Why I'm an Atheist

Here’s why I’m an atheist: I don’t believe in any gods.

Simple, right? I’ve not seen or heard or read any evidence that gods exist.

Also, I don’t need any god; there’s nothing lacking in my life that could be provided by believing, unreasonably, in a supernatural being.

But a discouraging trend that I’ve noticed in the Atheosphere lately — at least among the blogs that I read regularly — is to complicate the simple truth, which I’ll repeat once again in case you didn’t understand it the first time: an atheist is a person who doesn’t believe in any gods because there's absolutely no evidence of their existence.

If I announced suddenly that I don’t believe in flying elephants who fart Beethoven sonatas, I wouldn’t feel the need to defend my reasonable assertion against every idiot who suggested otherwise. I wouldn’t believe that such elephants existed, even if people showed me a book written over two thousand years ago claiming that a whole tribe of ignorant desert-dwellers had heard one passing overhead. I wouldn’t give credence to any assertion that those elephants and/or their musical effusions are responsible for human morality. I would refuse to accept unquestioningly that those elephants had designed a special place of punishment for people who don’t sing along with their gaseous emanations. And I certainly wouldn’t trust as proof of their existence a cluster of urine stains allegedly depicting winged mammoths with musical notes coming out of their asses.

If I deigned to debate people who had blind faith in those elephants, I would merely be buying into their lunacy.

Obviously, such a debate would serve no purpose. I could never convince believers in Beethoven-farting elephants — airborne or otherwise — of the untenability of their position. Because people who believe in flying, mellifluously flatulent pachyderms either don’t understand reason or just don’t want to hear it. They forsook scientific proof the second they accepted as fact that an Appassionata could come booming down from the clouds as a by-product of Proboscidean digestion. By engaging in debate with those morons, I’d implicitly be buying into their thesis. I’d become a moron, myself.

So, I ask my readers, why do so many of us waste our time debating religionists?

Agreeing to Disagree

Tobe over at A Load of Bright has put up an interesting post: Let's Just Agree to Disagree. I highly recommend that you read the post and its comment thread.

One person with whom I've agreed to disagree, although we haven't actually used that phrase, is Chuck Blanchard, whose blog is A Guy in the Pew. He's a Christian, a position which I find untenable, but I know from what he's written that there's absolutely no point in trying to persuade him to forsake his faith. So I don't. He knows I'm an atheist, a position which I'm sure he finds untenable, but he absolutely never, ever tries to sell his belief system to me. We have, however, had some religio-political discussions, and, since we both come from essentially the same liberal tradition, the results have been enlightening.

Recently, Chuck posted about Religion and the Presidential Vote. His implied conclusion, never actually expressed in so many words, was that it's OK for candidates to express their faith. In fact, he seemed to feel that Democrats are doing well by discussing such matters. We exchanged a few comments on that.

Now, in response to that give-and-take, he has posted again about Faith and Politics. Once more, I've tried to articulate my position, and explain how creepy all the faith talk sounds to atheist ears.

You may want to join in on this one. Remember, though: any attempt to deconvert the guy will fail.

Exterminator at a Loss for Words?

NOTE: On today’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos broadcast, the Democratic party’s presidential candidates engaged in a “debate.” The following horrifying sequence is reprinted exactly as recorded in the ABC news transcript.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me move on now. We've got a question -- we've got an e-mail question from Seth Ford of South Jordan, Utah. And he said, "My question is to understand each candidates' view of a personal God. Do they believe that, through the power of prayer, disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Minnesota bridge collapse could have been prevented or lessened?" I'd like each of you to answer it. Let me start with you, Senator Clinton.

CLINTON: You know, it's hard to hear you up here, George. I apologize.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll keep it up, and I'll just repeat it again. My question is to understand each candidate's view of a personal God. Do they believe that, through the power of prayer, disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Minnesota bridge collapse could've been prevented or lessened?

