The country's largest voting bloc is now the non-religious. That's right politicians, start pandering.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

More American voters than ever say they are not religious, making the religiously unaffiliated the nation's biggest voting bloc by faith for the first time in a presidential election year. This marks a dramatic shift from just eight years ago, when the non-religious were roundly outnumbered by Catholics, white mainline Protestants and white evangelical Protestants. 

These numbers come from a new Pew Research Center survey, which finds that "religious 'nones,' who have been growing rapidly as a share of the U.S. population, now constitute one-fifth of all registered voters and more than a quarter of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters." That represents a 50 percent increase in the proportion of non-religious voters compared with eight years ago, when they made up just 14 percent of the overall electorate. 

"In 2008, religious 'nones' were outnumbered or at parity with white mainline Protestants and white Catholics," the survey's lead researcher, Greg Smith, said in an interview. "Today, 'nones' outnumber both of those groups." 

The growth of the non-religious -- about 54 percent of whom are Democrats or lean Democratic, compared with 23 percent at least leaning Republican -- could provide a political counterweight to white evangelical Protestants, a historically powerful voting bloc for Republicans. In 2016, 35 percent of Republican voters identify as white evangelicals, while 28 percent of Democratic voters say they have no religion at all.

Of course as the article goes on to point out the Achilles heel for the non-religious politically is that most of us are non-joiners.

That means we do not have a group around which to organize, unlike religious groups which have "Get out the vote" or "Souls to the Polls" programs in place.

Which raises the question, how do we mobilize a voting demographic that are predisposed to resist being directed to do anything, by anyone?

But just imagine all that we could accomplish if we could answer that question.

There are now more non-believers in England than believers. Sooo jealous.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

The number of people who say they have no religion is rapidly escalating and significantly outweighs the Christian population in England and Wales, according to new analysis. 

The proportion of the population who identify as having no religion – referred to as “nones” – reached 48.5% in 2014, almost double the figure of 25% in the 2011 census. Those who define themselves as Christian – Anglicans, Catholics and other denominations – made up 43.8% of the population. 

“The striking thing is the clear sense of the growth of ‘no religion’ as a proportion of the population,” said Stephen Bullivant, senior lecturer in theology and ethics at St Mary’s Catholic University in Twickenham, who analysed data collected through British Social Attitudes surveys over three decades. 

“The main driver is people who were brought up with some religion now saying they have no religion. What we’re seeing is an acceleration in the numbers of people not only not practising their faith on a regular basis, but not even ticking the box. The reason for that is the big question in the sociology of religion.”

I don't want much folks, but I want to live long enough to see America become a nation where the majority are non-believers as well.

That my friends, will be a great day indeed. 

A little food for thought this morning.

Courtesy of Matt Ridley: 

Fifty years ago, after the cracking of the genetic code, Francis Crick was so confident religion would fade that he offered a prize for the best future use for Cambridge’s college chapels. Swimming pools, said the winning entry. Today, when terrorists cry “God is great” in both Paris and Bamako as they murder, the joke seems sour. But here’s a thought: that jihadism may be a last spasm — albeit a painful one — of a snake that is being scotched. The humanists are winning, even against Islam. 

Quietly, non-belief is on the march. Those who use an extreme form of religion to poison the minds of disaffected young men are furious about the spread of materialist and secularist ideas, which they feel powerless to prevent. In 50 years’ time, we may look back on this period and wonder how we failed to notice that Islam was about to lose market share, not to other religions, but to humanism. 

The fastest growing belief system in the world is non-belief. No religion grew nearly as fast over the past century. Whereas virtually nobody identified as a non-believer in 1900, today roughly 15 per cent do, and that number does not include soft Anglicans in Britain, mild Taoists in China, lukewarm Hindus in India or token Buddhists in Japan. Even so, the non-religious category has overtaken paganism, will soon pass Hinduism, may one day equal Islam and is gaining on Christianity. (Of every ten people in the world, roughly three are Christian, two Muslim, two Hindu, 1.5 non-religious and 1.5 something else.) 

