Category Archives: Atheism

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Introduction: Deconversion stories are accounts of an atheist or agnosticsodyssey from some form of Christianity to atheism or agnosticism. Since these are public (else I wouldnt know about them in the first place), its reasonable to assume that they are more than merely subjective / personal matters, that have no bearing on anyone else. No; it is assumed (it seems to me) that these stories are thought to offer rationales of various sorts for others to also become atheists or to be more confirmed in their own atheism. This being the case, since they are public critiques of Christianity (hence, fair game for public criticism), as a Christian (Catholic) apologist, I have a few thoughts in counter-reply.

I am not questioning the sincerity of these persons or the truthfulness of their self-reports, or any anguish that they went through. I accept their words at face value. Im not arguing that they are terrible, evil people (thats a childs game). My sole interest is in showing if and where certain portions of these deconversion stories contain fallacious or non-factual elements: where they fail to make a point against Christianity (what Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls defeating the defeaters), or misrepresent (usually unwittingly) Christianity as a whole, or the Bible, etc.

As always, feedback on my blog (especially from the persons critiqued) is highly encouraged, and I will contact, out of basic courtesy, everyone whose story I have critiqued. All atheists are treated with courtesy and respect on my blog. If someone doesnt do so, I reprimand them, and ban them if they persist in their insults.

When I cite the stories themselves, the words will be in blue.

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Today, I am responding to Real Deconversion Story #14 Anthony Toohey (12-5-16), hosted on Jonathan MS Pearces A Tippling Philosopher web page at Patheos (where my blog is also hosted).

With . . . Duanes promise that all of the confusing stuff Id heard about salvation and redemption in my Catholic upbringing was wrong, that it all came down to Believe and Be Saved Well that was enough for me. I did, and as far as I knew, I was.

Anthony stated that he went to after-school catechism. This created a fascination in me for the bible and for the mystical/spiritual aspects of Christianity. But we dont know how much he actually knew about Catholicism . . . seemingly not all that much, if he could forsake it merely because ofa Bible trivia game and the usual ignorant Chick Tract-like anti-Catholic sermonizing. Hence, he appears to have been like many millions of insufficiently catechized Catholics: almost to a person unfamiliar with apologetics, or the reasons why Catholics believe as they do. This is a common theme running through deconversion stories: either relative or profound ignorance of ones own Christian affiliations. If we dont know why we believe whatever have no reasons for it , then obviously we are easy targets of those who would dissuade us from our shallow, non-rational beliefs.

He talks about how the Santa Cruz Christian Church (I tried to find it on Google and was unsuccessful) gave him and his fiancee advice, causing him to call off their engagement. But this is hardly grounds to blame Christianity, because one church practiced what he rightlydescribes as spiritual abuse. As so often in these stories, one extreme sect is universalized to all of Christianity, as if it is representative of that whole. Atheists reading such gory details sit there lamenting, see what rascals and morons those damned Christians are! So glad I came to my senses and left it. Best thing I ever did . . . They never seem to realize that one extreme and twisted version of Christianity is not the whole ball of wax. Basic category errors and logical fallacies, in other words . . . These things usually arent stated outright, but I would contend that they are the underlying strongly implied assumption.

Former Christian atheists often refer back to the years of abuse (real or alleged) that they went through. Hence, Anthony writes: It was not until after I left the faith and went back to examine my Christian life in light of my new viewpoint, that the gravity of what I had allowed to be done to us hit me. In this case, it was real abuse, but only from an extremist fringe sector of Christianity, which is no disproof of Christianity per se.

I bought the first pieces of my spiritual library. He and Theresa had already bought me a study bible. That day I bought a comprehensive concordance, a bible dictionary, an exhaustive cross-reference, a bible atlas, and, finally, Gleason ArchersEncyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

What?

I took Duane at his word, but inside, the title of that book put a cold shaft of fear inside me. How could Gods word have difficulties? What on earth was difficult about Gods revelation to mankind. I mean, hes God, right? And we have the spirit of God.

This is shallow, unreflective thinking. I can think of a number of sound, logical reasons why such a book would exist:

1. The Bible is a very lengthy, multi-faceted book by many authors, from long ago, with many literary genres, and cultural assumptions that are foreign to us.

2. The Bible purports to be revelation from an infinitely intelligent God. Thus (even though God simplifies it as much as possible), for us to think that it is an easy thing to immediately grasp and figure out, and would not have any number of difficulties for mere human beings to work through, is naive. The Bible itself teaches that authoritative teachers are necessary to properly understand it.

3. All grand theories have components (anomalies / difficulties) that need to be worked out and explained. For example, scientific theories do not purport to perfectly explain everything. They often have large mysterious areas that have to be resolved. Think of, for example, the missing links in evolution. That didnt stop people from believing in it. Folks believed in gradual Darwinian evolution even though prominent paleontologist and philosopher of science Stephen Jay Gould famously noted that gradualism was never read from the rocks. Even Einsteins theories werent totally confirmed by scientific experiment at first (later they were). That a book like the Bible would have difficulties to work through is perfectly obvious and unsurprising to me.

4. Most of the rationale of explaining Bible difficulties is not from a perspective that they are real difficulties, but rather, to show that purported difficulties really arent such. They are usually based on illogical thinking or unfamiliarity with biblical genre, etc. Many alleged biblical contradictions simply arent so, by the rules of logic.

5. The Foreword of the book by Kenneth S. Kantzer explains its rationale: [T]he faith of some troubled souls is hindered by misunderstanding the Scripture. They are confused by what seems to them to be false statements or self-contradiction. We need, therefore, to clear away such false obstacles to faith. (p. 8)

For these reasons, as an apologist and avid Bible student, Ive done quite a bit of writing on alleged Bible difficulties myself: found in the final section of my Bible & Tradition web page, and have analyzed relentlessly shoddy, illogical, fact-challenged atheist attempts to run down the Bible, in a section of my Atheism & Agnosticism page.

When I got home, I looked through some of the topics. Ill confess that, even then, it seemed very equivocating sort of a wordy hand-waving.

What is plausible and what isnt, is a very complicated matter itself. In any event, Anthony has simply talked about the book, and has not given any concrete examples that readers can judge for themselves. As such, this is simply no argument against Archers book, or against Christianity. All we know is that Anthony found it unconvincing. So what? Granted, accounts like this (or Christian conversion stories) cant argue every jot and tittle. But still, its good to point out what is actually an argument or evidence, and what isnt, lest anyone become confused over the nature of evidence pro or con.

