Phil Zuckerman is the author of Society Without God and the forthcoming book Faith No More: How and Why People Reject Religion.

He spoke at the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s convention last November and a transcript of his talk is now available online in the most recent issue of Freethought Today.

In it, he listed (in no particular order) the Top 10 good things about being godless:

1. Secularity is on the rise in the U.S. and throughout much of the world.
2. Godless people and secular people are less sexist, less chauvinistic and much more supportive of women’s rights.
3. We are more tolerant and accepting of others not like us.
4. We are better educated and maybe even a little bit smarter.
5. The godless are less homophobic.
6. We are more moral and more ethical.
7. Atheists experience and enjoy more oral sex than religious people do.
8. We are better parents.
9. When there are a lot of us in one place or one nation or one state or one group, the result is societal success and well being.
10. We’re just better looking.

Obviously, some of those items are tongue-in-cheek, some are debatable, and some are very serious. Before commenting on any of them, check out how Zuckerman defends each item in the actual piece, since he goes into quite a bit of depth.

Madeline Kara Neumann died unnecessarily a couple years ago because her parents prayed for her recovery from ketoacidosis instead of taking her to a doctor. The whole tragedy shed light on the exemptions given to religious parents under Wisconsin law.

As it now stands, her parents have to spend a month in jail every year for six years.

Under current Wisconsin law, parents can’t be found guilty of child abuse if they choose spiritual treatment rather than medicine or surgery.

Now, that could finally change:

State lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow prosecutors to charge parents who refuse medical help for their children on religious grounds with child abuse.

Rep. Terese Berceau (D-Madison) introduced a bill that “would eliminate a provision in state law allowing parents to withhold medical treatment if they believe that prayer is sufficient to heal their children.”

Yesterday, an informational hearing on the bill took place in the Committee on Children and Families.

It may have taken a tragedy to get lawmakers to act, but at least something positive can now come from all this.

[Berceau] tells the Assembly Children and Families Committee children shouldn’t have to die for their parents’ beliefs. Joe Farkas, legislative liaison for Christian Science churches in Wisconsin, counters the bill is vague and raises questions about whether parents can teach their children religious values.

No one is questioning a parent’s right to teach religion. This is about that religion causing parents to physically harm their children and then getting off the hook.

There’s another bill sponsored by State Senator Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) also going through the Wisconsin senate that’s similar to this one, except for a notable difference:

While Taylor’s bill would remove the religious exemption from child abuse and neglect laws, it adds the exemption to the medical practices section of the criminal code, a more expansive section of the criminal code.

State prosecutors, health care professionals and child care advocates, among others, fear this new exemption would further harm children by extending the religious exemption to an even broader category of crimes, including homicide, abuse, recklessly endangering the safety of a child and criminal neglect.

I’m hoping it’s Berceau’s bill that goes into effect.

In both cases, though, it’s very clear that the religious exemptions for child abuse and neglect need to end. Wisconsin lawmakers should not hesitate in voting for Berceau’s bill.

(Thanks to Glenn for the link)

It’s a question that you have to ask anytime you hear pastors say something ridiculous: Do they really believe that? Sadly, the answer is usually yes… but it’s not always the case.

Author Daniel Dennett and clinical social worker Linda LaScola have interviewed several current pastors (current!) who have doubts about what they preach:

With the help of a grant from a small foundation, administered through Tufts University, we set out to find some closeted nonbelievers who would agree to be intensively — and, of course, confidentially–interviewed… For this pilot study we managed to identify five brave pastors, all still actively engaged with parishes, who were prepared to trust us with their stories. All five are Protestants, with master’s level seminary education. Three represented liberal denominations (the liberals) and two came from more conservative, evangelical traditions (the literals)

They admit this is a self-selected survey, but what is amazing is the fact that any — in fact, several — pastors don’t believe what they have made their living preaching.

I wanted to know where they found these pastors:

Ultimately, the five participants came from two sources: two from a list of clergy who had originally contacted the Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC) for general information, and three from people who had personally contacted Dan Barker, co-director of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

You can read what the pastors had to say here (PDF).

The quotations from the pastors are heartbreaking. In some cases, they’ve been entrenched in their faith for so long that they don’t know what else to do. As one pastor puts it, it’s like trying to switch your major when you’re so close to graduating: Why not just finish up what you started?

Once you’re locked into the role, it’s very difficult to leave.

Here’s what one pastor said:

“Here’s how I’m handling my job on Sunday mornings: I see it as play acting. I kind of see myself as taking on a role of a believer in a worship service, and performing. Because I know what to say. I know how to pray publicly. I can lead singing. I love singing. I don’t believe what I’m saying anymore in some of these songs. But I see it as taking on the role and performing. Maybe that’s what it takes for me to get myself through this, but that’s what I’m doing.”

He calls it acting. I call it being a hypocrite. He’s lying to himself and everyone in his church.

I know this isn’t the same thing, but I entered college planning on becoming a doctor. I was accepted into a special program that gave me a “free seat” in medical school right out of high school. If I maintained a certain undergrad GPA and earned a certain score on my MCATs, they’d retain my med school seat and I wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble of applying everywhere.

