{"id":1082,"date":"2013-11-10T18:47:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T18:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/11\/atheist-mega-churches-take-root-across-us-world.html"},"modified":"2013-11-10T18:47:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-10T18:47:00","slug":"atheist-mega-churches-take-root-across-us-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/11\/atheist-mega-churches-take-root-across-us-world.html","title":{"rendered":"Atheist &#8216;Mega-Churches&#8217; Take Root Across US, World"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><span style=\"background-color: white;line-height: 17px\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. Hundreds packed in for more than an hour of rousing music, an inspirational sermon, a reading and some quiet reflection. The only thing missing was God.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;line-height: 17px;margin-bottom: 22px;padding: 0px\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><br><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;line-height: 17px;margin-bottom: 22px;padding: 0px\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">Dozens of gatherings dubbed \u201catheist mega-churches\u201d by supporters and detractors are springing up around the U.S. after finding success in Great Britain earlier this year. The movement fueled by social media and spearheaded by two prominent British comedians is no joke.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;line-height: 17px;margin-bottom: 22px;padding: 0px\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">On Sunday, the inaugural Sunday Assembly in Los Angeles attracted more than 400 attendees, all bound by their belief in non-belief. Similar gatherings in San Diego, Nashville, New York and other U.S. cities have drawn hundreds of atheists seeking the camaraderie of a congregation without religion or ritual.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;line-height: 17px;margin-bottom: 22px;padding: 0px\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">The founders, British duo Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, are currently on a tongue-in-cheek \u201c40 Dates, 40 Nights\u201d tour around the U.S. and Australia to drum up donations and help launch dozens of Sunday Assemblies. They hope to raise more than $800,000 that will help atheists launch their pop-up congregations around the world.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;line-height: 17px;margin-bottom: 22px;padding: 0px\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">They don\u2019t bash believers but want to find a new way to meet likeminded people, engage in the community and make their presence more visible in a landscape dominated by faith.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;line-height: 17px;margin-bottom: 22px;padding: 0px\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">Read the rest <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/atheist-mega-churches-root-us-world-20845796\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. Hundreds packed in for more than an hour of rousing music, an inspirational sermon, a reading and some quiet reflection. The only thing missing was God. Dozens of gatherings dubbed \u201catheist mega-churches\u201d by supporters and detractors are springing up around the U.S. after finding success [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Atheist &#039;Mega-Churches&#039; Take Root Across US, World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. 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