Not being comforted by what I read, I usually ignored this book. Instead, I started reading about all the wrong religions.

We are what we eat. It looks like Anthony didnt even read Archers book all the way through. He seems to have quickly judged it, and moved on. But why should anyone think that his negative judgment and dismissal is infallible?

Anthony then talks about his struggles in the Christian life. All of this is perfectly understood and familiar to Christians. St. Paul himself talks about it in Romans 7, and then gives the solution in Romans 8. But that we all fall short and fail many times, in many ways, is not some big bombshell. Nor is it any argument against Christianity, because the latter teaches us to expect this. Faith is a lifelong struggle.

Im going to focus on the building string of doubts that led me to examine, and ultimately abandon, my faith.

Great. Lets see if they are compelling for any reader to think likewise.

. . . my wife was determined to complete her education. After getting eligible to transfer, she decided to attend San Jose State to get an accounting degree. While she was there, she took a class in the Religious History, and possibly one more focused on Western religion. The professor was also a pastor who was, to me, very liberal. He taught about the history of the development of the doctrine of hell. He taught how the prophets were used to enable rulers to motivate their soldiers to commit atrocities they would otherwise not ever consider. He taught the very human side of religion.

. . . It brought her faith deeply into question.

And so this is the oft-heard story. Christians go to college, get confronted with skeptical or atheist professors, in a very lopsided scenario, and lose their faith, if they are insufficiently equipped (i.e., lacking in apologetics knowledge: my field) to take on skeptical challenges to it. Again, we are what we eat. If she sat there and took in all this rotgut from the professor, and never read a Christian refutation of it, then why should anyone be surprised that she goes the route of the professor? One must read the best proponents of both sides of major disputes: not one side only or the best proponents of one side vs. the worst on the other (which is the usual atheist game: they love to wrangle with ignorant, uninformed Christians). This is why I love to have dialogues on my blog. I present the other persons words for my readers to see: and if not all of them, I always provide a link and urge them to read the whole article, and then see my response.

We attended a bible study. By our second or third time, she was asking more questions. I dont remember the last question she asked, but it froze the room. You could have heard a pin drop. She got a soft-shoed answer and the pastor rushed past it as quickly as he could.

Unfortunately, many pastors and priests are as undereducated in apologetics as the laypeople.

She never went to church again. She announced she was agnostic and didnt believe what I believed.

All we know about her story is that she heard some skeptical stuff, started asking hard questions that were unanswered. We dont know whether she actually took the time to read good Christian apologetics or philosophy. Consequently, there is nothing there that should persuade any other Christian to cease being so.

It is a fact that people, to an overwhelming degree, adopt the religious tradition of their culture. To them it is accepted fact.

Sociologically, that is very true. The problem with making it an exclusively anti-Christianity argument, however, is that atheists act in largely the same way. Thats why kids lose their Christian faith in college. Theyre surrounded by liberal, skeptical or atheist professors who undermine their faith and dont give both sides of the story (i.e., they are immersed in a different culture, and so unsurprisingly adopt it). The smart people seem to be against Christianity in that environment, and the few informed Christians are too scared to speak out (and today are even shut up and shouted down). No one wants to be seen as the oddball or outsider, so they lose their faith: not usually because of objective intellectual inquiry and reading the best of both worldviews, but because of sheer peer pressure and being subjected to one view (propaganda) over and over. They become politically liberal for the same reason.

Atheists like to think that they arrive at their view solely through reason, while Christians soak in theirs from their mothers milk. But atheists are just as subject to peer pressure and environmental influence as anyone else. Most worldviews (whether Christian or atheist) are arrived at far more for social (and emotional) reasons than intellectual. I cant emphasize it enough: we are what we eat.

Because of this cultural indoctrination, the only way to objectively examine your faith is to take the position of an outsider from a different culture and examine your faith with the same level of skepticism you treat other religions.

Conversely,the only way to objectively examine ones atheism is to interact withan outsider from Christianity(someone like me, willing and able to do it) and examine your axioms and premiseswith the same level of skepticism that onetreats Christianity. I am offering Anthony and any other atheist the opportunity to do that in this very paper.

There was a point during my cycle of failure and repentance that I wondered why on earth I would rush to the writings of Paul (specifically Romans 5-8) to restore my spirit rather than to Jesus. One was an apostle, but one was actually God, as I understood it. The modern salvation transaction as were taught it was never all that clear in Pauls writings, and not at all in the words attributed to Jesus.

That is, the fundamentalist Protestant version of salvation, which is out of touch with even historic Protestantism, let alone Catholicism and Orthodoxy . . . I agree that this warped version is never taught by either Jesus or St. Paul.

So I began to spend more time with the words of Jesus, thinking that if I cant find what I need from the words of my god walking upon the earth, the words of an apostle would not help me. To shorten the story, reading the words attributed to Jesus turned me into a social liberal. The Jesus in the bible is compassionate to the poor, destitute, and irredeemable, in stark contrast to the modern Christian, who, if they follow the culture, would sooner tell the poor to get a job and wave the flag of meritocratic individualism.

Pitting Paul against Jesus is plain silly. There is no essential difference in what they taught (which is perhaps why Anthony never provides any example of such alleged divergence). They simply taught in different ways. Jesus was the storyteller: more like a pastor (therefore, much better understood by the common man), whereas Paul was systematic and more abstract: like a theologian or academic: more like philosophy. But making false dichotomies is very typical of the sort of Protestant milieu that Anthony was part of.

The next issue I faced was the issue of evolution. I was a Young Earther, but the more I read, the more I realized that the science wasnt a conspiracy, but rather an accurate representation of the way the world actually worked. But it didnt lead to my faith deserting me. All truth is Gods truth. I figured, therefore, that Genesis was an allegory. My theory was that as long as Christ rose from the dead, then Christianity was true. It wouldnt matter if Genesis was an allegory or literal. Jesus = salvation. The rest is interpretation.

In the same vein, I decided the flood of Noah was also allegory, as it was scientifically impossible. Australia itself stands as a testament to the unreality of it.

This is very typical of many deconversion stories, where the person came out of fundamentalism. Anthony was a young-earther. I never was that, nor was I ever a fundamentalist or anti-science in my evangelical days (1977-1990). But the solution to these errors is not to ditch any literalism in the Bible and go to an all-allegorical position. The solution is to recognize that the Bible contains many genres of literature, and to determine which is occurring in a particular place. Thats how normal language and literature work. The problem is that fundamentalists and skeptics alike start treating the Bible as if it isnt subject to the normal rules of interpretation of literature. And so Anthony was knee-jerk and simplistic regarding the Bible. He went from one extreme error to another on the opposite side of the spectrum.