CLINTON: Well, I don't pretend to understand the wisdom and the power of God. I do believe in prayer. And I have relied on prayer consistently throughout my life. You know, I like to say that, if I had not been a praying person before I got to the White House, after having been there for just a few days I would've become one. (LAUGHTER) So I am very dependent on my faith, and prayer is a big part of that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Dodd?

DODD: I agree with what Hillary has just said here. I would not want to try and second-guess the lord's intentions here and to assume that part of his great plan includes some of these actions we see, for a variety of different reasons, here. And the power of prayer I think is important to all of us. I hope it is, recognizing that we don't do anything without His approval.

EDWARDS: I have prayed most of my life; pray daily now. He's enormously important to me. But the answer to the question is: No, I don't -- I prayed before my 16-year-old son died; I prayed before Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer. I think there are some things that are beyond our control. And I think it is enormously important to look to God -- and, in my case, Christ -- for guidance and for wisdom. But I don't think you can prevent bad things from happening through prayer.

GRAVEL: What I believe in is love. And love implements courage. And courage permits us all to apply the virtues that are important in life. And so you can pray -- I was always persuaded or struck by the fact that many people who pray are the ones who want to go to war, who want to kill fellow human beings. That disturbs me. I think what we need is more love between one human being and another human being. And then we'll find the courage to dispel many of the problems we have in governance. The answer to governance is not up here on the dais. The answer is with the American people and the people of Iowa. That's where the answer is. And I have a proposal, and it's the only one that talks of change. The change is to empower the American people with a national initiative. And my colleagues, with all due respect, don't even understand the principle of the people having the power. (APPLAUSE)

RICHARDSON: I pray. I'm a Roman Catholic. My sense of social justice, I believe, comes from being a Roman Catholic. But, in my judgment, prayer is personal. And how I pray and how any American prays, for what reason, is their own decision. And it should be respected. And so, in my view, I think it's important that we have faith, that we have values, but if I'm president, I'm not going to wear my religion on my sleeve and impose it on anybody.

BIDEN: George, my mom has an expression. She says that, "God sends no cross you're unable to bear." The time to pray is to pray whether or not you're told, as John was and I was, that my wife and daughter are dead, to have the courage to be able to bear the cross. The time to pray is to pray not only before, but pray that you have the courage, pray that God can give you the strength to deal with what everyone is faced with in their life, serious crosses, serious crosses to bear. The answer to the gentleman's question is, no, all the prayer in the world will not stop a hurricane. But prayer will give you the courage to be able to respond to the devastation that's caused in your life and with others to deal with the devastation.

OBAMA: I believe in the power of prayer. And part of what I believe in is that, through prayer, not only can we strengthen ourselves in adversity, but that we can also find the empathy and the compassion and the will to deal with the problems that we do control. Most of the issues that we're debating here today are ones that we have the power to change. We don't have the power to prevent illness in all cases, but we do have the power to make sure that every child gets a regular checkup and isn't going to the emergency room for treatable illnesses like asthma. We may not have the power to prevent a hurricane, but we do have the power to make sure that the levees are properly reinforced and we've got a sound emergency plan. And so, part of what I pray for is the strength and the wisdom to be able to act on those things that I can control. And that's what I think has been lacking sometimes in our government. We've got to express those values through our government, not just through our religious institutions. (APPLAUSE)

KUCINICH: George, I've been standing here for the last 45 minutes praying to God you were going to call on me. And my... (LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE) And I come from a spiritual insight which says that...

STEPHANOPOULOS: You have a direct pipeline, Congressman. (LAUGHTER)

KUCINICH: I come from a spiritual insight which says that we have to have faith but also have good works. So when we think of the scriptures, Isaiah making justice the measuring line; Matthew 25, "whatever you do for the least of our brethren"; where the biblical injunction, "make peace with your brother" -- all of these things relate to my philosophy. Now, the founders meant to have separation of church and state, but they never meant America to be separate from spiritual values. As president, I'll bring strong spiritual values into the White House, and I'll bring values that value peace, social and economic justice, values that remember where I came from. Thank you. (APPLAUSE)

