Years ago I viewed a documentary on the rise of the Religious Right in this country. They were taken lightly because of their extreme views. Their version of Christianity is that of dominionism (complete control), where biblical law supersedes the rule of law. Reclaim America for Christ! Now look at them, they have found their way into all positions of government, Senators, Congressmen--even the White House.

Maybe the Religious Right is good in a way; folks will open their eyes, realize their views are destructive and divisive and turn away. At the same time I worry the masses will fall victim to their twisted views of Christ and become like them, using the Bible as a weapon.

If the Religious Right continues unabated they will surely increase their numbers and rewrite the meaning of Christianity. Ignorance will prevail, gays will be persecuted, science and evolution will be subtracted to poppycock and of course, the wall of separation of Church and State will be torn down, as the Church becomes the government. Biblical Law will replace the Constitution and "this Crusade, this War on Terror" will spread in preparation for the mythical Second Coming. At the same time more progressive folks will walk away from Christianity altogether as Jesus evolves into a monster.

Will the real Christians please stand up?

Mark Picone

Hudson, OH

I want to respond to David Cartwright's assertion that "atheism really requires the most faith of any worldview."

Mr. Cartwright wrote that it takes a huge leap of faith to have "no real explanation of how the world got here, the 'source' of the Big Bang," and implies that it would be silly to believe that the universe has always been here. He seems to think that the introduction of a deity solves this riddle. But, it doesn't.

That the universe must have had a beginning, an appearance out of nothingness, is not the immediate certainty that this argument uses as a given. The question, "where does it all come from" is not answered by a deity, because it can be asked, "Where did God come from?" The assertion that God has always existed is even less rational than that the universe has. There is no evidence for the current or past existence of a deity, which is why it requires faith. However, there are physical laws (The Law of Conservation of Mass and The Law of Conservation of Energy) that show that mass and energy are neither created nor destroyed.

While Mr. Cartright asserts that atheists have "no real explanation of where life came from," he has no real explanation of where God came from.

While Mr. Cartright says that atheists have "a theory of evolution that is full of holes and has major problems with the scientific evidence and common sense," the Bible can't even agree with itself on how the world was created (the first two chapters of Genesis contradict each other).

How is a god necessary to recognize and appreciate beauty or to find meaning in life? In practice, how are an atheist's beliefs in a shared standard of acceptable behavior (social contract?) altogether divergent from his notion of an "objective moral standard"?

Mr. Cartwright's comments beg a lot of questions.

However, I don't consider theists as altogether irrational. There is a fundamental difference between knowledge and belief. It's silly for one to assert that they believe in things they know, such as "I believe I am sitting at my desk." Belief, even faith, falls into the jurisdiction of things currently unknown, or things that cannot be known. Some belief is an extension of rational processes, and some isn't--a distinction that can be made between two believers of the same thing. I have known Christians, for example, who have applied a lot of rational processes to come to their belief in God, and I have known idiots who simply and zealously drank the Kool-aid of their religion's dogma. The former is respectable, if flawed, and the latter would be laughable if the lot of them did not have such deleterious impact on the world we live in.

The theme of "The New Atheists" illustrated non-believers as an important constituency in national politics. Evangelical Christians have stood in the limelight, and have tried to force their faith on the country. I'd like to remind them of what Jesus said, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." A separation of church and state.

Douglas L. Haugen II

Seattle, WA

Aronson raises two issues for me. The first doesn’t need elaboration: The threat to democracy and human liberty from fundamentalism is sharp as a knife. The second is subtler: Absent the politics, who cares what your beliefs are, since it’s how you live them that matter.

There have been outstanding people of faith in the long struggles to make America live up to its professed ideals, but let’s admit that they’ve always been in the minority, as all our freedom fighters have been. The majority of the majority of believers, on the other hand, have peaceably co-existed with, if not actively supported, slavery, the robber barons and wars throughout our history. (Recall the Alabama bishops, reverends and a sole rabbi, who deplored Martin Luther King Jr.’s agitation as “unwise and untimely.”) And today they’re OK with the fact that the US is at the bottom of the pile of the major industrialized democracies when it comes to healthcare, infant mortality, literacy and wealth inequalities, to name just some of the shameful measures about how we treat each other. Many followers of the Prince of Peace also support the world’s largest military and the world’s biggest weapons supplier, for reasons that escape me.