There are, of course, many old-earth evolutionist Christians. They simply believe that God had some hand in the process of evolution. The choice isnt godless, materialistic atheism vs. young-earth creationism. I denied the universality of Noahs flood over 30 years ago, as a result of reading a Christian book about science (by Baptist scholar Bernard Ramm). Why should that cause anyone to lose their Christian faith, pray tell?

So being in this strange place, with only the resurrection of Jesus Christ to keep me in the fold, I came to a full on crisis of faith. I wont go heavily into it now, . . .

He can, of course, divulge whatever he wants, but the fact remains that we are given no solid, compelling, cogent reasons why he should have forsaken Christianity, or why anyone else should do so. Because he was a fundamentalist extremist, those who never were that (like myself) should also leave Christianity: even the forms of it vastly essentially different from Anthonys anti-intellectual fundamentalism?

I searched for the best apologetics book I could find, settling on Norman GeislersI Dont Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

I commend him for at least reading one book from the Christian perspective, against atheism. Of course, different authors have different emphases, styles, and particular philosophies. So it may have simply been a case where Geisler (a fine apologist) wasnt a good fit for him.

I gave God first shot at me and read Geisler. I expected to be strengthened steeled for my encounter with the atheist, able to find a way to keep my faith and work on my anger. Instead I took 30 pages (steno pad) of notes. I could easily formulate my wifes answers to his arguments without even trying. I was disappointed and borderline devastated. I read Loftuss book. Another 20 pages of notes later I set down his book and realized that 1) I didnt know what I did believe, and 2) I was sure it wasnt the god of the bible.

So John Loftus did the trick.

I was unmoored. I tried another apologist, thinking that maybe Geisler wasnt the best to read. Loftus had referenced William Lane Craig, so I started reading one of his books. About 40% of the way through, I gave up. It was over.I sat at my desk and said to myself, Im an atheist. And here I am today.

Craig is also a fine Christian thinker and debater. But it also depends what particular place we are at in our thinking: how much we will be influenced.

I do wonder why if John Loftus atheist polemics are so compelling , he is so extremely hyper-sensitive (and I do not exaggerate at all, believe me) to any critique of them? I have examinedhis outsider test of faith argument (ten years ago), some of his irrational criticisms of the Bible, and his story, and he went ballistic. This hardly suggests a confident atheism, willing to take on all critiques:

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Loftus is very much like the preacher that is often maligned in atheist deconversion accounts: the guy who loves to hear himself talk, unopposed, who wilts at the first counter-challenge. That has always been what John Loftus does, in my experience. And he has a colorful set of epithets and insults, too, that he sent my way for having the audacity to challenge him in his infallible wisdom. If his atheist apologetic is so unvanquishable, let him stand up and defend it like a man and honest thinker. But (at least with me) he has never done so. Thus, I am utterly unimpressed by his thinking (and demeanor). I have atheist friends who are embarrassed by him, because he conducts himself like such a rude and pompous ass. Hes not exactly a good representative or figurehead for atheism.

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In conclusion, I dont see anything here in this deconversion story that would compel anyone else to forsake Christianity. At best it is an account that raises serious questions about extreme fundamentalist Christianity, which I fully agree with. But since that is merely one fringe element of Christianity, it is irrelevant as to the truthfulness of larger Christianity, let alone atheism as a supposedly superior and more rational and cogent alternative worldview.

Go here to see the original:
Atheist Deconversion Story Series #1: Anthony Toohey - Patheos (blog)

Marie Alena Castle is the communications director for Atheists for Human Rights. Raised Roman Catholic she became an atheist later in life. She has since been an important figure in the atheistmovement through her involvement with Minnesota Atheists, The Moral Atheist,National Organization for Women, andwrote Culture Wars: The Threat to Your Family and Your Freedom (2013). She has a lifetime of knowledge and activist experience, explored and crystallized in an educational series. The first part of this series can be found here Session 1and Session 2.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Even with groups such as NARAL, NOW, and Planned Parenthood, the onslaught against womens rights, reproductive rights and so on, continue to take place. The most vulnerable poor and minority women tend to be the main victims, and so their children and the associated families and so communities. In a sequence, I see attacks on womens reproductive rights as attacks on women, children, so families, and so communities, and therefore ordinary American citizens. What can be some buffers, or defenses, against these direct attacks on the new media and communications technologies, e.g. to educate and inoculate new generations?

Marie Alena Castle:

Jacobsen: Who are the unknown womens rights heroes, men and women, that people should more into to self-educate?

Castle:They are the people who work at abortion clinics. They all have stories to tell. One of my friends managed a clinic and she was constantly threatened with violence and pickets at her house. I went there a few times to help in case the picketers got violent. One August I suggested she hook up her garden hose to a bottle of sugar water and set it to spray on the picketers and attract hordes of hornets. She wouldnt do it but I would have. The leader of the picketers was the local fire department chief (with expert knowledge of how to set her house on fire). She wanted to move but dared not for fear the fire chief would send a potential buyer to case the house for fire-setting purposes. She needed some carpentry done but feared getting someone she didnt know who would have a violent anti-abortion agenda. I got an atheist carpenter friend for her who was reliably safe.

Jacobsen: Once the shoe bites, people then become active, politically and socially, typically. These people can rise and protest in an organized and constructive way. Do you think this era of yes, alternative facts, but at the same time mass accessibility of information can hasten people realizing their shoe is being bitten, even when they werent aware before?

Castle:Lotsa luck on this. Most people really do assume that, as child bearers, women really are something of a public utility and in need of regulation. Why else would there be any discussion about how Roe v. Wade should be interpreted? What we need are new court challenges to Roe v. Wade that say it should be repealed and replaced with a ruling that says abortion is a medical matter to be handled by a woman and her doctor and is not the governments business. Lets have a major public discussion about womens bodily autonomy and why their bodies need government oversight.

(While Im at it, let me note that I am also opposed to men being drafted into the military. The government does not own their bodies any more than it owns womens bodies. You get men to voluntarily agree to kill people and you get women to voluntarily agree to give birth or you do without.)

Jacobsen: For centuries, and now with mild pushback over decades, the religiously-based, often, bigotry and chauvinism against women, and ethnic and sexual minorities is more in the open, and so more possible to change. Because people know about it, and cant deny it. And when and if they do, the reasons seem paper thin and comical, at times. What expedites this process of everyone, finally, earning that coveted equality?