THE EXTERMINATOR: I think Mr. Ford’s question has no place in this debate. But I’ll answer it because I realize how important it is for Mr. Stephanopoulos’s ratings that he cater to his religious viewers. I do not believe at all in the power of prayer. (BOOS AND HISSES) I believe in the power of the human mind, and in compassion, and in empathy, and in having a sense of history and a deep respect for science. (TOMATOES THROWN) Nor do I think that prayer is an appropriate strategem for the President of the United States. (VERBAL THREATS) The idea that any individual has a personal pipeline to a supernatural being is dangerous, and, when such an idea is embraced by the leader of a country, results in extreme abuses of power. Those who claim, or even imply, that they would incorporate prayers in any way into their governing decisions are ignoramuses or scoundrels, or both. (LYNCH MOB APPROACHES STAGE)

Well, maybe I made up that last response. But all the other ones are frighteningly real. Since my face is frozen into “The Scream,” I'm speechless. I hope my readers will provide some commentary, in which I'll join once I've regained my tongue.

I'm Soooo Hot!

Oh, the doldrums of summer. It’s so hot where I live that I haven’t had the energy to think about my blog, except to come up with random titles that might attract some extra traffic. I sure hope the hell thing isn’t true.

Anyway, I thought it might be magnanimous of me to invite a ghost atheist to write a short essay and post it on my site under his or her own “name.” I put out a call to nonbelievers, and received dozens of submissions. After winnowing out the people who merely keyed in an essay by Carl Sagan or linked to a YouTube video featuring an adorable cat, I was left with ten possibilities. Below, I reprint an excerpt from each one.

Atheoso Furioso
... Those fucking fundies who live across the street from me think it’s OK if they try to convert others to their idiotic religion whenever they want. Every time I look over at their house during dinner time and use my binoculars to peek through their window, they’re praying! I mean, what gives them the right to shove Christianity down my throat whenever they feel like it? ...

The Happy Heathen
... and then, when I went to my fifty-ninth church, I again found many new religious friends who accepted me for the atheist I am. Gosh, Christians seem to be much more tolerant than I realized. After the service, they even asked me to come back tomorrow for a special art project! I’m not sure what we’re going to make, but it sounds really cool because it’s going to involve some tar and some feathers. ...

Shellfish Jean
... Now, clearly, the individual replicative units in clams and other bivalvia, in fact all the organisms in the phylum Mollusca, have no interest in propagating the species, per se, as they might have had there been a God to set the entire reproductive process in motion. No, contrary to what those brainless creationists may think, there’s no evidence whatsoever that clams, scallops, oysters, or ...

Godless Mommy
... I couldn’t resist this picture of Megan and Heather in their new “A” T-shirts. Can you? Cute, right? Anyway, when they put them on, Darwin, my youngest, (he’s the one with the missing front teeth in yesterday’s photo) smiled at me and said, “There’s no tooth fairy. Is there, Mommy?” I felt so proud. But I had to laugh when he added, “Jimmy told me God puts the money under our pillow.” Jimmy (you remember his snapshot from last week, don’t you?) should know better, since he’ll be seventeen the day after tomorrow. (I have to remember to wrap his present, a beautiful gold-plated “A” to wear around his neck!) I think my teenage genius was just trying to get a rise out of me, but I should probably question him about ...

PhiloSophomore
... So how, exactly, do atheists derive an ethical code if it is not given to us by a supernatural being from on high? How do nonbelievers decide for themselves what deeds are and are not moral in a world that seems to be spinning ever more quickly toward the ultimate triumph of evil? Of course, you might ask: What would evil’s ultimate triumph be? How would it differ from lesser triumphs? Are triumphs measurable against one another? And can evil ever actually triumph? In fact, does evil even exist? For that matter, does the world exist? And if so, does it spin? Now, obviously ...

Shmebster
... And of course, the Xtians immediately turn to Jeebus, as if he might ever answer their Prairs, which he won’t because he’s too busy worrying about whether everyone is wearing a Crotch around his neck and reading his Babel. The Jooz, meanwhile, hurry into their Tempulls, while the Muzzlins cry out loudly to Aha. We’re not sure exactly what the Himboos and Bootists do, but you can bet your ass that ...