So, is this gulf between proclamation and practice the opposite of that of masturbation, which very few will admit to but most surely partake of? The measure of a person, religious or not, is what you do, not what you say you do.

For me, I take the major tenet of the Judeo-Christian traditions to be a simple human teaching: Treat others as you would yourself be treated. The rest, as the good rabbi said, is commentary. I’ve a feeling he well knew how hard it is to just do this profoundly right thing.

Matthew Wills

Brooklyn, NY

Aronson makes an important suggestion towards the end of the article: Nontheists who believe in separation of church and state can work with like-minded theists. That is exactly what is currently happening on Capitol Hill (and has been happening since 2005). The first Congressional lobbying organization explicitly representing the interests of the tens of millions of nontheists in the US, The Secular Coalition for America works with religious church/state separation organizations on a regular basis. We have also implemented Aronson's idea that such a group ought to "reorient American thinking about atheists and atheism." This is another area in which, especially in media outlets, the Secular Coalition for America has made great strides--informing the public that we, too are patriotic, ethical, and yes... moral.

Lori Lipman Brown
Secular Coalition for America

Washington, DC

The previous letters demonstrate two things about devout (and defensive) believers: They mistakenly equate science and atheism and they truly don't understand scientific thought.

At a base level science relies on the demonstrable and inferable, so good science is indeed impersonal. I respect Mr. Riddington's opinion, but we can indeed wonder at the complexity of the universe without introducing fable as its source. I truly believe that the universe is impersonal, but that just reinforces how lucky I am to be here as an observer.

Mr. Cartwright confuses atheism with science; they are not the same, yet he fully misunderstands what science is and how it works. A difference between science and religion is that science fully admits what it doesn't know, so contrary to his assertion, no good scientist has faith in what he believes. The scientist not only accepts that his beliefs will be enhanced, or even supplanted, by future scientists, he hopes that this will indeed happen. Newton's world view is correct given certain constraints, but his work was expanded on (generalized actually) by Einstein. Science explains what is in its power to explain at the moment and hopes that future scientists will add to that knowledge base. You might even say that science evolves, unlike many religions that believe that all we need to know was determined 2,000 years ago.

Speaking of evolution, he also makes the mistake of mistaking evolution with a theory of evolution. Evolution is a demonstrable and observable phenomenon. There may be many theories of evolution, but the one referred to is Darwin's Natural Selection. Was Darwin 100 percent correct? Of course not--scientists are not arrogant enough to believe that they are omniscient. Yet Darwin's theory has been a remarkable starting point, given that the mechanism of evolution was unknown to him at the time (genetics). Unlike the absolutism of faith, scientific theories are expected to have "holes," which we hope will then be filled by future research.

Yes, science can admit that it doesn't know what happened before the Big Bang; it's even possible that we can't know because we are constrained by the physical laws of the universe we live in--which appears to be created by that event (the Big Bang). The scientific mind accepts this. It's OK! Can a scientist believe in God? Certainly, they are distinct systems of thought, but other aspects of religion may be impossible for the scientist to accept as literal truth. (Here is not the place to debate the usefulness of mythology--I refer you to Joseph Campbell.)

For me, it is the vast expanse of the universe, with billions of years and the infinity of mathematics, that explains our existence (this too is a theory). Given the enormity of the numbers involved, it is quite PROBABLE that life originated from random processes. That we are the beneficiaries of probability does not mean we must infer a designer, though the tendency to do so is understandable.

Saying that beauty, morals and purpose require religion just shows the conceit of the believer. It might surprise some that a-theist and a-moral are not synonyms. My moral system is based on two main principles: that to justify my freedom I must insist on freedom for everyone and that we should tread lightly on our planet, because this is the only heaven we, and our successors, have. Making the most of this existence--the only one that I know I have--is a purpose that I'm very content with.