Castle:The mild pushback has come because more people are losing interest in religion, and religion has always been the driver of bigotry and prejudice. The loss of interest has come from Internet sources that expose the absurdities and failings of religion.

To expedite the process you change the laws. You change the laws by organizing for and electing legislators who support civil rights. Then you elect a President who will appoint judges who support those rights. Nothing changes if the laws dont change. The laws helped bring civil rights to the South because it gave pro-civil rights citizens the protection they needed to treat people with respect. We started getting civil rights by public agitation that led to legislation that led to court review and rulings that did or did not affirm those rights. One exception: We got women covered by the Civil Rights Act when sex was introduced into the language in the expectation that it would be seen as such a joke that the Act would be voted down, but it passed.

To get women out of the public utility category, we need to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. That failed the first time precisely because opponents said it would give women the right to have abortions. What isabout abortion that sets some people off so violently? None of them show any real practical interest in born babies. Why this obsession with controlling women? Something about species survival? So many men with so many zillions of sperm and frustrated by womens limited ability to accommodate all that paternal potential? Who knows?

The only thing holding up equal rights for all is the Catholic and Protestant fundamentalist religions (and maybe also misogynistic Islam but we have to see how that immigrant population votes after being exposed to the relatively civilizing effect of living here). Its always those religions that protest against womens rights, gay rights, and that so ferociously supported slavery.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Marie.

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. He works as an Associate Editor and Contributor for Conatus News, Editor and Contributor to The Good Men Project, a Board Member, Executive International Committee (International Research and Project Management) Member, and as the Chair of Social Media for the Almas Jiwani Foundation, Executive Administrator and Writer for Trusted Clothes, and Councillor in the Athabasca University Students Union. He contributes to the Basic Income Earth Network, The Beam, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Check Your Head, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, The Voice Magazine, and Trusted Clothes. If you want to contact Scott: [emailprotected]; website: http://www.in-sightjournal.com; Twitter: https://twitter.com/InSight_Journal.

Here is the original post:
Modern Women's Rights, Atheism, and Ideological Warfare - The Good Men Project (blog)

By 10:30 a.m., the assembly room has filled with people. Theyre four dozen strong, swirling about the long rectangular hall like in a hive, standing and laughing in small clusters, shaking hands and hugging latecomers, finishing coffee and doughnuts in the kitchen, leaning in close to hear a weeks worth of gossip whispered too low for lurking passers-by.

The congregations Sunday morning gathering is a cherished communal ritual that brings together newly joined 20-somethings, still groggy from a night on the town, with chatty retirees who have been members since the institutions founding. They come from across metro Denver to hang out and talk about whatevers on their mind: Donald Trump, National Public Radio, last nights Rockies game, the hiking trail du jour.

Inevitably, though, their conversation returns to the supernatural power that unites them: God.

This isnt church, though.

Its atheist church, jokes Ruth McLeod, who moved to Denver from Louisiana in 2012.Church doesnt have a monopoly on community.

Like most members of the Secular Hub, a nontheistic community center in Denvers Whittier neighborhood, McLeod doesnt believe in God. After abandoning her strict Christian upbringing in college, she turned to atheism, a solution to the silence of the cosmos that allowed her to jettison what she considers the contradictions of the Bible and the conservative social program of the church.

Her conversion has increasing resonance in the United States, where one in 13 adults identify as atheist or agnostic. American secularists, though, are not an organized tribe. Nontheists lack the elaborate institutional wherewithal enjoyed by the 160 million Americans who regularly attend religious services. In a country where faith is worth $1.2 trillion equivalent to the entire economy of Mexico God disbelievers have no colleagues in Congress, face pervasivecontemptand control few institutions of their own.

The Secular Hub aims to curb those realities by providing a central meeting space where the theologically marooned can stake out a home.

We think were the first secular community center in the United States, says Barb Sannwald, a professional computer programmer and founding member. Its much easier to be an atheist in Colorado than elsewhere.

The secular center hosts an assortment of compatible yet distinct deity doubters atheists, agnostics, humanists and freethinkers held together by skepticism, faith in science and a commitment to free-ranging dialogue. Numerous affiliate groups also rent out the building for weekly meetings, including the local chapters of Freedom from Religion Foundation,United Coalition of Reasonand Freethinkers in AA, a nonreligious arm of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Two hundred twenty-five core members pledge $5 a month each for official status. Hundreds more float among groups, dropping in and out of meetings and get-togethers as wanted. Leaders strive to bring together the entire congregation through regular programming, which includes book clubs, movie screenings, meet-and-greets, meal discussions, and public lectures by renowned scientists and skeptics. On Sundays, everyone comes together for Secular Hubs flagship affair, Coffee & Community, which simulates the dependability of weekly church service without ceremony or sermons.

For a few years, Sannwald and other founders attended First Universalist Church of Denver, a liberal Christian group that embraces a wide array of beliefs from Eastern and Western religious traditions. Around 2007, a community newsletter alerted Sannwald to Humanists of Colorado, which held monthly meetings at the church. She began frequenting meetings, where she met a number of like-minded locals who valued the camaraderie of First Universalist Church but demurred on its doctrine, namely the emphasis on God.

There was a small group of us looking for the type of community that a church provides, Sannwald said. Churches are great places to find friends, to find comfort during difficult times and to meet others. But none of us were religious, so we didnt want to go to a church.

So in late 2012, she and a cohort of 20 Coloradans began raising money to open a space for agnostics, atheists, secularists and humanists in metro Denver. They initially considered asking a deep-pocketed donor to underwrite the startup.

Daniel Brenner, Special to the Denver Post

But we decided we wanted this to be a group effort, Sannwald said. So we had 23 founders put up the founding money to ensure broad-based support from the secular community.

In October 2012, representatives from Denver Atheist Meetup and Humanists of Colorado officially formed a nonprofit, which they called Secular Hub. A month later, the founders signed a lease at East 31st Avenue and Downing Street, where the organization still exists today.

The Hubs origin story speaks to a spate of nontheistic organizations popping up across the country. More than a dozen similar secular ventures have opened over the past decade, estimates Nick Fish, national program director of American Atheists.

Its certainly a growing feature of the humanist and atheist community, he said. The great thing about being an atheist is that no one tells you how to do it. But that can also be a struggle, as theres not always community support groups out there. Groups like the Secular Hub provide that for people who want and need that. What theyre doing is really important and worthwhile.