Linker
... Bush is up to his old tricks again, I see. In a speech he gave last Thursday at a prayer breakfast in Houston, he warned of growing terrorist cell activity in a number of major cities across America. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, meanwhile ...

Christ-loving Athiest
... As I’ve written many times before, I’m not 100% comfortable with the term “athiest” to describe myself. After all, I do believe that Jesus died for mankind’s sins, was nailed to the cross, and rose on the third day. Still, if I can’t definitely call myself an out-and-out athiest, perhaps it wouldn’t be wrong to use the term “angostic.” An angostic is a person who doesn’t know for sure, so I guess maybe I’m one. I’m only 99% certain that Christ will come back in a blaze of glory one day, and ...

Sue deBastards
... Unbelievably, Associate Justice Bryson Petty wrote in Christian v. Lyon, “It is true that the Constitution does not guarantee a private citizen the right to lead the animals in sectarian prayer at a public zoo, paid for at taxpayer expense. However, the mere mention of the name ‘God’ or ‘the Lord’ or ‘Jesus Christ’ may not suffice for this Court to find a sovereign state’s law unconstitutional on its face, nor even on any of its other anatomical parts. As Associate Justice Colman Hanky wrote in Babar v. Simba, ‘The freedom to practice religion as guaranteed in the First Amendment does not stop at the elephant house door, but rather
...

God Eats Shit!
... Unlike many so-called militant atheists, I think it’s important for us to find common ground with moderate Christians, who, after all, may not understand that nonbelievers have no animosity ...

Well, there you have it. After giving these “auditions” much thought, I’ve decided to come out of my stupor and keep my blog up on my own. Watch for a new post soon.

A: It's Not Just for "Apple" Any More

It seems a damn shame that the lovely OUT “A” is being used as a logo only on T-shirts and bumper stickers. I suggest that Richard Dawkins get behind the following merchandise:

• Cheeri-As breakfast cereal: Start your dA the atheist wA.
• A-didas footwear: Great for all sports except jumping to conclusions.
• Starbuck’s A-ppuccino: Stay awake.
• A & As candy: They melt in your mouth, not in your mind.
• Campbell’s A soup: Who needs the rest of the alphabet?
• McDonald’s "Big A” sandwich: Contains no bull.
• Keebler’s A-nimal Crackers: Evolved by elves.
• Est-A Lauder cosmetics for atheists: Keep your eyes wide open.
• The Apod: Listen to reason.
• A-holes doughnuts: Delicious treats for freethinkers & freedunkers.

Can anyone recommend other products?

A or Not-A? Movement or Not-Movement?

This post is about making a tough decision. But I’m going to start with a short rant. Since we here in the Atheosphere love occasional tirades, our own or other people’s, I trust you’ll bear with me until I get to my point.

It’s amazing to me that so many blogging atheists are eager to claim they’re part of a “movement.” That’s why the Dawk-A is showing up on blog after blog in the Atheosphere. The Dawk-A, which is really a logo for a line of T-shirts and bumper stickers and who-knows-what else, is also, allegedly, a symbol of the “OUT” campaign.

But, come on! Displaying an ugly red “A” in the margins of your home page ain’t the same as being an admitted atheist in real life. If you’ve got a solid freethinking blog, everyone who reads it should know very well where you stand in the god-belief continuum: you’re OUTside it. My no-A blog is just as godless – maybe even more so – than someone else’s A-displaying site.

I, for one, happen to be an avowed atheist in my everyday, non-blogger existence. I speak out, loudly and often. My family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even casual acquaintances all know that I think religions are nonsense. Do I need an A to identify myself? Not as long as my voice still works.

Look, I admire Richard Dawkins for his unabashed atheism. But neither he nor his line of atheogarb have influenced my nonbelief one iota. In fact, I suspect that very few religionists have picked up The God Delusion, read it all the way through, and then said to themselves, “Hey, he’s got something there! I’d better get me an A.”