I did all that. And I went to med school. I honestly never even considered any other careers.

During that first year, my grades were fine, but the passion and interest I had just went away. I had been teaching MCAT classes full-time and I loved it.

Teaching made me really happy. Medicine stressed me out.

I couldn’t imagine leaving med school, though. How would I break that to my family? Everyone who knew me in high school knew I had wanted to become a doctor… hell, even if I wanted to become a teacher, I didn’t know how to go about making that happen.

Oh, and try telling your girlfriend that you’re thinking about leaving med school to become a teacher. Woo! That’s fun.

Anyway, I knew I had to do it or I’d regret it. I probably could’ve been a good doctor, but I’d always wonder about the alternatives.

I took a year off of school to explore teaching. I got certified. I moved home for a bit. I started working with atheist groups more. The eBay thing happened during that time off.

It took two (emotionally tough) years in all, but I eventually started teaching. It’s been three years now. I’m *so* glad I made the change.

I understand what it’s like to be in a position you feel trapped in… you have a lot of time and effort (and money) invested in your current life, and changing it is a big risk.

But if these pastors don’t believe what they’re preaching, they owe it to themselves and their congregations to step away and try something else.

…

Here’s what another pastor said:

He is planning to leave the ministry as soon he finds another way to support his family. He would leave sooner, if he had enough money to pay off his debts.

“If somebody said, ‘Here’s $200,000,’ I’d be turning my notice in this week, saying, ‘A month from now is my last Sunday.’ Because then I can pay off everything.”

In the meantime, he is quietly pursuing another career. His wife is aware of his plan to switch careers, but he hasn’t told her yet of his reason for the change. He thinks she will be both upset and supportive of whatever he wants to do. Mutual support has been the pattern in their marriage.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if an atheist group could offer a program for current pastors who wanted to leave their faith to get back on their feet in another line of work?

…

What do all these pastors have in common? The authors write:

The loneliness of non-believing pastors is extreme. They have no trusted confidantes to reassure them, to reflect their own musings back to them, to provide reality checks. As their profiles reveal, even their spouses are often unaware of their turmoil. Why don’t they resign their posts and find a new life? They are caught in a trap, cunningly designed to harness both their best intentions and their basest fears to the task of immobilizing them in their predicament. Their salaries are modest and the economic incentive is to stay in place, to hang on by their fingernails and wait for retirement when they get their pension.

They need help. They need to know it’s ok to leave the church. It may take a while to get back up on their feet, but there are other places out there that need their skills — communication, counseling, teaching, leading.

If you have some time, read this document.

And you can read what other commenters have to say about this general situation at On Faith.

The Detroit Coalition of Reason’s atheist bus ads were saying, “Don’t Believe in God? You’re Not Alone.”

Some vandals couldn’t deal with that message so they decided to change it themselves, presumbly to suit their own point of view:

“Acts like this give a striking reminder that our message is necessary,” said Ruthe Milan, coordinator of Detroit CoR. “Without a doubt, prejudice against atheists and agnostics is still very real in American life.”

…

“Because this has happened, we stand even more resolved in our goal of being outspoken about our ideas,” Milan added. “And we expect that this vandalism will convince even more nontheistic Detroiters that getting organized is important for the cause of religious liberty.”

The Detroit SMART bus company replaced the ads free of charge, which was the right thing to do.

Does anyone wonder if these petty criminals realize that their idiotic actions just give the ads more publicity…?

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Yeah, me neither.

Oh, sure, it makes no sense when you put it like *that*…

(via SMBC)

Why is a high school putting graduation prayers up for a vote?

It’s illegal, it’s unconstitutional, it’s… Indiana. That explains it.

Greenwood High School in Indianapolis seems to think this is ok.

Yet somehow, in the midst of an education system that can’t even understand the Constitution, they have produced at least one student who knows better:

The top-ranked senior at Greenwood High School is asking a federal judge to stop a graduation prayer that the class voted to approve.

The lawsuit by 18-year-old Eric Workman said the prayer and the vote unconstitutionally subject religious practice to majority rule.

How awesome is that.

The valedictorian is suing the school because he knows more about our legal system then the educators who allowed this bullshit to happen in the first place. Brilliant.

And you have to laugh at this passage:

The Rev. Shan Rutherford, pastor of Greenwood Christian Church for more than three decades, said he disagrees with the proposition that such a prayer would violate a student’s rights.

“If I lived in a Muslim nation, a Hindu nation or anything else, I would expect to go along with the majority,” Rutherford said. “He’s trying to go with minority rule. To me, that’s wrong in a democracy, one that was founded on Christian principles.”

“If you don’t agree, I don’t think you should try to stop other people from exercising their rights.”

So many problems here…

1) Who cares what a pastor has to say about a public school’s graduation?

2) Does anyone really believe he’d start praising Allah at a graduation ceremony if he lived in a Muslim nation?