In the 4 1/2 years since the grand opening of Denvers first outpost for nonbelief on Feb. 12, which isDarwin Day,of 2013 the organization has grown from a core of committed nontheists to an emerging community of engineers, artists, immigrants, families, lifelong nonbelievers and recent religious defectors.

Andrew Forlines is one such religious turncoat. The 32-year-old grew up outside Cincinnati, home-schooled by archconservative parents who instilled Christian fundamentalism in their children. Forlines rebelled early. Despite never receiving formal education, he possessed an innate curiosity and habit for self-teaching that gradually led him astray from his anti-science parents and their faith founded inbiblical inerrancy.

When he moved to Denver two years ago, he wanted a community where he could make sense of his unorthodox upbringing. Through a Google search last July, he found Recovering from Religion, an affiliated group that offers guidance for spiritual renegades who have walked away from what Forlines calls indoctrination.

I was looking for a support group for people like me who struggle with a dogmatic religious upbringing, he said. I felt welcomed and embraced. Everyone was very nice. I felt a tremendous amount of relief to have found like-minded people.

Forlines immediately took to the community, where his values and background werent isolated or isolating but shared. In March, he launched two regular events of his own: a book club on social issues, and Dinner & Documentary, which hosts monthly film screenings and open discussions over food.

The Hub is what anyone makes of it, he said, emphasizing the organizations differences from a church. Its in between a stand-alone organization in your traditional sense and a physical meeting space for subgroups to utilize. Ive found that it often brings together people who make decisions based on science and empirical evidence.

As with secularism itself, the Hubs ideological flexibility and lack of firm hierarchy allow members such as Forlines to engage as frequently, widely and deeply as desired. Leaders want to meet nonbelievers where they are, welcoming potential members who might be skeptical about joining an institution devoted to skepticism.New members must pledge to follow only three rules for admission: honoring the separation of church and state; maintaining goodwill among members and avoiding hostility; and not promoting any beliefs in gods or other supernatural entities.

Sannwald and other leaders have been encouraged by a gust of interest, particularly among parents with young children. Yet the current facility with only 1,500 square feet of meeting space has little capacity for kids and no property outside.

Were growing to a point where we might want to move, Sannwald said. Its one of our goals. But we have no concrete plans yet.

A move, though, will require sufficient funds. The Hub currently subsists on membership dues, which help pay rent, utilities and little more. The all-volunteer board and staff take no commission for their work.

Growth will also test the bonds that hold together a piecemeal community with many peripheral groups and members. Religions have core texts that serve as a central spoke around which the community can coalesce. The Secular Hub, which lacks such a common code, lets the burden of communion fall on members themselves. Its a tall task that both challenges and liberates.

In a church, theres this feeling of needing to conform to dogma thats a lie, said Kimberly Saviano, a Hub founder who lives in Denver. Secularism and atheism do not have any particular ethical code. We are responsible to come up with our own.

To secularists such as Saviano, that responsibility poses a uniquely human task, one that reflects the problem and offers hope for all social networks.

Most of us have a deep need for community, somewhere we belong and have people who understand you, she said. Were trying to be there for each other if someones in the hospital or moving or going through a tough time. Thats the organizing force of community, making sure were taking care of each other. And theres nothing religious about that. You dont need God for that.

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Denver's Secular Hub unites non-believers in what one calls an atheist church - The Denver Post

A new study from Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain shows that religious people are more tolerant of other viewpoints than atheists.

The study, called "Are Atheists Undogmatic?" surveyed 788 people in the UK, France, and Spain, and examined three aspects of mental rigidity.

Co-authored by Filip Uzarevic, Vassilis Saroglou, and Magali Clobert, the study was published on April 27 in the peer-reviewed journal "Personality and Individual Differences."

Included in the group were 302 atheists, 255 Christians, 143 agnostics, 37 Buddhists, 17 Muslims, and 3 Jews. Fifty-one participants self-identified as "other."

The findings showed that atheists and agnostics believe themselves to be more open-minded than religious people but are in fact less tolerant of differing ideas and opinions, measuring lower than the religious in "self-reported dogmatism" but higher in "subtly-measured intolerance." Religious people "seemed to better perceive and integrate diverging perspectives."

In addition, the strength of a person's belief in atheism or religion is directly correlated to their intolerance level.

Speaking to PsyPost, Uzarevic said, "The main message of the study is that closed-mindedness is not necessarily found only among the religious."

"The idea started through noticing that, in public discourse, despite both the conservative/religious groups and liberal/secular groups showing strong animosity towards the opposite ideological side, somehow it was mostly the former who were often labeled as closed-minded.

"Moreover, such view of the secular being more tolerant and open seemed to be dominant in the psychological literature. Being interested in this topic, we started to discuss whether this is necessarily and always the case: Are the religious indeed generally more closed-minded, or would it perhaps be worthy of investigating the different aspects of closed-mindedness and their relationship with (non)religion?

"In our study, the relationship between religion and closed-mindedness depended on the specific aspect of closed-mindedness. The nonreligious compared to the religious seemed to be less closed minded when it came to explicitly measured certainty in ones beliefs.

"However, and somewhat surprisingly, when it came to subtly measured inclination to integrate views that were diverging and contrary to ones own perspectives, it was the religious who showed more openness.

"In sum, closed-mindedness (or at least some aspects of it) may not be reserved only for the religious. Moreover, in some aspects, the nonreligious may even outperform the religious."

However, Uzarevic did not some limitations to the study, including whether the findings are typical only for Europe, or reflect global tendencies, the fact that the survey was conducted online, and the relatively small sample size.

"Despite these limitations," Uzarevic noted, "the study did offer relatively consistent results, and a good starting point for future research."

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Study: Religious people more tolerant than atheists - Israel National ... - Arutz Sheva

Talk-show host Stephen Colbert is probably best known for his attacks on President Trump, most-notably a foul-mouthed reference to the president that resulted in an FCC inquiry in May. That's why some are surprised to learn that he also talks a lot about faith on "The Late Show."

According to The Week,Colbert is dedicated to his Catholic faith, despite his use of off-color language and harsh criticism of many conservative points of view.

In 2007, he spoke with NPR's Terry Gross about God, theology of the afterlife and how he explains such concepts to his children.

His Comedy Central show, "The Colbert Report," regularly featured religion segments in which debated the divinity of Jesus with religious scholar, Bart Ehrman and discussed the pope with a Jesuit priest.

When he moved to CBS as host of the Late Show, he continued to talk about faith. In the first month he asked Oprah about her favorite Bible verses.

