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Posted on 10/02/2011 3:57:10 PM PDT by Steelfish
Rising Atheism In America Puts 'Religious Right On The Defensive' High profile of faith-based politicians such as Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry masks a steady growth in secularism
Paul Harris in New York 1 October 2011
About 400 people are preparing to gather for a conference in Hartford, Connecticut, to promote the end of religion in the US and their vision of a secular future for the country.
Those travelling to the meeting will pass two huge roadside billboards displaying quotes from two of the country's most famous non-believers: Katharine Hepburn and Mark Twain. "Faith is believing what you know ain't so," reads the one featuring Twain. "I'm an atheist and that's it," says the one quoting Hepburn.
At the meeting, members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) will hear speakers celebrate successes they have had in removing religion from US public life and see awards being presented to noted secularist activists.
The US is increasingly portrayed as a hotbed of religious fervour. Yet in the homeland of ostentatiously religious politicians such as Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, agnostics and atheists are actually part of one of the fastest-growing demographics in the US: the godless. Far from being in thrall to its religious leaders, the US is in fact becoming a more secular country, some experts say. "It has never been better to be a free-thinker or an agnostic in America," says Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the FFRF.
The exact number of faithless is unclear. One study by the Pew Research Centre puts them at about 12% of the population, but another by the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford puts that figure at around 20%.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
So I take it you don't believe in the Old Testament? That is fine, I don't either.
You should read Huckleberry Finn if you think Twain hated America. Who the hell are you to attack Mark Twain? He grappled with slavery and the conscience of America for his whole life and was brilliant. He actually lived through it.
You are nothing more than a guy arguing with me. Who is smarter than you. How do you feel about that. Who the hell am I?
One would have to be a blind, unthinking idiot to be an atheist. I cut slack for agnostics, but no quarter for atheists.
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