Finally, to those whose quote scripture as an attempt to prove a point, you just did the opposite.

Mark S. Jacobs

Severna Park, MD

I continue to find it amazing when I hear atheists refer to those of us who are believers as "irrational." We are not irrational, we just have a different starting premise: God is. From there, a sound rational worldview is built. And, I think the evidence is much stronger for the "God is" starting premise than the opposite, but I digress....

What is really interesting to me is that atheism really requires the most faith of any worldview. Look at what you have to believe if you are an atheist:

No real explanation of how the world got here, the "source" of the Big Bang, or you must believe it has always existed.

No real explanation of where life came from.

A theory of evolution that is full of holes and has major problems with the scientific evidence and common sense.

And even if take all those huge leaps of faith, you are left with at least one further, huge leap of faith: Your worldview gives you no basis for purpose or meaning in life, the dignity of man, truth, objective moral standards, beauty etc., even though you know these things are important and "true." Despite the logical conclusions of your worldview, you can't live it out, and you take the leap of faith that all these things are true anyway.

This is rational? Sounds pathetic to me.

David Cartwright

Lake Zurich, IL

To mount a political surge against the evils of religiosity, Ronald Aronson envisions a coalition of neo-atheist unbelievers and secularly theophobic believers. He wants to replace politicized theism with politicized atheism.

The mission is shaped by a fawning regard for "the courage and tenacity" of "deiciders" like Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins and Dennett. And once again, we see a contra-theist wielding a weapon forged from "an unguided, unplanned process" capable of producing thirty-eight Nobel Laureates.

Aronson has alligned himself with believers who've used this scientism to reject a literal Genesis, and so, he writes off Intelligent Design as "a refurbished form of creationism." This is a standard, reflexive dismissal exposing its user (a) as insensible to his defective understanding of what he belittles (Uncommon Dissent, edited by IDist William Dembski, underlines the vacuity of the slur), and (b) as someone overpowered by faith in omniscient Time to generate specified complexity, that is, to make matter live and think.

If the New Atheist task force intends to explore the difference between belief and unbelief, it will discover a cage-match between extreme faiths--between the absolutely personal and the absolutely impersonal. The universe is either impersonal in its essential physicality, and we are finally and irrevocably reducible to electrochemical noise, or it is personal and we are the creation of a supernatural, transcendant Person--who knows us.

There is, of course, the evolvo-theist conjoinery of Teilhard de Chardin with its supernatural Autotransformation Executor giving the nod to whatever Nature might decide to do with matter; but this has proven to be an abusive marriage which ends with the evolvian partner using the "science" word to beat the theophile partner to death.

"Living without God means turning toward something," writes Aronson, and so he reaches for secular popular philosophy to "answer life's vital questions." However, that leaves his problem-solving coalition of natural selectees with nothing more than a survival postulate as they disengage from the virulent evils of faith and attend to the pesky dyfunction brought on by real psychopathy, depravity and suffering.

For example, the dogma-rejecting magician James Randi says his belief in "the basic goodness" of his species "appears to be a positive tactic and quality that leads to better chances of survival." But then he shifts from the sciencey tactical stuff into happy hominid gear: "I also believe in puppy-dogs and a child's sparkling eyes, in laughter and smiles, in sunflowers and butterflies."

And so, another of the intellectually fulfilled finds himself chugging from a jug of Old Mawkish. That's what happens when macho atheism comes home to an empty, silent house after a long day's work under a meaning that begins and ends in physics.

Randi's cheesy conflation of survival optimism and sensate sentimentality arises from the same mental compulsion that runs Richard Dawkins's nescient aversion to the palpably spectacular design of the undesigned. David Berlinski describes it in The Advent of the Algorithm:

Whatever we may say, we are stll ideologically the party of the physical sciences; like any ideological affiliation, ours involves commitments determining the evidence, rather than the reverse, and this by means of a psychological process as difficult to discern as it is to deny.