Other faith segments include his interview with Joel Osteen about the pastor's beliefs and a confrontation with atheist Bill Maher, where he tried to persuade him to accept Christ.

"The door is always open. Golden ticket, right before you," Colbert said. "All you have to do is humble yourself before the presence of the Lord and admit there are things greater than you in the universe that you do not understand. Take Pascal's wager. If you're wrong, you're an idiot. But if I'm right, you're going to hell."

When actor Andrew Garfield appeared on the show to promote the movie "Silence" about Jesuit missionaries in Japan, their talk turned to their beliefes about demons, angels, faith and doubt.

It was an exchange with comedian and atheist Ricky Gervais about the existence of God, however, that went viral, getting more than 3.5 million views on YouTube.

However, even when talking about religion Colbert can cross the line. A recent segment that demonstrates how some Catholic priests are using fidget spinners to explain the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity features a make-believe interview with God that could be interprested as blasphemous.

Original post:
Colbert Conundrum: The Liberal TV Host Tackles Atheism, the ... - CBN News

The UK is a country that celebrates fundamental freedoms including freedom of belief. We are free to put our faith in gods, tooth fairies, men in turquoise shellsuits who proclaim divinity, or the mystical powers of the occult, if we so choose. But recent evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee on hate crime paints a frightening picture for those who choose no longer to believe in Islam. The written evidence, provided by the British Pakistani Christian Association, includes testimonials from ex-Muslims, many of them anonymous. Typically those who leave Islam face a stark choice keep quiet about their decision, or face discrimination, hatred and violence, the evidence reads. While Islamophobia and anti-Semitism feature prominently on the political agenda, the persecution of Britains apostates has gone largely unnoticed.

The testimonials make for depressing reading a snapshot of the dark underbelly of liberal Britains multi-religious society. Shaheen (pseudonym), a Christian convert, describes being beaten and left for dead by family members. A local imam told him he was Satan, and made an unequivocal threat: If we were in Egypt or Syria, I would cut off your head. Seyyed (pseudonym) describes receiving death threats, verbal abuse and refusal of service in taxis and shops. Ostracism is a theme running through each narrative. Facebook is the medium through which another was intimidated. Meanwhile, a church leader and friends were referred to as kafir/infidel dogs. This, we must remember, isnt hatred on the streets of Tehran, Riyadh or Islamabad, but modern-day Britain.

While many ex-Muslims dont come out, some have made a brave stand in defiance of Islamist threats. Established a decade ago, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) receives approximately 350-400 inquiries for assistance each year. It has supported tens of thousands of people, including Christian converts, atheists, agnostics and humanists. Some who seek assistance end up volunteering for the organisation like CEMB spokesperson Sadia Hameed. British ex-Muslims are likely to face physical punishments, forced marriage or disownment, she tells me. Hameed says there is no support from the government and ex-Muslims arent taken seriously enough. For criticising beliefs and ideas we are seen as the troublemakers.

Many ex-Muslims have been shunned and shamed for their decision to leave Islam. Some, Hameed says, have committed suicide. Her story is featured in Deeyah Khans 2016 documentary Islams Non-Believers, where she recounts her painful journey to atheism. Its a raw account of the trauma this brave woman has endured. In one poignant scene, she says: I remember saying to my mum, I dont think I believe in God any more, and her saying, You cant tell anybody else because theyll kill you, we are obliged to kill ex-Muslims, and that it would put me at extreme risk if anybody else was to find out. So that conversation ended there.

Go here to read the rest:
The bravery of the ex-Muslim - Spiked

Talk-show host Stephen Colbert is probably best known for his attacks on President Trump, most-notably a foul-mouthed reference to the president that resulted in an FCC inquiry in May. That's why some are surprised to learn that he also talks a lot about faith on "The Late Show."

According to The Week,Colbert is dedicated to his Catholic faith, despite his use of off-color language and harsh criticism of many conservative points of view.

In 2007, he spoke with NPR's Terry Gross about God, theology of the afterlife and how he explains such concepts to his children.

His Comedy Central show, "The Colbert Report," regularly featured religion segments in which debated the divinity of Jesus with religious scholar, Bart Ehrman and discussed the pope with a Jesuit priest.

When he moved to CBS as host of the Late Show, he continued to talk about faith. In the first month he asked Oprah about her favorite Bible verses.

Other faith segments include his interview with Joel Osteen about the pastor's beliefs and a confrontation with atheist Bill Maher, where he tried to persuade him to accept Christ.

"The door is always open. Golden ticket, right before you," Colbert said. "All you have to do is humble yourself before the presence of the Lord and admit there are things greater than you in the universe that you do not understand. Take Pascal's wager. If you're wrong, you're an idiot. But if I'm right, you're going to hell."

When actor Andrew Garfield appeared on the show to promote the movie "Silence" about Jesuit missionaries in Japan, their talk turned to their beliefes about demons, angels, faith and doubt.

It was an exchange with comedian and atheist Ricky Gervais about the existence of God, however, that went viral, getting more than 3.5 million views on YouTube.

However, even when talking about religion Colbert can cross the line. A recent segment that demonstrates how some Catholic priests are using fidget spinners to explain the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity features a make-believe interview with God that could be interprested as blasphemous.

See more here:
Colbert Conundrum: The Liberal TV Host Tackles Atheism, the Trinity, and the Bible - CBN News

Are atheists, on average, smarter than everyone else?

It sounds unbearably smug and condescending even to ask the question this way. But whatever ones feelings about the matter, theres some evidence suggesting that this may be the case.

Belief in God correlates inversely with education level, as surveys have long shown. From high school to college to grad school, as you move up the rungs of educational attainment, people are more likely to be atheists, less likely to pray, less likely to say religion is important in their lives. Among those with the most prestigious academic credentials, such as members of the National Academy of Sciences, atheism is a supermajority position.

In this context, Id also mention the Flynn effect. To judge by IQ test scores, each new generation of humanity is a little smarter than the last. And in step with this trend, rates of nonbelief are rising both in America and throughout the world. Some studies also find a direct relationship between IQ scores and atheism.

To be sure, this is a correlation rather than an absolute rule. Its obviously not true that all intelligent people are atheists (because, to name one reason, smart people are better at rationalizing beliefs they acquired for other reasons). Nor are all unintelligent people religious believers (weve seen many counterexamples to that hypothesis, alas). Nevertheless, when you survey large numbers of people, the pattern is unmistakable.

