No, not that one.

This one.

Sunday school for atheists:

An estimated 14% of Americans profess to have no religion, and among 18-to-25-year-olds, the proportion rises to 20%, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies. The lives of these young people would be much easier, adult nonbelievers say, if they learned at an early age how to respond to the God-fearing majority in the U.S.

It would definitely help. So many young atheists live in fear of telling anyone, even close friends, what they believe.

A good friend of mine is featured in the article and she explains the need for this type of “atheist education”:

Bri Kneisley, who sent her son Damian, 10, to Camp Quest Ohio this past summer, welcomes the sense of community these new choices offer him: “He’s a child of atheist parents, and he’s not the only one in the world.”

Kneisley, 26, a graduate student at the University of Missouri, says she realized Damian needed to learn about secularism after a neighbor showed him the Bible. “Damian was quite certain this guy was right and was telling him this amazing truth that I had never shared,” says Kneisley. In most ways a traditional sleep-away camp–her son loved canoeing–Camp Quest also taught Damian critical thinking, world religions and tales of famous freethinkers (an umbrella term for atheists, agnostics and other rationalists) like the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

I think the obvious question that non-non-believers might have is: What do you teach at an Atheist Sunday School?

(And, no, the acronym is not lost on me. Ha ha. Very funny. Let’s move on now.)

One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I’m Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home.

Down the hall in the kitchen, older kids engaged in a Socratic conversation with class leader Bishop about the role persuasion plays in decision-making. He tried to get them to see that people who are coerced into renouncing their beliefs might not actually change their minds but could be acting out of self-preservation–an important lesson for young atheists who may feel pressure to say they believe in God.

It’s a positive piece on atheism in Time magazine!

Not too shabby at all.

Many thanks to Jeninne Lee-St. John, who wrote the article.

The piece also features the picture below (taken by Kathrin Miller) of “Sunday morning at The Children’s Program at the Humanist Community of Palo Alto, California”:

I’m jealous.

Can someone lend me a child so I can attend these classes?

(via The Freethinker)


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

The Catholic Church is worried because people are leaving the church…

That might be a good thing from an atheist perspective except the people are “join[ing] Pentecostal and other evangelical movements” instead.

“We shouldn’t begin by asking ourselves what is wrong with the Pentecostals, but what our own pastoral shortcomings are,” [Cardinal Walter] Kasper told the gathering, noting that such evangelical and charismatic groups count 400 million faithful around the world.

Why are people leaving the Catholic Church?

Where to begin…

Maybe people are sick of seeing the priests raping children. And then seeing the Church look the other way.

Or because the whole notion of the Pope being infallible seems archaic. Then again, so does the idea of having a Pope in general…

Or maybe because they watched a couple hours straight of EWTN. That’ll do the trick every time.

It’s not any better that the people leaving the fold are substituting one set of rituals for another. Evangelical churches often just make things worse. They’re no better when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. They’re the main reason we have such awful sex education in this country as well as so much confusion regarding evolution.

They do have better marketing skills, though. And admittedly superior sermons on the whole — sermons that make you think and question what you’re doing with your life. The potential to do good for other people and the community is there as well, if the pastors are convincing enough…

Perhaps there’s another reason this exodus is even an issue for the Catholic Church.

As submitter infideljoe writes,

Profits must be down.

It’s true. Churches are losing money. Catholic schools are losing students.

If they don’t reverse this trend, they’ll only have God on their side. And something tells me Church leaders wouldn’t be very satisfied with that…


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

This past Saturday, I was interviewed on a show called Unbelievable? airing on Premier Christian Radio in the United Kingdom. The host was Justin Brierley and he had me alongside Tom Price of the Damaris Trust, an “educational charity with a Christian foundation.”

You can listen to the full interview by going here.


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]