Let's celebrate atheism

Last week I had a small revelation. It's simply a distillation of what I've long felt and in most senses acted upon, but brought important clarity. The revelation is this: based on the sum of my own experiences with humans, I can say that people who are religious have no more positive attributes than those who are not. By religious I mean a person who believes in God or is part of a religion. And for simplicity's sake I will refer to those who neither believe in God nor are part of a religion, as atheists.\nReligious people are not more honest, loving, peaceful, honorable, courageous, humble, trustworthy, kind or respectful of others. Like atheists, they lie, steal, betray, hate, injure and kill. They are equally cowardly, lazy, disrespectful, prejudiced, prideful and self-serving. But I don't want to dwell on the negative. I know and have known many religious people who are truly wonderful people, who have the positive attributes I listed above and few of the negative ones. There are religious people in my life who I have loved and now love. But this is equally true of the large number of people I have known who are atheists. They too are wonderful people, and I love and have loved just as many.\nI doubt my experience is unusual. In fact, I'd argue that our knowledge of human behavior across time and place would provide plenty of similar evidence. Almost unimaginable atrocities have been committed by many societies, in the name of religion. Yet in this past half-century alone, many tens of millions of people have died in the name of atheism.\nSimilarly, right now religiosity varies greatly from nation to nation.\nFor example, when you ask people if they get personal strength and comfort from religion, the portion responding yes varies from about 80 percent in the U.S. to about 20 percent in Japan. Yet I am sure you would find the general gamut of individual attitudes and behaviors, positive and negative, in all societies.\nThat this was a revelation for me says something about U.S. society (I understand if you think it might also say something about my lack of intelligence in taking this long to see what is obvious). We as a society celebrate religion and being religious. It is simply taken for granted. I think it's time we also celebrated atheism and being an atheist. I no longer want atheism to be the absence; I want it to be the presence, just as is religion. Let me give you a few examples. I want to walk by Woodburn Hall sometime and see a person standing there in the grass, extolling atheism to a group of listening students (and I truly hope he or she is not bellowing condemnations at those who are NOT atheists).\nWhen an athletic team wins a national championship, I want to see a postgame interview in which one of that team's players says, "I just want to thank the absence of any God for this wonderful victory. It just makes me feel great to know there was no supreme being involved, that it was luck and hard work by the members of this team and all the people who supported us."\nI want to see a group of powerful members of Congress gather their families behind them with the U.S. flag as background, to proudly proclaim their atheism and make a statement celebrating atheism's honored place in U.S. history.\nI want to attend a graduation ceremony that includes not only a religious prayer but also a sincere dedication to all those graduates, families, friends and faculty who do not believe in any God, who are not religious, who feel it is part of their identity and who are proud of that.\nI want to have a monument, a garden, room or building on this campus that is dedicated to atheism. It would be a place where anyone can go to drink in its beauty, to rest in its peacefulness, to find strength in the common sentiments it represents, the love and reverence for a universe that does not contain any God.\nIf you disagree with me, don't bother giving me arguments about the founders of this country being religious, or about the majority of U.S. citizens being religious. The present is not the past, and religion is not by majority rule (however much many religious people want it to be). The founders of this country supported slavery, but thank the absence of God this country changed and slavery ended. Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans and many other groups are minorities in the U.S., yet we rightfully celebrate their being part of our society. Let's celebrate atheism as well. The tens of millions of atheists in the U.S. deserve nothing less.