This must be galling to religious apologists, especially those who aspire to be sophisticated and intellectual. It certainly bothers Regis Nicoll of Crisis magazine, who wrote a post attacking the claim that religious doubt is a sign of intelligence.

He begins with an accurate description of the evidence I already cited:

According to a 2017 Pew survey, belief in God is lower among college-educated individuals than among those having no college. Other polls have found that most scientists, including an overwhelming percentage of those in the National Academy of Science, deny the existence of God.

So, how does Nicoll deal with these inconvenient facts? He first attempts to define the problem out of existence, asserting that people who dont believe in God are by definition unintelligent:

Of course, that all depends on what one means by intelligence. In fact, as a friend of mine once quipped: Can a person who flunks the test to the most basic question in life (is there a God?) be considered intelligent? Right, because everything we know about the world, human nature, moral ethics, and lifes purpose hangs on what we believe about their source.

Obviously, this is an entirely circular argument. Whether its unintelligent to reject belief in God depends on whether that belief is true. But even leaving this point aside, it hasnt answered the question: Why does religious doubt correlate with everything else thats associated with greater intelligence, like IQ scores or educational attainment?

This is where most religious apologists segue into talking about the wisdom of the world and how God conceals himself from rational inquiry, only revealing his presence to those who approach the question in a spirit of credulous faith. To my mind, this is as good as a concession, because thats exactly what a false-belief peddler would have to say. It also begs the question of how a person is supposed to choose among the hundreds of incompatible religions that all make this claim.

However, Nicolls essay doesnt take this tack. Even though he raised the question, he seems to lose interest in answering it. Instead, he meanders off on a digression, arguing that atheism fails to account for a hospitable cosmos:

I went on to explain that these speculations grew out of the unsettling recognition that we inhabit a Goldilocks planet in which life teeters on the edge of non-existence. Scrambling to account for these just right conditions, desperate theorists trotted out the multiverse, an infinite manifold of universes that guarantees the existence of our hospitable home, and every conceivable (and inconceivable) one as well.

This is just the fine-tuning argument which Ive responded to at length. Religious apologists who make this argument assume that the physical constants of our universe were selected from among an enormous range of possible values and that only a tiny fraction of those would have led to intelligence. Both assumptions are indefensible given our present knowledge.

To quote myself from a previous post:

If we had known only the physical laws of our universe, we could hardly have predicted, from first principles alone, that it would contain life. We simply dont have the knowledge to proclaim with confidence what other interesting possibilities may be inherent in other sets of physical laws.

In fact, as Ive pointed out, the Earth is a tiny, fragile oasis in the midst of a vast, ancient and chaotic universe. This state of affairs fits better with atheism than it does with any theology that includes a benevolent creator specially interested in us. Its what youd expect to see in a cosmos where life came about by chance rather than as part of a grand design.

From this point on, Nicolls essay descends into plain old creationism. Its as if he was too tired to come up with any argument other than Kent Hovind-style toddler-playground ridicule even though Crisis is a Catholic publication, and evolution has a papal stamp of approval.

Indeed, with other concoctions like self-organization, emergence, memes, selfish genes, and macro-evolution to account for the encyclopedic information in the genome, the narrative of naturalism reads more like a Brothers Grimm tale than Newtons Principia Mathematica. Indeed, a frog-turned-prince story is no less a fairy tale by tweaking the timeframe from a bibbidi-bobbidi-boo instant to 150 million years.

I have to say that if I were Catholic and read this essay hoping for an answer to the question in its title, Id be disappointed. It does a good job presenting the problem, but rather than offering any solutions, it resorts to irrelevant pseudoscience and nyah nyah, sos your old man taunting. Its a tacit admission that he cant explain the atheism-education link.

Assuming this correlation holds up, what could explain it? I dont think its as insultingly simplistic as religion is a stupid belief for stupid people. But I do think that one aspect of intelligence is the ability to come up with the greatest number of possible explanations for the same set of facts.

A person whos not as adept at this will be less likely to doubt the received beliefs of their family or culture. However, a person who can come up with alternatives will be more likely to see religious beliefs for what they are a hypothesis about the world, one possibility out of many and to notice when they lack explanatory power, compared to the alternatives.

Go here to see the original:
Are Atheists Smarter than Theists? - Patheos (blog)

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In my family, we are all atheists. But that changed recently when my brother went to college and found religion.

When my brother returned home from his first weeks at UC Berkeley, I was excited to hear about college. But when we sat down to eat, he closed his eyes, clasped his hands, and silently mouthed grace.

My jaw dropped in shock.

The first friends Cole made on campus belonged to a Southern Baptist church group, which is practically a 180 degree turn from atheism. Not long after, Cole converted.

When we learned about his conversion, we freaked out. Atheism is all weve ever known and been comfortable with. But my parents are trying to understand. They read those cheesy books about spirituality and even went to Easter church services. They want to understand this new part of his life. But its been hard for me to accept it.

Im not really afraid of the religion itself. I can make peace with Cole studying the Bible and going to church.

But Im afraid that his religion will pull him away from me. He now spends all his free time with his church friendsso much so that they feel culty and controlling. He refers to them as his second family. What if someday they become his only family? What if he replaces his real family with fellow believers? I want to hold onto the Cole of my childhood, the one that climbed trees and made puns with me, but maybe well never have the same bond that he has with his church friends. Im worried that our differences are too big to overcome.

Now Im trying to step back and let him make his own decisions. Im doing my best to remove his religion from the picture; hes not Cole the Southern Baptist, hes just Cole, my loving, funny, smart best friend. My connection to atheism may be strong, but hes my brother, and I cant just write him out of my life.

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My Brother, The Southern Baptist - Youth Radio

Atheism remains one of the most extreme taboos in Saudi Arabia. It is a red line that no one can cross. Atheists in Saudi Arabia have been suffering from imprisonment, maginalisation, slander, ostracisation and even execution. Atheists are considered terrorists. Efforts for normalisation between those who believe and those who dont remain bleak in the kingdom.

Despite constant warnings of Saudi religious authorities of the danger of atheism, many citizens in the kingdom are turning their backs on Islam. The Saudi dehumanizing strict laws in the name of Islam, easy access to information and mass communication are the primary driving forces pushing Saudis to leave religion. Unfortunately, those who explicitly do, find themselves harshly punished or forced to live dual lives.

Unfair Trials and Atheists

Just recently Saudi Arabia has sentenced another atheist to death for uploading a video renouncing Islam.