Aronson's league of ideological god-busters is united in its loathing for a universe which has Personhood written into every phenomenon displaying conceptual encodedness. As output from the fortuitous cunning of particles, these self-replicating fortuitrons will, naturally, despise any claim that the Person speaks to us, especially as the Word of Life who entered history, as a loving, saving Creator.

With what unspeakable indifference, then, will they receive the judgment which demolishes the cult of happenstance enshrined in their neural networks:

For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. [Romans 1:20]

Bruce Riddington

Victoria, British Columbia

Aronson points out that regardless of religious belief or any other ideas, we still need meaning. Questions about meaning have been pretty back-burner for quite a while, as the atheist-religionist have been in battle.

Please check my website, in which I've taken up "The Meaningful Life" as well as references to some of my books which also consider meaning. "Nietzsche's Prophecy: the Crisis in Meaning" and "Teaching as Dialogue" which explores how teachers may attempt to inspire the futures of their students, and attempt to create a meaningful future for them. Again, thanks to Ronald Aronson who offers a critical view of the current polemics, but ways toward envisioning a meaningful future.

Harvey Sarles

Minneapolis, MN

The problem is not faith or belief. Completely reasonable and intelligent folk can have a very deep faith and belief in God. Some of them actually read and enjoy and agree with The Nation and its views.

When writers like Aronson paint people of faith with a broad brush that places all of us in the role of potential theocrats, I cringe. Why must atheists stride to their pulpits and launch into the now familiar sermon bashing those of us deemed to be intellectually inferior because (gasp) we believe in God. They encourage their congregations to rise up and be counted. Throw off the shackles of persecution that turns the common atheist into a martyr for the cause. Yes, brothers and sisters, there is a new wave a comin' that will sweep the God-loving fanatics from these shores. We have heard the voice of the new prophets and they are rallying the believers in the nonexistence of God to march and take what is rightfully...

Blah, blah, blah...

This is just more divisive rhetoric. Atheists want strong separation of church and state. Guess what--many of us in the religious camp want that too. Many atheists want to restore the social contract between government and those in need of its help. There are religious folk that want that too.

Believers are not the enemy. We are not backward ignoramuses that want God to run the country. We don't all go to megachurches. Heck--we are not all Christian.

We are reasonable, rational, intelligent, caring folk that just want to live in peace with everyone regardless of the beliefs.

The problem is not faith--the problem is those folk that feel the need to force their beliefs (even atheism) on others.

David Fiorito

King of Prussia, PA

The idea that we non-believers need to replace god with something else is a curious argument. While The Nation has published more than one article recently that suggests this, it is not the only source of such a strange idea.

Perhaps the source of this idea is the name itself? I do not feel "without" anything, as the term a-theist would suggest. When asked in conversation if I am an a-theist, I have adopted the habit of asking to be called a post-theist. I'm over god.

Perhaps our theist friends should be called a-scientists?

David Kelly

Aberdeen, Scotland

Richard Dawkins's overrated science is neoliberalism ("the selfish gene") by another name. Christopher Hitchens is an enthusiast of the Bush regime, particularly the invasion of Iraq. Sam Harris chides Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy for failing to appreciate what a benevolent power the US is. Except for Hitchens, none of these writers has a history of being connected to the left, and, of course, in Hitchens's case, that is history. By contrast, the Unitarians, the Quakers, and the African-American churches have been, and continue to be, very important to the US left--more important than any left-wing party of the last fifty years (and we should also give props to the Catholic Church for saving many lives during the Central American wars of the eighties, and note that the trend is for mainline clergy to be drifting slightly leftward, participating in living-wage campaigns, etc.).

The ideas of the new atheists are a rehash of the Enlightenment critique, about two hundred years late to be intellectually exciting. The whole notion of "religion" smacks of a particular moment of Eurocentric thought--look at how badly Buddhism fits into that container. The sociological critique that belief systems invest ties between people with meaning and thus make social life possible is lost on these authors, as is the postcolonial notion that science and rationality can be a colonial imposition. Yes, fundamentalist clinging to the literal reality of myths must be dispelled (although I'd throw both Marxism and the selfish gene in there as well), but it is difficult to take seriously people who discuss the present manifestations of religion without considering some of the global political and economic changes of the last thirty years (hint--it has a lot to do with the wreckage of the cold war and neoliberalism). The goal has to be to develop communities that are going to struggle to change the world, and some of the cosmologies labeled as "religion" are likely to prove useful in that context. It seems to me we need a complex strategy of sacralizing what is important (equitable ties between people, a new relationship with the non-human world) while being tolerant of what is not so important, and keeping space open always for critique.

