MERICAN THEIST American Atheists A A A JOURNAL OF ATHEIST NEWS AND THOUGHT Coming Out of the Closet: Why It’s Worth It An Interview with Richard Dawkins Also in this issue: • The Science of Faith • How Adults Can Help Young Atheists • Gideon Bibles Make Room for Atheist Books 1ST QUARTER 2014 www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 1 ATHEISTS.ORG FIRST QUARTER 2014 AMERICAN ATHEIST Subscribe to American Atheists A JOURNAL OF ATHEIST NEWS AND THOUGHT American Atheist Electronic subscriptions are free to all members. See p. 45 or go to Atheists.org Print subscriptions without membership (4 quarterly issues) - $35/year Electronic subscriptions without membership - $20/year Bullies for Jesus: The Spread of the Good News Clubs Go to Atheists.org to subscribe or complete the form below and send it to: Subscriptions ATHEISTS.ORG THIRD QUARTER 2013 American Atheist Magazine PO Box 158 Cranford, NJ 07016 Name: Address: City: State: Zip: Email:* Phone: I am paying by: Visa Mastercard Discover Amex Amount: Credit Card #: Expiration date MM/YY: *Required for electronic Questions? Call 908-276-7300 or email [email protected] 1ST QUARTER 2014 www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 2 AMERICAN ATHEIST A Journal of Atheist News and Thought 1st Quarter 2014 Vol. 52, No. 1 ISSN 0516-9623 (Print) ISSN 1935-8369 (Online) Photo by Rick Wingrove Above: Chad and Lena Brown, proud to be openly Atheist. Cover: The license plates from American Atheists members across the U.S. Cover Concept by Ken Loukinen. Photo of Richard Dawkins by Lalla Ward. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Pamela Whissel [email protected] LAYOUT and GRAPHICS EDITOR In This Issue Rick Wingrove [email protected] 5 Coming Out of the Closet as an American Atheist | J. T. Eberhard COPY EDITOR | Karen Reilly 8 An Interview with Richard Dawkins David Muscato PROOFREADERS 10 Good News Clubs - Part Three: What We Learned | Dale DeBakcsy Gil and Jeanne Gaudia Shelley Gaudia 13 Parents, Teachers, and Administrators Help Young Atheists | Hemant Mehta AMERICAN ATHEIST PRESS 16 The Godless Congregations of the Sunday Assembly | Becky Garrison MANAGING EDITOR Frank R. Zindler Secularism’s Pope: A Misleading Misunderstanding | David Orenstein, Ph.D. [email protected] 20 The Science of Faith: Part One | Ce Atkins Published by 22 American Atheists, Inc. | Mailing Address: 24 All of the Good, None of the God - Part Two: Uganda Conor Robinson P.O. Box 158 Cranford NJ 07016 28 Gideon Bibles Make Room for Atheist Books | Ed Buckner, Ph.D. Phone: 908.276.7300 FAX: 908.276.7402 32 How I Stood Up for My Right to Sit Down | Grover Helton www.atheists.org 34 DOGMA WATCH: Eat at Yahweh’s | Michael B. Paulkovich ©2014 American Atheists Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part Why I am an Atheist | Pinghui V. Liu, M.D. without written permission is prohibited. American 46 Atheist is indexed in the Alternative Press Index. American Atheist magazine is given free of cost to members of American Atheists as an incident of their membership. Annual Individual Membership with subscription for one year of American Atheist print magazine: $35. Online version only: $20. Couple/Family Membership with optional print magazine: $35. Sign up at www. atheists.org/aam. Discounts available for multiple year subscriptions: 10% for two years, 20% for three or more years. Additional postage fees for foreign addresses: Canada and Mexico: add $10/year. All other countries: add $30/year. Discounts for libraries and institutions: 50% on all magazine subscriptions and book purchases. 1ST QUARTER 2014 www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 3 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR What do you call a wrong decision made in the name of religion? A clerical error. That’s what the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC) called it when they were asked why they first told American Atheists President Dave Silverman that his application for the custom license plate ATHE1ST was “offensive” but then reversed the decision. The reversal came after a rash of bad publicity. As the news report from the U.K.’s Daily Mail put it, “they didn’t realize who they were rejecting.” If they had known who they were rejecting, they would have known that, as soon as his application was rejected, Silverman would share the news on his Twitter account @MrAtheistPants. They would have known that our Public Relations Director, Dave Muscato, would send out a press release. And that the press release would include a picture of Silverman holding a piece of décor that’s been in the American Atheists Center for as long as anyone can remember: a vintage New Jersey license