The man has been identified as Ahmad Al-Shamri, in his 20s, from the town of Hafar Al-Batin, a village located in Saudi Arabias eastern Province. In his video, Al-Shamri renounces Islam and makes disparaging remarks about the prophet Muhammad.

Saudi authorities first picked him up in 2014 after he uploaded a series of videos reflecting his views on social media, which led to him being charged with atheism and blasphemy.

While leaving Islam is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, the countrys Supreme Court, ruled against Al-Shamri on 25 April 2017, effectively sending him to his death. Court proceedings could last for months but when it comes to blasphemy, atheism or homosexuality, the sentence is more likely to be known beforehand.

Riyadh introduced a series of laws in 2014 criminalizing those who spread atheist thought or question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion. According to the Amnesty International Global Report on death sentences and executions, Saudi Arabia has scored 154+ executions, in which death penalty was imposed after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards.

In January 2017, an unnamed Yemeni man living in Saudi Arabia reportedly was charged with apostasy and sentenced to 21 years in prison for insulting Islam on his Facebook page.

InNovember 2016, an Indian migrant worker, Shankar Ponnam, reportedly was sentenced to four months in prison and a fine of 1,195 for sharing a picture of the Hindu god Shiva sitting atop the Kaaba on Facebook.

In November 2015, Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh was sentenced to death for apostasy for allegedly questioning religion and spreading atheist thought in his poetry. His sentence was reduced to eight years in prison and 800 lashes to be administered on 16 occasions.

In 2014, Raif Badawi was also convicted of blasphemy for creating a website dedicated to fostering debate on religion and politics. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes.

In 2012, the journalist Hamza Kashgari was accused of blasphemy after he posted a string of tweets. He was captured in Malaysia and brought back to the kingdom. No further information about his case has surfaced since.

Atheists are Terrorists

In 2014, Saudi Arabia introduced a series of new laws in the form of royal decrees, which define atheists as terrorists. The new royal provisions define terrorism as calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which Saudi Arabia is based.

Conflating atheism and terrorism has become official in Saudi Arabia, by which nonbelievers who commit thought crimes are the same as violent terrorists.

Article 4 of the kingdoms laws on terrorism states: Anyone who aids [terrorist] organisations, groups, currents [of thought], associations, or parties, or demonstrates affiliation with them, or sympathy with them, or promotes them, or holds meetings under their umbrella, either inside or outside the kingdom; this includes participation in audio, written, or visual media; social media in its audio, written, or visual forms; internet websites; or circulating their contents in any form, or using slogans of these groups and currents [of thought], or any symbols which point to support or sympathy with them.

In a program named UpFront on Al Jazeera America, Saudi Ambassador to the UN, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi explains why advocating atheism in Saudi Arabia is considered a terrorist offence.

Al-Mouallimi says that atheists are deemed terrorists because we are a unique country.

We are the birthplace of Islam, he adds. We are the country that hosts the two holiest sites for Muslims in Mecca and Medina. We are the country that is based on Islamic principles and so forth. We are a country that is homogeneous in accepting Islam by the entire population. Any calls that challenge Islamic rule or Islamic ideology is considered subversive in Saudi Arabia and would be subversive and could lead to chaos.

If he [an atheist] was disbelieving in God, and keeping that to himself, and conducting himself, nobody would do anything or say anything about it. If he is going out in the public, and saying, I dont believe in God, thats subversive. He is inviting others to retaliate, Al-Mouallimi elaborates.

Counter Measures

President of the Centre for Middle East Studies in Riyadh, Anwar Al-Ashqi, does not see the authorities adoption of these laws as suppression of freedoms. While he believes that atheism, as an independent thought is positive, it may become negative and require legal accountability if it aims to transform the traditional nature of the Saudi society, which instigates communal strife and challenges religion. The state in this case, according to him, has the right to outlaw this type of atheism and declare it as an aspect of terrorism.

Similar to other Gulf States, Saudi Arabia perceives atheism as a threat that should be eliminated. Thus, there have been several conferences, trainings and workshops in recent years aimed at immunising society, especially the youth, against atheistic ideas. Saudi Arabia has established Yaqeen Centre at The Al-Madina University Department of the Study of Faith and Religions. Yaqeen Centre, which means certainty specializes in combating atheistic and non-religious tendencies. The centres vision is to achieve leadership in countering atheism and non-religiosity locally and globally. Activities of this centre remain unknown.

In October 2016, the Saudi Ministry of Education launched a government program called Immunity in schools to inoculate children against Westernisation, atheism, liberalism and secularism.

Atheists in the Kingdom?

In 2012, a poll by WIN-Gallup International (Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism) found that almost a quarter of people interviewed in Saudi Arabia described themselves as not religious and of those 5 to 9% declared themselves to be convinced atheists. Extrapolating that figure on a national scale suggests there are about 1.4 million atheists living in Saudi Arabia. This of course excludes all work migrants from different parts of the world, who might be already nonbelievers.

The percentage of people who believe they are convinced atheists is the highest in Saudi Arabia among all Arabic-speaking countries. This percentage is the highest in comparison to Arab countries, even those known for their secular leanings such as Tunisia and Lebanon.

However, these figures contradict the ones released by the Egyptian Fatwa observatory of Dar al-Iftaa Al-Missriyyah in 2014, in which only 174 atheists are thought to be living in Saudi Arabia. It remains mysterious how this number could be this accurate.

Scientifically speaking, there are no official figures about the number of atheists in Saudi Arabia because it is very difficult to conduct a research about such a sensitive topic. However, there are several pages for atheists sweeping the Internet such as Saudis without Religion, Spreading Atheism in Saudi, and Saudi Secular, which indicate that there are some atheist activities despite all restrictions. It is difficult to determine whether these pages operate from within the kingdom or from outside.

On Twitter, the most widely used site in Saudi Arabia, over 20,000 Saudis reacted to topics related to the spread of atheism in Saudi Arabia. Voices advocating the rights of atheists appeared only very rarely compared to the ones affirming demanding persecution of atheists in the kingdom.

It must be noted that most accounts in Saudi Arabia hide behind fake names to avoid prosecution. A Saudi young man, 28, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, 2,000 lashes and 4,780 fine after being convicted of publishing more than 600 atheist tweets.

Many Saudis say the presence of atheists in Saudi Arabia is like any other country, but their number in the kingdom is negligible compared to millions of Saudis who are adherents of Islam as a religion and as a law applied by their state in the finest details of life.

Read more:
Taboo of Atheism in Saudi Arabia - International Policy Digest (press release) (blog)