Steven Sherman
lefteyeonbooks.org

Carrboro, NC

I'm with Mark Jacobs on this one. The notion that I as an atheist need to "turn to" something because I "turn away" from God is, to me, rather weird. If I "turn from" beating my wife, do I then need to "turn to" something else? If I "turn from" smoking," do I have to replace smoking with something else? If I turn from racism?

This line of reasoning, to me, implicitly say the theists are right. You have to have religion, even if it is a non-god religion. But belief or trust, to a larger or smaller degree, in common sense, justice, the scientific method, rule of law, compassion and joy have nothing whatsoever to do with religion, and therefore not with atheism. I think Laplace hit it spot on, when queried by Napoleon about God's place in the workings of the universe: "Sir, I have no need for that hypothesis." There is no need to replace something that is not needed.

Kim Bergstrom

Uppsala, Sweden

Hey, what IS religion?

Truly, it's the question that Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens (good name for a Skiffle band?) haven't addressed.

The Fab Four of Atheism readily attack the followers of fundamentalist paths, but complete ignore the mystical traditions that have always existed side by side with the larger streams of popular belief.

For a longer discussion, see "Darwin, Dawkins, Distance Runner."

George Beinhorn

Mountain View, CA

If you are going to critique written works of the "New Atheists" as going too far (breezily, as if it were obvious to the most casual of casual observers), please have the decency to make an argument based on the texts themselves and not on broad, uncited generalities.

Robert W Cooney

Beaverton, OR

Non-believers are marginalized? The non-belief ethic controls almost all of higher education and all of public education at the secondary and primary levels. The non-belief ethic also controls most of the mainstream media and most of the courts. We should all be so marginalized!

Bill Murphy

San Jose, CA

Twice within a month a Nation writer has made the dubious assertion that atheists* must "turn towards something" (Aronson) or "replace God" (Lazare). As an atheist, I find this notion absurd. Removing superstition, fear and thought control from my life does not mean that I need or want to replace them with anything. What would I conceivably replace freedom and volition with?

This aside, I think and hope that--as Mr. Aronson suggests--we are seeing a backlash against the blatant institutionalization of religion that has re-emerged since the 1980s in this country. It is characteristic of the fundamentalist to believe in the superiority of his viewpoint and the legitimacy of imposing it on us "heretics" of one form or another. This ultra-religious turn in American politics should concern both believers and non-believers alike (I part with Sam Harris on this point); true religious freedom requires a secular government. I would, in fact, argue that to elect atheists is the best way to guarantee religious freedom; we don't have a horse in the race.

The numbers are discouraging, though: A large majority of Americans say they wouldn't vote for a declared atheist (fewer than would vote for a declared homosexual). According to Mr. Aronson's research only 32 percent of Americans want less religious influence on government. That's an absurdly low number in a country where the separation of church and state is a founding principle!

It is ironic that those countries from which our early, freedom-seeking, immigrants came have a more absolute separation of church and state than America now has. It is hard to imagine that politicians in much of Northern Europe would tolerate--or survive--the Jesus-fest performance of the top three Democratic candidates of last week. In fact, that forum has weakened my support of Edwards after his "abiding love" for his "lord and savior Jesus Christ" statement. I don't begrudge nor would I deny him that belief, but I don't believe that such devout displays have a place in politics. It makes me uncomfortable and makes me doubt the independence of a candidate who would be the leader of this secular nation.

Ronald Reagan's election team forged the unholy alliance of unfettered greed and religious medievalism that has controlled our politics since 1980. There are encouraging signs that both are wearing out their support with the electorate. Yet we must beware: One side still has the money and power to assert their will and the other provides a reliable voting block that is too easily pandered to. They are helped by Democratic candidates who are too timid and compliant to point this out.