3) We are not, and never have been, a Christian nation

4) No one is stopping individual students from “exercising their right” to pray. If they want to pray, let them pray. There’s just no need to give them a platform to explicitly practice their faith at a public ceremony.

5) If the pastor believes in going along with whatever the majority wants, does that mean he accepts evolution like just about all real scientists do?

If administrators and parents really wanted to hear Christian prayers during graduation, they should have gotten a job or enrolled their children in a private Christian school.

Public school is not the place to see anyone’s faith glorified.

There are ways to find loopholes in the system, of course, and some school have done that in the past. Instead of voting to hold a prayer, schools have allowed students to vote for a graduation speaker — and the individual speaker could deliver a prayer. Somehow, Greenwood High School didn’t get the memo on that.

Here’s hoping they lose the case. And I really hope some local paper publishes a transcript of Workman’s valedictorian speech.

Sounds like the young man knows what he’s doing and could educate his own community on standing up for what’s right.

If you’re interested, here’s a copy of the lawsuit he filed with the help of the ACLU.

(Thanks to Andrew for the link!)

The Foundation Beyond Belief (which I am on the board of) is an organization that encourages non-religious people to give to charity. In fact, we support a variety of charity categories:

• Health
• Poverty
• Environment
• Education
• Peace
• Child Welfare
• Human Rights
• Freedom of Expression
• Animal Protection
• A featured small charity

One of the most difficult (yet worthwhile) tasks for members is choosing which charities should receive funding during each quarter.

To accomplish this, we’re looking for volunteers to help us out in the different areas:

Though the Board chooses the final slate of beneficiaries each quarter, member input is among the most important considerations. If you are a registered member of the Foundation with a special interest in one or more of the cause areas we support, consider joining one of our Charity Research Teams to help assess nominated charities. No experience is necessary, and no specific time commitment is expected.

You do have to be a FBB member to be part of this group — but that’s not a bad thing. You should already be contributing! I do it each month and it’s a good feeling to know you’re giving to such worthy causes.

If you’re interested in helping out, just fill out this form, visit the forums to find the causes you care about, and start working with us!

Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern — the man responsible for introducing the ridiculous €25,000 fine for blasphemy — may now be suggesting the government get rid of it.

Dermot Ahern, the justice minister, is proposing that a vote to remove the criminal offence of blasphemy be held as part of a planned series of referendums this autumn, writes Stephen O’Brien.

…

A final decision on a blasphemy referendum rests with the cabinet, but if Ahern remains justice minister after this month’s reshuffle, he is likely to propose that it be added to the autumn list.

I think Michael Nugent and the members of Atheist Ireland deserve credit for reminding everybody about the absurdity of this law — as soon as it was passed, they put 25 “blasphemous” quotations on their website — and they’ll keep the pressure on until it is revoked:

Atheist Ireland thanks everyone who has helped to make the campaign against this new law as effective as it has been to date. It is now important we maintain the pressure on this issue to ensure that the referendum happens as proposed and, more importantly, that it is won.

We reiterate our position that this law is both silly and dangerous: silly because it is introducing medieval canon law offence into a modern plularist republic; and dangerous because it incentives religious outrage and because its wording has already been adopted by Islamic States as part of their campaign to make blasphemy a crime internationally.

Good riddance to pointless laws and victimless “crimes.”

Sean Faircloth, the executive director of Secular Coalition for America, has now announced publicly what his vision is for the future of our movement at least as it pertains to the SCA.

The last bit (emphasis mine) is the part I’m most interested about:

First, national reporters will instinctively seek quotes and analysis from SCA about public policies that privilege religion — just as now they seek quotes from the ACLU on civil liberties. Soon after, our stands on issues such as the protection of children from religiously-based abuse, military discrimination and emergency contraception will be automatically understood by the general media to be a call for civil rights and justice based on a compassionate adherence to a rational worldview. We’ll see thousands more people become active, dues-paying members of our ten coalition organizations, spurred by the enthusiasm and pride that comes from joining a great movement for justice. By 2019, we will help see to it that ten or more members of Congress will state publicly they are nontheist — just as Representative Pete Stark did in 2007 as the first-ever member of Congress to “come out” as not believing in higher power.

I don’t know how possible that is, but I think if it happened, it would be the most important step up for secular Americans in the foreseeable future — seeing people who think like we do, in elected office, openly admitting that they don’t believe in a god.

It would also be nice to see those people admitting as much before they get elected to public office — getting elected in spite of their non-theism. Hell, getting elected partially because of their non-theism. How incredible would it be to not have that taboo of atheists being unelectable?

Sean mentions some tactics he is pursuing to help achieve his goals. One of them includes instituting an internship program on Capitol Hill. The Secular Student Alliance is working alongside SCA to make that happen. We want young atheists to get more interested in politics, enough that they’ll run for office in the future. Not all of them will win their races, but some just might.

I’m not saying they should make policies in favor of atheists. I’m also not saying they should side with the Democrats in all instances. But it would be refreshing to have people in government who we know think rationally about at least the “god” issue, perhaps the most important issue of all.

Do you think Sean’s goals are achievable?