This is all the more remarkable when you think that, with a few notable exceptions, atheists or humanists don’t preach, let alone pour money into evangelism. Their growth has come almost entirely from voluntary conversion, whereas Islam’s slower growth in market share has largely come from demography: the high birth rates in Muslim countries compared with Christian ones.

And before the troll inevitably accuses me of proselytizing on this blog, remember that you can here voluntarily to read what I had to say. I did not buy advertising time during your favorite show, come to your door to leave pamphlets, or threaten your children with eternal damnation if they did not accept my lack of belief.

This Ridly guy is exactly right, the non-theists ARE winning.

We have all of the tools needed to educate and enlighten the world, even the children regardless of where they live, or what religion surrounds them. And once that happens there is simply no longer any room for primitive superstitions or ancient mythologies.

And it is the very fact that victory is coming, which is behind much of the turmoil that we see in the world today.

Rarely does a dominating demographic drop the reins of power voluntarily, nor come down from the top of hill peacefully.

So yes we are going to see more violence, and more political manipulations, but in the end the outcome is predetermined. The only question is how long will it take, and how many will die in the interim.

More good news about the end of religion in America.

Courtesy of Quartz:  

Pew’s new report—which surveyed 35,071 people in 2014, and encompasses the second half of findings released in May—can be juxtaposed with the group’s similarly sized 2007 study on the same topic. Americans who are “absolutely certain” in God’s existence have decreased by eight percentage points in the intervening time. Religiously unaffiliated people now make up 23% of the adult population, compared to 16%; even among the pious, regular service attendance is faltering. 

When sorted by generation, the contrasts get even starker. Younger Americans, by some measures, are almost twice as likely to be uninterested in religion as their parents and grandparents. For instance: only 27% of millennials attend weekly religious services, versus 51% of adults in the Silent Generation (those aged 70 to 87). Emphasis on the importance of religion is also lagging. 

The wide difference in generational religious interest is explained in part by people’s tendency to care more about religion as they age—a caveat Pew has carefully noted. But even so, the research group finds that younger people nowadays aren’t showing the same increase in religious fervor when they get older as past generations did. 

“As older cohorts of adults … pass away, they are being replaced by a new cohort of young adults who display far lower levels of attachment to organized religion than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations did when they were the same age,” wrote the authors of the report.

As I have mentioned before, I have been here all along, unshackled by fear, prejudice, and superstition, just waiting for everybody else to finally join me. 

And increasingly they have been doing exactly that.

Much like America itself, soon Atheism will no longer be over populated with old white guys.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

When you think of atheists, the face that probably comes to mind is male, white, older and a little bit nerdy. There’s more than a grain of truth to this reputation. Atheist groups in America have traditionally been dominated by older white men – but that may finally be starting to change. 

The Barna Group, a Christian polling firm, recently released their 2015 State of Atheism in America report. Based on a year of research on the non-religious demographic, Barna found not just that atheists and agnostics’ numbers are growing rapidly, but that they’re very quickly becoming more diverse. 

The most important finding in Barna’s report is that women are joining the atheist community by the millions. In 1993, just 16% of nonbelievers were women, but in 2013, that number was 43% - representing a nearly threefold leap. And this shift isn’t because men are leaving the community, which would bring the gender balance closer to parity. Barna found that the absolute numbers of both male and female atheists have increased in the last twenty years, but the number of women has grown far faster. 

The atheist community is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse as well. In 1993, people of color made up just 20% of nonbelievers. The change in these numbers hasn’t been as dramatic, but there’s been change nonetheless, with the number rising to 26% in 2013. Many of these religious skeptics have come from the Hispanic and, especially, Asian communities.

Well this is one older white guy who is really looking forward to more diversity within the Atheist community. 

I personally am of the mind that the growth in the Atheist community has much less to do with people suddenly deciding they are not religious, and much more to do with people feeling comfortable in coming out as Atheists or Agnostics.

That's why it is critical to continue having the conversation, and opening it up to as many people as possible.

My personally held belief, and yes I understand the irony of using that term, is that the majority of the people on this planet are actually atheist but are just too intimidated to admit it. Even to themselves.

In the next decade or so we will see if I am correct as the label shakes off it's negative connotations and becomes more and more accepted by the public at large.