* Aside: I dislike the term "atheist" but accept the designation as the most clear.

Mark S. Jacobs

Severna Park, MD

About Aronson's New Atheist Snobbery: Surprisingly (tongue in cheek), atheists object to the fact that most Americans--91 percent according to one Newsweek poll--believe in God. Aronson then cites an example written by Susan Jacoby in her book Freethinkers. According to Jacoby, the fact that the President was flanked by religious leaders, including Jewish, Muslim and Christian, when he delivered an address to the nation three days after September 11, is proof of a country recklessly flirting with Christian mores and values.

Certainly, it is true, the Christian right within the country has politicized itself, opposing abortion, homosexual marriage, and other social pathologies. Aronson writes, "So effectively have they [the politicized Christian right] framed the issues that, according to the Pew Research Center's 2006 report on religion and public life, fully 69 percent of Americans believe that liberals have 'gone too far in trying to keep religion out of schools and government.'" (emphasis mine throughout).

Framing the issues? Well, that is one way to look at it, we suppose. Here's another perspective: Fully 69 percent of Americans believe such things because they might simply have drawn that conclusion themselves. After all, it's not like harboring such views means you have been brainwashed by the politicized right, and conversely, to think otherwise means you are among the enlightened minority.

But that is exactly how elitists like Aronson think: If you are not among their peer group, thinking along the same lines as they do, you--and 69 percent of America--are lamebrains who can't think for themselves. It is a simple case of tolerance as long as you think like them.

To demonstrate how much in a minority the atheists are, a recent Harris American poll shows that 31 percent of those with postgraduate education don't believe in God. Much more, the percentage rises among professors and then once more among professors at research universities, reaching 93 percent among members of the National Academy of Sciences. As Aronson states, "Unbelievers are to be found concentrated among those whose professional lives emphasize science or rationality and who also have developed a relatively high level of confidence in their own intellectual faculties. And they are frequently teachers or opinion-makers." Ugh.

93 percent of Americans believe in God, while the minority, primarily the highly educated, do not. Yes--thank you for boiling the point down so nicely for us: The minority--the very few elitists--want control over the opinions of the dim-witted majority.

Who is trying to frame the issues now?

Timothy Oostendarp

Edmond, OK

Two comments:

I found Dawkin's book to be deeply unhelpful. Most strikingly, he made an argument that religious inculcation of children is child abuse. I won't comment on the strength of his argument, which frankly contained some logic and sense. However, such a proposition feeds the most paranoid of Christian right fears of liberal domination. I'm pragmatic enough to think a book like this should actually be useful in creating more secular humanists; threatening the parent rights of religious parents is the worst way to achieve this goal.

I also am tired of the self-congratulatory happiness with the modern world that most anti-religious book authors display. These books are invariably written by successful males with ample inner and financial resources--the "winners" of our market-driven liberal world. I admire these men, but I also am tired of their expectation that everyone should be able to celebrate the strengths and be immune to the drawbacks of our modern society. Modernity works for those who have ample family resources, who are entrepreneurial and independent. For those who actually need some help and support from a caring society, modernity often fails to help people meet their needs and be happy. Blindness to the inability of modern society to meet human needs will ensure that people continue to turn to traditional religions to meet those needs--for community, for meaning, for support, for moral strength. Demanding that everyone be happy with science and a individualistic, market-driven, opportunity society will not result in the demise of organized religion. A compassionate and data-driven concern for understanding human needs (Max-Neef, anyone?) and for meeting them would certainly be more helpful.

Carmela Federico

Brooklyn, NY

If "there are no atheists in foxholes" as the old saw has it, then there are sure lots of dead theists in and around foxholes and other sites of war.

Clifton Hawkins

Berkeley, CA

I'm not sure why Aronson professes surprise at the negative reaction to the aggressive forays of the New Atheists. Almost half the population is mired in the superstitious nonsense the New Atheists are railing against. Of course they'll be frightened and angry at hearing their dearest beliefs rebutted.

