Tucson Region

Nonbelievers find a voice

Weary of feeling silenced by a culture dominated by organized faith, nonbelievers in Southern Arizona - and across the country - are coming out.

Atheists, agnostics and others who fall outside mainstream religion are forming their own organizations - a move counterintuitive to some in a group of individuals accustomed to the periphery. But nonbelievers both locally and nationally say it's time join together, step up and get some respect. "I hear people wonder how atheists can be moral. I just think things are getting really ridiculous," said 26-year-old Mary Adde, a University of Arizona graduate student and atheist who is part of a new campus club for nonbelievers. In addition to the UA club, a local chapter of the international Center for Inquiry - a support and education group for nonreligious people - formed earlier this year, and members already are sponsoring local movies and debates and writing letters to Congress. Tucson Atheists became an official chapter of the national American Atheists Inc. in March, and also plans more local visibility. "It is a way for nonbelievers to come together and not feel so isolated. I'm an atheist, and I'm proud of it," Tucson Atheists spokeswoman Dr. Jasmine England said. "A lot of people think atheism is negative and anti-religion. The reality is that church and state should be separate, and in a free society everyone should be free to choose what they believe and don't believe. Even some religious people are against intermixing church and state." Outside Southern Arizona, Hartford Seminary in Connecticut on Nov. 2 officially opened its Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture with a mission of increasing understanding of the contemporary significance of secular values. And Lori Lipman Brown, a lawyer, atheist and former Nevada state senator, began working in September as executive director for the Secular Coalition for America in Washington, D.C., a lobbying group with goals of keeping religion out of government and winning respect for nonreligious Americans. "We want to change the national conversation - to make it unacceptable to make us invisible," Lipman Brown wrote in an e-mail. "Statements claiming that we are all God-fearing Americans, or that there are no atheists in foxholes, are both inaccurate and point out how often we are left out. We want to stop the denigration of atheists in the United States, and to dispel the myth that we are less moral than theists." Some of the issues Lipman Brown already has weighed in on include opposing the federal government's reimbursement of churches that helped survivors of Hurricane Katrina and endorsing the removal of "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, saying it is a harsh intrusion into the parental and student rights of nonbelievers. "Groups that are sort of secular or atheist have been emboldened by the religious right and want to counter a lot of what they consider to be the effectiveness of the religious right," said Derek Davis, director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. "We are living in a day when it's becoming increasingly acceptable to let your anti-religious sentiments be known. You can compare it to the homosexuals who come out, like the basketball player Sheryl Swoopes just did. People are now more willing to come out and say, 'Yes, I'm an atheist.' " Tucsonan Jerry Karches, a retired physicist, is encouraging local nonbelievers to speak up. Karches fears America is becoming a theocracy. "President Bush goes to Jesus Christ for advice. Do you know any other leaders doing that in the world?" asked Karches, an atheist who helped found the Center for Inquiry Community of Southern Arizona. "Most of us are very concerned about the direction this country is going in. We're out of step with most other Western nations." The Geniuses of Diversity is a UA club led by 19-year-old Christopher Bischof, a sophomore, history major and atheist who is organizing a living-will event on campus. He says he wants to give students an alternative to the myriad religious groups on campus. Bischof and fellow student Nick Borst, also 19, came up with the idea of a club for nonbelievers during the nationwide Terry Schiavo controversy about end-of-life issues earlier this year. "Chris and I felt like there wasn't enough representation on campus for people who didn't buy into the whole organized religion thing," Borst said. "I see us bringing broader debate to campus." When the group held its first meeting last month, the topic that sparked the most passionate discussion was how nonbelievers can get along with parents and other relatives who are religious. Some had tips; others shared painful stories of alienation from religious relatives. "We want to let students know it's OK if you don't follow organized religion, as long as you have some sort of values and try to be a good person in life," Borst said. The number of nonbelievers organizing in Southern Arizona so far is small - the three local groups have about 160 total members. And studies and polls that attempt to pinpoint the number of nonbelievers in the United States vary widely. The American Religious Identification Study in 2001 said 1 percent of Americans - about 3 million people - identify as atheist or agnostic, though Gallup surveys in 1996 showed 4 percent to 6 percent of Americans - about 12 to 18 million - say they don't believe in a higher power. But critics, including some atheists and agnostics, doubt nonbelievers will have much clout, even with a louder voice. Most Americans do not share the groups' views, said Colby May, director of the Washington office of the American Center for Law & Justice, founded in 1990 by Christian televangelist Pat Robertson as a nonprofit public-interest law firm. "The vast majority of Americans have a faith. If this Secular Coalition for America, if their whole thing is to make sure they identify an incident where God is mentioned in a city seal or on some government building and to go around and make sure we tear it out - that is anathema to the way the majority of Americans feel," May said. Not all nonbelievers are on the same page when it comes to politics, and not all of them even want to be political. Borst, of the Geniuses of Diversity, is politically conservative and thinks the current administration is doing a good job ensuring freedom for both religious and nonreligious Americans. But most nonbelievers agree that atheists and other nonbelievers should be raising and improving their public image. "It's unpatriotic for an atheist to stay in the closet right now," American Atheists spokesman Dave Silverman said. "The most important thing right now is to stand up and be counted."