Australian Atheists offer to help others "escape" religion.

Here is the billboard put up by Sidney Atheists.

And here is their press release concerning the billboards: 

Have you escaped religion? We have! 

Most of the members of Sydney Atheists once belonged to a religion. With the benefit of a comprehensive and usually critical education, particularly in the areas of science, history, geography, philosophy and religion we have discovered the fallacies of religions. It is a great challenge for many to escape the religious indoctrination that most of us have suffered, usually from birth. 

We have members who once belonged to religions ranging from Judaism, Christianity and Islam to Hinduism and Sikhism. It stands to reason that because all religions make the claim that they are somehow uniquely correct in their supernatural claims, they are all simply false belief systems that deny the realities of the universe, life in general and particularly the place of humanity on this earth. 

Sydney Atheists invite those who are trapped by religious belief to escape the bounds and strictures of their religions to gain freedom of thought, deed and a better life, governed by morals that are determined through rational, humane and skeptical thinking and the just laws of the land.

I used to have serious doubts about how much this kind of thing really helps.

However lately I have become somewhat of a convert after reading testimonials from people on the internet about how helpful it was to leave their religions after discovering that there was already a community of non-believers ready to offer support.

Hey anything that helps to let others see that a life without religion is not only possible, but amazing seems like a good idea to me.

Air Force changes its rules after airman refuses to say "so help me God" as part of his oath for reenlistment.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  


After an airman was unable to complete his reenlistment because he omitted the part of a required oath that states “so help me God,” the Air Force changed its instructions for the oath. 

Following a review of the policy by the Department of Defense General Counsel, the Air Force will now permit airmen to omit the phrase, should they so choose. That change is effective immediately, according to an Air Force statement. 

“We take any instance in which Airmen report concerns regarding religious freedom seriously,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said in the statement. “We are making the appropriate adjustments to ensure our Airmen’s rights are protected. 

“The Air Force will be updating the instructions for both enlisted and commissioned Airmen to reflect these changes in the coming weeks, but the policy change is effective now. Airmen who choose to omit the words ‘So help me God’ from enlistment and officer appointment oaths may do so.”

Okay that is just great news and a real step forward for the non-theists in this country.

I am very excited about he progress that we are making right now in tamping down the rampant religiosity and embracing a more secular point of view.

Nobody wants to deprive people of their religious freedom, but there is no excuse for it invading the lives of those who choose a different path.

Atheist to deliver non-theist invocation to open town hall meeting in New York. Well alright!

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

An atheist is set to deliver the invocation in a western New York community whose town board won a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding its right to open meetings with a prayer. 

Dan Courtney, 52, a mechanical engineer, said he asked the town of Greece right after the 5-4 decision in May for an opportunity to deliver the "non-theist" message. 

The court's conservative majority declared the prayers in line with national traditions and said the content is not significant as long as the prayers don't denigrate non-Christians or try to win converts. The town argued persons of any faith were welcome to give the invocation. 

Courtney said his request was granted without question and Tuesday's 6 p.m. meeting was the first open slot. 

Town supervisor William Reilich said Monday a variety of views have been represented during invocations, citing the instance of a pagan Wiccan for one. 

"It's not unusual that we have diversity," he said. "It's whoever comes up from the community."

This is all we ask right?

We don't expect everybody to give up their faith, or not practice it in public. 

But if they insist on having Christian religious observances in public forums they simply have to allow others of differing faiths, or no faiths, to participate as well.

And they can't do this kind of crap either.

Let's try this again.

Okay does this explain the atheist position clearly enough?

Not a religion.

Not a philosophy.

Just a group of people who do not feel the need to accept superstitious explanations for things simply because it comforts them.

Why is it so hard for people to understand this?

Whenever anybody starts a conversation with the words "Atheists believe..." I am essentially done listening.

That indicates that they have no idea what it is to be an Atheist. And probably never will.

Interesting opinion about why Christians want Atheists to stay quiet about their non-belief, or better yet lie about it.