And the fellow travelers of the New Atheists are likely to give a cool reception to the spate of recent books, considering they know they're in a hated minority. Not rocking the boat is a grand atheist tradition.

But many of us atheists are tired of hiding, tired of politely pretending that the nonsense we've happily jettisoned is true. It's time for America and the rest of the world to wake up, to grow up. Living an infantile fantasy just isn't working out anymore. It's not at all surprising that Dawkins et al. come across as rather peeved; they are fighting bigotry and oppression, after all.

And to suggest that nonbelievers have nothing to offer as a replacement for the supposed benefits of religion is missing the point. I don't regard reality, maturity and responsibility for your own life as nothing. When I finally fought my way free of the tyranny of superstition, I felt liberated, relieved. In giving up religion, I got the tremendous gift of owning my own life. What could be worth more than that?

Jason Spicer

Mercer Island, WA

Mr. Aronson's tendentious article is a bit schizophrenic. On the one hand he claims that "Atheists" are "voiceless in the public arena," and on the other hand his essay is a celebration of "five new books on bestseller lists" by the "New Atheists."

I am familiar with all of the books except Mr. Dennett's, and I can aver that their reception by the print media has nothing to do with any sort of theological bias; they are bad books.

The books by Dawkins and Hitchens were so hyperbolic and hysterical that I could not finish them, despite the fact that I sympathize with their concerns (reading God is Not Great was like being subjected to the mania of a know-it-all barroom drunk, sitting alone at the end of the bar and demanding your attention). There is not space here to go into the various fallacies and predispositions of the books, and the multiple reviewers, including Mr. Lazare in The Nation, are far more qualified than I to address them. In brief, however, it would appear that what most infuriates Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris is not Faith but Politics---their own business. The crimes and irrational blindness they despise have their roots in the politicization of religion, not the solitary belief in God or gods. In fact, religion often goes a long way towards warning us of the manipulative power of politics. They lose credibility by the intolerant fundamentalism of their stances. If Mr. Aronson is in search of a prophet, or Messiah, to lead an Atheistic reawakening, he will need to do much better than these authors.

Joao Baleiano

Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

...fully 69 percent of Americans believe that liberals have "gone too far in trying to keep religion out of schools and government."

Interesting that perhaps 95 percent of the Jews during the time of Christ rejected Him, while many of those who did not reject this "god in the flesh" believed he was here to conquer their enemies. In other words, 2,000 years ago, the overwhelming majority of those who actually got to see this so-called god up close and personal did not believe he was God in spite of being in his physical presence. Yet today, at a time during which no one has actually been in the presence of God, so many believe in God's existence.

Furthermore, during the time of Jesus, those within that small minority of believers misunderstood God's mission on earth, as they saw Him as a warrior god, believing he was coming back during their lifetime to kill their enemies. Such beliefs are quite radical and not very conservative in nature, as they prayed for things to "change."

So what has changed? Today's "radical conservatives" (pardon the oxymoron), the latest group to have claimed ownership of God's message (Christians anyway) believe their God Jesus will return during their lifetime to, you guessed it, kill their enemies. I'm baffled by how they cannot see the radical, non-conservative nature of such beliefs and how they can look at people like myself, a social liberal like their Christ, as one who is going too far by trying to keep their beliefs at home and in their closet where they belong. Didn't their Jesus attack the religious institution of His day, while breaking bread with scum like me? Hmm! Perhaps I need to re-read that section of the Good Book.

We commonly hear that only a tiny percentage of Americans don't believe in God and that, as a Newsweek poll claimed this spring, 91 percent do. In fact, this is not true. How many unbelievers are there?

What about those of us who, for whatever brainwashed reasons, cannot give up the idea that God exists, yet we have dramatically different ideas as to the nature of God? I, for example, cannot justify in my own mind the thought that some sort of god created everything, yet it is equally difficult for me to say that the existence of all that is, is not the work of some god or gods. So, I've chosen to accept that there probably is at least one and perhaps several gods out there or in here. However, my understanding of God's nature has become that of believing God is evil, sadistic and childishly getting his kicks by playing murderous games with us.