What truly astounds me about the “OUT” campaign is how quickly some nonbelievers have embraced an idiotic symbol as if they’ve been longing for their own version of the crucifix or the star of David. It’s a red A, for cryin’ out loud. If you put it on your shirt, and then add a cape and boots, you can look like a comic book superhero. How impressive!

If we’re really a movement, though, and not just a crowd of malcontents who dress up for some mutual grousing, we ought to band together and act like one. Wearing a T-shirt is not a rational substitute for taking action; displaying a logo is no indication that you’ve made a tough, reasoned decision.

Right now, the toughest decision of all for American atheists is the decision not to support a presidential candidate who seems OK— if only it weren’t for all that pandering to the theocrats.

But here’s the way I see it. By some estimates, we freethinkers make up around 10% of the American populace. That’s a healthy, election-influencing chunk of humanity. If we’re a real movement, let’s refuse to roll over and play dead at the ballot box. Let’s act like a movement where it counts.

Any candidate who drones on and on about his or her faith does not demonstrate a deep commitment to separation of church and state. A politician who takes every opportunity to speak at, and/or be photographed attending, prayer meetings, church suppers, and religious services, is likewise no great advocate of the First Amendment. A presidential contender who prays that our country be blessed by a god is doing what the founders specifically declined to do when they wrote the Constitution.

It’s a tough decision, whether you’re a progressive or a libertarian, a conservative or a liberal, to say: “I’m not going to vote for anyone who explicitly or implicitly, through word or deed, denies the rights of freethinkers by putting religion on a pedestal.” Yet, that’s what all these candidates are doing. Every mention of faith, every intoning of the word god, every appearance at a church or synagogue or mosque says: “My presidency will favor believers. Religion will be encouraged in my White House. While I’m in office, I’ll ignore the chipping away at the wall of separation. God bless America, and vice versa. I’ll continue to participate in holy wars. I’ll continue to support mythology over science, backwardness over progress. I’ll continue to use an evil and antiquated moral code as the national ethic.”

Well, count me out. I’m in a true atheist movement, although it may be a movement of one only. No candidate who puts god on the ticket will get my vote, even if I have to stay home and sit on my hands come election day — or go to the polls and write in “The Exterminator.” I will no longer condone the proliferation of superstition.

Isn't that what an atheist movement should really be about?

ADDENDUM (12:45 p.m. EDT): I should add that I’m not suggesting we merely stay home on election day — or laughingly write in “The Exterminator” — and do nothing else. We should take every opportunity to make public statements about our tough decision. We should continue to speak loudly and proudly through our blogs and, if possible, let the candidates and media know why we freethinkers and secularists, as a bloc, will not be voting for anyone who injects religion into his or her political discourse. Mind you, I'm not saying that a candidate must actually be an atheist, or claim to espouse atheism. I'm just saying that we should punish those, however appealing they may be otherwise, who go out of their way to use god as a vote-getter. We must let them know that god is a vote-loser, too.

And Howard Stern Makes It Sound So Easy

So for those of you who are dying to know what my voice sounds like — and really, get a life! — there’s an opportunity for you to hear my words of wisdom dribbling out of my own mouth.

On Friday, August 3, Rich Orman of Dogma Free America will post his podcast interview with the Exterminator, which we recorded a few days ago.

I had, of course, planned to be witty and titillating, kind of a straight atheistic Oscar Wilde. I was wild all right, but the only Oscar I sounded like was the Grouch. Actually, the well-known personality I reminded myself of most was Ralph Kramden: a-hummina-hummina-hummina.

There’s a temptation to get preachy when you feel you have a captive audience. And believe me, I was imagining listeners figuratively chained to their seats, waiting eagerly for their audio to stream. So I did my tub-thumping best to get my points across. That’s what happens when you hand an amateur a soapbox. I was speaking my own words, but I was hearing William Jennings Bryan in the Chautauqua tent.

Which reminds me: Since I’ve recently put myself forward as an invisible-horse candidate for president, I’d better polish up my oratorical skills before I hit the campaign trail. As we all know from listening to our current commanderer-in-chief, the American public would never accept a leader who’s inarticulate.