plate that says ATHEIST. (Silverman’s has a numeral 1 because this all-letter version was already taken.) So why the red light for Silverman’s application but a green light for the earlier one? A spokesperson for the MVC told one reporter that “the clerk had exceeded her authority.” In other words, Silverman’s application was randomly assigned to an employee who happens to have a personal problem with Atheism but has no authority to decide that the MVC officially has this problem, which it clearly doesn’t. In fact, no one in the U.S. ever has the authority to decide that the laws of their god outrank the laws of the state. But it happens all the time, and, for a number of reasons, nothing’s done to remedy it. No one in the U.S. ever has the authority to decide that the laws of their god outrank the laws of the state. Sometimes nothing’s done because a person doubts their ability to fight the injustice. Sometimes they second-guess their understanding of their rights. Often, a person will assume they’re the only one who’s ever encountered such a roadblock. They assume this because they’ve never encountered another Atheist. And they’ve never encountered another Atheist because too many are still in the closet. American Atheist is a handbook for coming out of the closet. This magazine is also a handbook of how to show others the way out. This issue also features an excerpt from The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide, Hemant Mehta’s new book, which is full of ways that adults can assist students who want to stand up for their rights as non-believers. We’re also featuring the words of ten-year-old Grover Helton, who tells us how he demanded fair treatment in his school—and got it. Grover’s activist career is off to a great start, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he turns out to be like Ed Buckner, the former President of American Atheists, whose article is about his most recent victory: the placement of Atheist books right next to the Bibles that the State allows the Gideons to place in all the cabins of Georgia’s state parks. When Atheists refuse to be denied the rights that everyone should enjoy, it’s more than an opportunity for progress. It’s also an opportunity for closeted Atheists to take notice and realize that they are far from alone. And every time an Atheist comes out, it strengthens this country’s wall that separates church and state without separating believers from non-believers. Maintained properly, it’s the best thing that can happen to both. Pamela Whissel Editor-in-Chief [email protected] LEFT: President Dave Silverman with the vintage plate RIGHT: No offense after all: Silverman’s new plate 4 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org 1ST QUARTER 2014 Coming Out of the Closet as“ an American Atheist: Why It’s Worth It by J.T. Eberhard No price is too steep for the privilege of owning one’s self. always like to start an article with a statement of the obvious, Campus Crusade for Christ? These days, they’re calling themselves to help the reader and writer begin on common ground. just “Cru.” They organize clubs on college campuses. The Secular For this article, the statement is: We live in a very religious Student Alliance (SSA) organizes similar clubs for Atheists who nation. It wasn’t hard to come up with that, because in the United aren’t interested in a crusade so much as they’re interested in eating States churches outnumber schools and libraries by several orders of pizza with other Atheists. I used to work for SSA as their high school Imagnitude. Yet Atheism is growing, which means there’s not only a organizer. All in all, it was a pretty sweet gig. As soon as I started that “decent chance that you, my lovely reader, are a non-believer yourself, job, I immediately noticed a big difference between religious students but there’s also a good chance you’re relatively new to your non-belief. and non-religious students: most of the non-religious students hadn’t You may even still attend church—while not buying into a word of told their parents about their disbelief. the preaching. I’ve never heard of a Christian student living in fear of their own If you are a believer, there are decent odds that you are questioning family discovering their Christianity, so I began to wonder about and wondering what life is like on the other side. (The “other side” what was stopping the Atheist students from being open with their being Atheism in this life, not heaven or hell in the next.) Let me help parents. It quickly became evident that the reason was fear—a most fill you in. As an “out” Atheist, I’m perhaps a little biased, but I think heartbreaking fear of the very people who loved them.