What I've done is, I've taken my traditionally ingrained "Christian" upbringing and turned it upside down to where I see things the opposite of what was taught to me. I believe that God is real but that He is actually the wolf in sheep's clothing He so beautifully describes in the Bible as being the devil. It's the only perfect deception that can exist if you believe in the god of that story. The only one that could fully pull off being a wolf in sheep's clothing is God. And, to seal things up, He, God, warns us to look elsewhere for such a creature, steering attention away from Him. But the question I have is, in order to conclude these things, does one actually have to believe God exists?

Where do people that believe in fairy tales fit in this war between those who believe in God and those who call themselves atheists? In the traditional sense, am I really believing in the existence of God or am I simply like so many children believing in Santa Clause, the tooth fairy and guardian angles? Given the more traditional perspective of who or what God is supposed to be, I might, should I think this through more deeply, be able to argue successfully that I qualify as an atheist. And if I can do so, perhaps there are millions upon millions more out there who could claim the same.

John LeVan

Thorndale, PA

Aronson accurately points out that while more and more Americans are finding the courage to "label" themselves as non-believers, there are scores more who are not ready to feel the sting that has traditionally accompanied such a moniker. Therefore, it's safe to say that there are many more Americans who are non-believers than we will ever know.

However, even were there only a few, majority does not rule in our republic when it comes to religious beliefs. Therefore, as long a we adhere to the letter of the Constitution, the minority should never be subject to the tyranny of the majority. And that wisdom is the source of the greatness of our country.

Ellen Brown
Americans United for Separation of Church and State

San Diego, CA

Sorry, but I'm afraid marginalization, insults ignoring is the best I can muster for them.

Charles Thornton

Reisterstown, MD

A group that falls through the net of the polls is the millions of non-theistic American Buddhists. according to the US State Department's International Religious Freedom Report for 2004, 2% of the U.S. population (5,973,446) is Buddhist.

If "living without God means turning toward something" then perhaps Buddhism is providing for many Americans a religious framework that can accommodate science, and that does not demand feats of belief which science has rendered untenable. An added attraction may be that Buddhism has an ethical framework, unlike science.

Michael Cope

Cape Town, South Africa

One of the frustrations I had with the TV version of Dawkins recently screened in Australia, was his apparent lack of interest in any naturalistic approach to the "spiritual impulse." As Aronson suggests, he presented liberal and extreme religious beliefs alike as mere versions of superstitious ignorance. This ignores the possibility that some kind of genuine, natural "feeling" for the world might underlie the founding intuitions of religion and other forms of spirituality; albeit perhaps that such impulses are also liable to distortion and exploitation. (Understanding them might make them less liable.)

A promising option, I think, lies firstly in the notion that the phenomenological roots of consciousness lies in the direct, "visceral," sensory and proprioceptive sense of self-in-the-world. Add to that picture another layer; that human, waking consciousness is often occupied in constant 'looking ahead'; anticipating events, and "managing" behaviour towards valued goals and away from perceived threats.

Perhaps, then, on (perhaps rare) occasions on when we are freed of this kind of "task-oriented" version of self, we may self-awarely encounter the deeper and, in a sense, profoundly mysterious, brute facts of Being; both of the conscious self, and of the world.

Indeed, with enough time and space to allow the habitual constancy of "doing" to unwind, I find it possible to intentionally bring on this kind of carefree, intense sense of being.

Perhaps this kind of state is not just a pleasant, optional diversion but an important element of a healthy life.

Perhaps the inchoate anxiety that the religiously inclined have for secular society reflects some intuition that the ever accelerating rush is cutting people off from just this kind of experience.

Matthew Fisher

Adelaide, South Australia

These estimates of atheists-agnostics-humanists are in the range of 10-15 percent of the population, making the nonbelievers the second or third largest "religious" denomination, behind Catholics, comparable to Baptists, and well ahead of Methodists and all other Protestant denominations. If nonbelievers can be mobilized, they could be an important force. Thanks for the article!

John Farley

Henderson, NV