At least I don’t think I ever said “it’s hard.” Our prez repeats that phrase so often, I think he must have issues about erectile dysfunction.

He also says “in other words” far more than most other speakers do. That’s because he can’t seem to find the right words the first time. In other words, he uses the wrong words a lot.

Anyway, Rich Orman struck me as a very nice guy, and he promised that I’d love the “edit.” I suppose I’d be happy if he inserts some phrases spoken by Richard Dawkins in that chittery Brit accent of his. But my guess is: unfortunately, it’ll just be me. With a tongue so tied no boy scout could unravel it.

In other words: a-hummina-hummina-hummina.

Stand Up for Your Rights: Remain Seated

A story out of Exeter, England shows the difference between the courage of at least one British politician and our own collection of American wusses.

At a civic meeting — the American equivalent of which I assume to be a city council meeting — an Exeter councillor named Paul Pettinger refused to stand for a convocational prayer. The Lord Mayor, Hazel Slack, tightened up at this lack of “respect.” Whereupon the Conservative Party leader, Yolanda Henson, according to the Exeter Express & Echo, “said she would work for a new rule requiring anyone who does not want to stand at council meeting prayers to leave the chamber.” Here's Henson’s comment defending her theocratic reaction: “It doesn't matter what religion you are, the Lord Mayor is the representative in Exeter of the Queen.”

Pettinger, an atheist, was not allowed to state why he chose not to take part in the silliness; he was even told by the Lord Mayor that he’d have to leave the room right there and then if he continued to try to explain his position.

Here’s what Pettinger later told the newspaper:

I'm elected to do a job for my residents and the people of Exeter and faith has nothing to do with it. I am a secularist and believe in the complete separation of personal faith and state. I'm an atheist and don't wish to take part in Christian worship. It's highly inappropriate to put pressure on people to act in this way when there are people of so many faiths in this country.

Great Britain, I remind my fellow Americans, has no First Amendment, or even any equivalent prohibiting the establishment by government of religion. We do. And yet a Brit has the balls to stand up and say “screw this nonsense,” while our elected representatives, from the highest to the lowest, give religion unquestioning “respect,” in our townships, our cities, our counties, our states, and, indeed, in the halls of the federal Congress, itself— where it is expressly forbidden. Who among our governmental officials has ever dared to utter the opinion that convocational prayer is “highly inappropriate”? No one. Instead, they strive to outdo each other in speaking of their deep belief in god and in preaching (there’s no other honest word for standing in front of a religious congregation and electioneering) to the ignorati in churches, synagogues, and mosques. Not one voice rises up to say, in plain English, as Pettinger’s did: “I believe in the complete separation of personal faith and state.”

Some news reporter looking to make a name for him- or herself ought to ask the current pious crop of presidential contenders what they think of Pettinger’s words. But, of course, the U.S. media is just as craven before the power of Big Religion as the politicos are.

Anyway, the candidates would probably just answer that they’re representatives of the Queen. Or words to that effect.

Googl-oetry

I believe I’ve invented a new art form: googl-oetry. Here's how you can be a big-time googl-oet, too. Simply use one of your traffic-trackers to find the phrases that people keyed into Google to arrive at your blog. (Purists like me will insist that your site show up within the first ten search returns, but that’s not absolutely necessary.) Then, use those phrases to create a verse that's both beautiful and profound — although perhaps unintelligible.

Anyway, here’s my untitled googl-oem. Each line of my work contains one searched-for phrase. I've added some end-of-line punctuation, but nothing else.

mother father please explain something to me
(it ain’t so good, the book):
how hornets give birth;
fart sounds and what they mean;
similar quotes between George W. Bush and Woodrow Wilson;
how to get a good bong hit;
directions for putting toilet paper on the roller.

tell me more about the devil, who is he?
catholic ron paul?
polish guy and catholic in a boat joke?
phone numbers to recorded preachers?
bitch phone number?
pastor melissa scott sex life?

you must remember this:
I’ve just seen your face,
Hilton on my tits —
fuck me, uncle.
pac man oh shit belt buckle!
musical: "thank you very much, that's the nicest thing that anyone's ..."

why do you want to control the humans, please explain.
my lever door is locked and I can’t open it from the outside.
my life might pass me by.

the balls in your court julie andrews!

