyone else's, brought us to that glorious threshold.