Courtesy of Salon:

 Religion relies on social consent to perpetuate itself. It’s a bad idea, and can’t stand up on its own. But it can, and does, perpetuate itself through social consent. It perpetuates itself through dogma saying that asking questions about religion is sinful, and that trusting religion without evidence is virtuous. It perpetuates itself through dogma saying that joy and meaning and morality can only be found in religion, and that leaving religion will automatically result in a desperate, amoral, pointless life. It perpetuates itself through religious communities and support systems that make believing in religion — or pretending to believe in religion — a necessity to function and indeed survive. It perpetuates itself through parents and other authority figures teaching it to children, whose brains are hard-wired to believe what they’re told. 

Religion relies on social consent to perpetuate itself. But the simple act of coming out as an atheist denies it this consent. Even if atheists never debate believers or try to persuade them out of their beliefs; even if all we ever do is say out loud, “Actually, I’m an atheist,” we’re still denying our consent. And that throws a monkey wrench into religion’s engine. 

There’s a reason that rates of atheism have been going up as use of the Internet goes up. (According to the MIT Technology Review, the dramatic drop in religious affiliation in the U.S. since 1990 is closely mirrored by the increase in Internet use — and while correlation certainly doesn’t prove causation, this analysis factors out pretty much every other possible causation.) The Internet has created a massive worldwide forum for atheists to argue about religion, to give evidence against religion, to ask for evidence and arguments supporting religion and point out how ridiculously weak they are. But the Internet has also created a massive, worldwide forum for atheists to simply, you know, exist. 

What’s more, this denial of consent has a snowball effect. As more atheists come out of the closet, more people will question religion and eventually leave it. And as they leave religion and come out about their atheism, another wave of people will question and abandon religion … and so on, and so on, and so on. 

It’s easy to ignore one person saying that the emperor has no clothes. It’s a lot harder to ignore 10 people saying it — and it’s harder still to ignore a hundred, or a thousand. 

So if you want to ignore the emperor’s nakedness, it’s not enough to just ignore it. You have to get other people to shut up about it. If you want religion to keep perpetuating itself, you have to get people to go along with it. You have to get people to fake it. 

You have to get people to lie.

Very true indeed. In fact I have seen this same thing happen right here on this blog.

Usually it arrives in a form similar to this:

"Gyphen I really enjoy your reporting on Sarah Palin (That bitch!) but I really wish you would stop attacking religion. I am sure that you realize that many of your visitors are religious, and it just makes us very uncomfortable. If you don't stop we will be forced to stop coming here every day."

If you think about this it is really quite arrogant of them. Especially since I started the Immoral Minority to talk about politics, current affairs, and, yes, religion.

It would be tantamount to going to somebody's house and saying, "I loved the casserole, and your house is quite lovely, but please stop talking about your children, or I will never come here again."

However as this article so eloquently explains, it is not that it bothers certain people that I talk about it here so much, as it is that they are afraid others are listening.

And of course, they are.

I would buy this by the caseload.

"Cures all forms of monotheism, and restores rational brain function." How wonderful would it be to own such a cure?

Actually to be honest I would not use this on anybody. That would be wrong.

Trust me, I'd want to, but ultimately it would go against my sense of morality and fair play.

However I have to wonder, if there were a potion which immediately transformed a skeptic into a Bible reading man of faith, with regular church attendance, would those on the other side demonstrate the same restraint?

Study finds that religious more likely to lie for financial gain. So THAT'S why I'm still poor!

Courtesy of Salon: 

In an experiment where lying led directly to financial gain, just over 50 percent of the participants told an untruth. That figure is roughly consistent with previous research. 

What’s new in this study by University of Regina economist Jason Childs is its breakdown of the personality traits of the liars. Unlike some previous research, he did not find men are more likely to lie than women. 

However, he discovered other factors predicted a greater likelihood of telling an untruth—including the assertion that religion plays an important role in your life. 

Somewhere (or not), Christopher Hitchens is chuckling.

Findings of the study were as follows:  

Among those more likely to lie for financial gain were: 

• Business majors. “It could be that these students are more prone to lying by nature or training,” Childs writes. “It could also be that individuals strongly motivated by financial returns, and therefore more likely to lie for a monetary payoff, are more likely to pursue an education in business.” (Previous research has found higher levels of academic cheating among business majors.) 

