Links: Hostility to Atheists

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on May 1, 2006. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]

Ilya Somin is a law professor at George Mason University who recently wrote several blog entries on prejudice against atheists, especially in the law:

• Hostility to Atheists
• More Hostility to Atheists
• Still More Hostility to Atheists
• Hostility to Atheists in the 1991 General Social Survey
• Murders of Atheists Because of Their Beliefs about Religion

Somin later massaged these posts into a more formal article, "The Final Prejudice," that was published in The Legal Times, but that article is not available online.

Thanks to Eddie Tabash for making me aware of Somin's Legal Times article.

Update: I just read all of the comments on the "Still More..." link. It is amazing, if not depressing, to read such brazen anti-atheist bigotry from some of the respondents.

Link: Atheism with a Smile

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on May 1, 2006. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]

In light of Rabbi Gellman's recent editorial about "angry atheists," here's a piece of good news. The LA Times recently reported on a high-profile counter-example: Julia Sweeney, a "smiling atheist."

(Thanks to Eddie Tabash for pointing out this article to me.)

For more information, see Julia's blog.

Link: Sunday Mail Service in a Christian Nation

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on May 1, 2006. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]

Here is an interesting article on the Founding Fathers' intent for the separation of church and state, focusing on the practices of the Post Office:

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/242048.htm/

I'd never seen some of these points before. Thanks to Bill Schultz for pointing this out to me.

Link: The Shrinking Secular Family

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on May 1, 2006. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]

World Magazine recently blogged about the "shrinking liberal family." Although I usually disagree with the viewpoint expressed by that magazine, this is one issue where I find myself in agreement with them. In fact, it is something I have been saying for years. I don't claim to have hard statistical evidence, but it has always been my experience that, on average, religious families tend to have more children than non-religious families. Moreover, on average, the largest families are almost always religious whereas couples with no children are more likely to be non-religious.

I'd be interested in hearing from others about whether their observations match mine.