Go ahead and try it. Feel free to leave your Googl-oems as comments, or link to them if you publish them on your own blog.

Nonbelieving Literati

As of a week and a half after its original posting, my latest puzzle has been solved by only two of you. So I hereby give honorable mention to (1) John P., the Spanish Inquisitor, whose brain I didn’t torture sufficiently to keep him from finding the correct answer; and (2) Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, who cheerfully came up with the solution.

Although I’m not going to publish that solution here — in case anyone wants to take the challenge belatedly — I will mention that a part of the puzzle led to the name: Gore Vidal.

And Gore Vidal, as he always does, got me thinking. Since he’s often wordy and long-winded (coming from me, those terms are not necessarily insults), my thinking followed suit. Here’s what I thought:

So many bloggers in the Atheosphere are science professionals, or at least heavily science-oriented. And that’s good. Although I’m not a scientist myself, I enjoy reading well-written books and articles — and posts — aimed at the educated layman. My personal library has an entire bookcase devoted to literary explications of science.

But scientists shouldn’t feel that they’ve cornered the market on nonbelief. There are plenty of us folks in the humanities who also have no faith in faith.

The list of great and near-great freethinking authors, for example, is a long one. It contains, among others, such non-scientists as: Ambrose Bierce, Pearl S. Buck, Joseph Conrad, George Eliot, Robert Frost, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Sinclair Lewis, H.P. Lovecraft, H.L. Mencken, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, Percy Bysshe Shelley, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain, the above-mentioned Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, and H.G. Wells.

I think it’s time we atheists draw some inspiration from literature as well as science.

Now, I’m one of those people who are gifted with incomplete retention, or, to put it another way, almost complete non-retention. When I read a novel, I tend to remember a few snippets of dialogue, some vivid mental pictures, a handful of the most eccentric characters, and the bare outlines of plot. When I say bare, that’s what I mean, naked all the way down to the skeleton. I forget most of the specific events, get the ones I do remember out of order, and sometimes “recall” incidents that would come as a complete surprise to the author.

My lack of better memory is a boon, though, because I can reread any book after about five years, and feel like it’s brand new. I’ve been known to pick up a mystery that I’ve read four or five times before and sit on the edge of my seat trying to figure out who the murderer is. And when I do find out, I wonder: “Was that who did it last time?” Ah, the blessings of premature old age.

Almost two decades ago, I first read Vidal’s Julian, a novel about the late Roman emperor who attempted to eradicate Christianity as a force in his empire. I remembered that I liked it a lot, and not much else. But since I deigned to mention the author’s name in my trivial puzzle, I decided that I owed it to myself to reread a book that made a huge impression on me in the 1980s.

Anyway, I’m about a third of the way through. After each reading session, I think, “This would be a great book for an atheist reading group.”

And so I’d like to propose such a group. My idea is that nine or ten of us — if we can get that many to commit — will read a book every month and a half or so. That’s a long enough time that even the slowest readers, or those with the least amount of time, can participate. We’ll take turns making book suggestions. The only stipulation will be that the book not be an atheist diatribe, best-selling or otherwise.

We’ll target a specific day on which to finish. On that date, or shortly thereafter, each of us will publish a post about the chosen book. (In fairness, those of us who finish reading early may write our posts, but not publish them online until everyone has had a chance to complete the reading.) The post will not be a review or a summary. It will be an essayistic ramble on what the book got us thinking about. Whether we liked the book or not, we’ll use it as an entry point to our own thoughts. If enough people are interested, perhaps we can even publish a Carnival of Nonbelieving Literati a week or so after each target date.

I’d like to propose Julian as our first book, and September 15^th as our first target date.

What do you think?