• Students whose parents were divorced. This is in line with expectations, in thatpast research has found children of divorce are more likely to engage in anti-social behavior. Perhaps the belief they’ve been cheated out of a happy childhood may lead them to feel cheating is OK. 

• Those for whom religion was more important to their lives. “This is surprising,” Childs writes, as most religions “promote honesty as a virtue. It may be that students for whom religion was important feel separate from other students at this largely secular university,” and thus feel less compelled to be honest with them.

You know part of me kind of wants to challenge these findings since I have never found that being religious or not, had any direct impact on a person's honesty.  However I also have to admit that with the preponderance of churches now preaching prosperity theology it might very well have conditioned many religious folks to focus on the acquisition of money above all else.

Personally as an Atheist I don't need to feel more moral or honest than my religious counterparts, I just don't want to be considered less moral or honest simply due to my lack of belief.

Oprah Winfrey refuses to accept that long distance swimmer Diana Nyad is an Atheist because she experiences "awe." WTF?

Courtesy of Raw Story:

In a conversation with Nyad on the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Super Soul Sunday, Winfrey seemed baffled that the 64-year-old swimmer could be an atheist and “a person who is deeply in awe.” 

“I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist, go on down the line, and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity — all the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt,” Nyad, who recently completed a swim from Cuba to Florida explained. “So to me, my definition of God is humanity and is the love of humanity.” 

“Well, I don’t call you an atheist then,” Winfrey replied. “I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery that that is what God is. That is what God is. It’s not a bearded guy in the sky.” 

“It’s not bearded but I guess there is inference with God that there is presence, there is a — either a creator or an overseer,” Nyad pointed out. “I don’t criticize anybody. Because you know what? The definition of life is, we will never know.” 

She added that she saw no contradiction in being an atheist and being a spiritual person. 

“I think you can be an atheist who doesn’t believe in an overarching being who created all of this and sees over it,” Nyad said. “But there’s spirituality because we human beings, and we animals, and maybe even we plants, but certainly the ocean and the moon and the stars, we all live with something that is cherished and we feel the treasure of it.” 

Winfrey agreed: “Well, I believe that and feel that so deeply. It’s why every time I enter my yard or leave, I say, ‘Hello trees!’”

This may seem a minor thing but it REALLY irritates me.

And the reason why is because it is an example of this constant subliminal prejudice that people of faith have for those of us who are unwilling to suspend out disbelief long enough to accept the existence of ANY deity.

Now I consider Oprah Winfrey to be a relatively reasonable and intelligent woman, however there is not doubt that she sees the world from a very narrow perspective, and is unable to recognize that somebody who does not believe in God can feel awe, or amazement, or joy.

The reason I named this blog "The Immoral Minority" is because THAT was the label given to me by the Religious Right, and then I set out to prove that not only was that assumption incorrect, but also that many of those Fundamentalists who lay claim to a superior morality are anything but moral.

I think I have had some great success in that endeavor.

However the other important thing I wish to convey is that those of us who are non-deists are just as moral, or immoral, as those who hide behind the veil of Christianity.

I want to establish that a religious label is no indicator of the type of person who wears it. And further I want to point out that those who constantly tout their religiosity should be the FIRST to fall under suspicion.

"For no man is less moral than he who wears it like a badge upon his chest and consistently draws it to the attention of all who cross his path."

 Let me state for the record that I was overcome with awe the day my daughter first entered this world, that I have often been caught watching clouds lazy drift across a pale blue sky, and that there have been sunsets and sunrises that literally took my breath away.

I have lived, and loved, and sacrificed for others, just like all of those humans, both religious and nonreligious, who came before me. And I have done all of that as a proud, ethical, and deeply moral Atheist.

Millions are living happily without religion.

A humanist does not need to believe that they themselves will live forever. We take great solace and strength from realizing that the world, and the universe, will live on without us and that upon our death our essence and molecules will be reunited with the planet from which they were borrowed.

Not only are all human beings connected, but ALL life is connected, and once you remove God from the equation it allows you to finally accept your place in the universe and recognize that there is great peace and serenity awaiting you.