Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic: Atheists in American Public Life PDF Download
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Author: Isaac Kramnick
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393254976
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
“Illuminating.” —Phil Zuckerman, author of Living the Secular Life If the First Amendment protects the separation of church and state, why have atheists had to fight for their rights? In this valuable work, R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick reveal the fascinating history of atheism in America and the legal challenges to federal and state laws that made atheists second-class citizens.
Author: Isaac Kramnick
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393254976
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Get Book Here
Book Description
“Illuminating.” —Phil Zuckerman, author of Living the Secular Life If the First Amendment protects the separation of church and state, why have atheists had to fight for their rights? In this valuable work, R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick reveal the fascinating history of atheism in America and the legal challenges to federal and state laws that made atheists second-class citizens.
Author: Mark A. Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022627523X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
When Pope Francis recently answered “Who am I to judge?” when asked about homosexuality, he ushered in a new era for the Catholic church. A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable for a pope to express tolerance for homosexuality. Yet shifts of this kind are actually common in the history of Christian groups. Within the United States, Christian leaders have regularly revised their teachings to match the beliefs and opinions gaining support among their members and larger society. Mark A. Smith provocatively argues that religion is not nearly the unchanging conservative influence in American politics that we have come to think it is. In fact, in the long run, religion is best understood as responding to changing political and cultural values rather than shaping them. Smith makes his case by charting five contentious issues in America’s history: slavery, divorce, homosexuality, abortion, and women’s rights. For each, he shows how the political views of even the most conservative Christians evolved in the same direction as the rest of society—perhaps not as swiftly, but always on the same arc. During periods of cultural transition, Christian leaders do resist prevailing values and behaviors, but those same leaders inevitably acquiesce—often by reinterpreting the Bible—if their positions become no longer tenable. Secular ideas and influences thereby shape the ways Christians read and interpret their scriptures. So powerful are the cultural and societal norms surrounding us that Christians in America today hold more in common morally and politically with their atheist neighbors than with the Christians of earlier centuries. In fact, the strongest predictors of people’s moral beliefs are not their religious commitments or lack thereof but rather when and where they were born. A thoroughly researched and ultimately hopeful book on the prospects for political harmony, Secular Faith demonstrates how, over the long run, boundaries of secular and religious cultures converge.
Author: Leigh Eric Schmidt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183112
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
A compelling history of atheism in American public life A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to the entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists, Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. He rebuilds the history of American secularism from the ground up, giving flesh and blood to these outspoken infidels. Village Atheists demonstrates that the secularist vision for the United States proved to be anything but triumphant in a country where faith and citizenship were—and still are—closely interwoven.
Author: David A. Williamson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9780810895515
Category : Atheism
Languages : en
Pages : 150
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Book Description
There is No God: Atheists in America explore the growing number of atheists in America. While the United States is still a religious nation, there is an increasingly visible number of people who profess faith in no god, and yet, beyond their most famous spokespeople, we know little about this growing group. There is No God draws on national survey data, original research, and in-depth interviews to present an accessible overview of who atheists in America really are, how they come to their beliefs and explain them to others, and how their beliefs shape their lives, particularly regarding politics.
Author: Cj Werleman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781908675279
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Widely known for his hard hitting, no punches held journalism and criticism of religious belief, Werleman comes out with the gloves off, but this time he takes aim at atheist Republicans. Atheists Can't Be Republicans exposes the insane economic and social policies of today's Republican Party. Policies that have been proven abjectly false and dangerous, in much the same way religious belief is false and dangerous. Werleman contends that atheists who cling onto modern U.S. conservative ideology are hanging onto ideas that have either been proven mythical at worst or remain unproven at best. If atheists applied the same litmus test to their political ideology as they do to theology, then clearly an atheist cannot be a Republican.
Author: Ryan P. Burge
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506488250
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
In The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going, Second Edition, Ryan P. Burge details a comprehensive picture of an increasingly significant group--Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. The growth of the nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making the nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that the nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade. Burge illustrates his precise but accessible descriptions with charts and graphs drawn from more than a dozen carefully curated datasets, some tracking changes in American religion over a long period of time, others large enough to allow a statistical deep dive on subgroups such as atheists or agnostics. Burge also draws on data that tracks how individuals move in and out of religion over time, helping readers to understand what type of people become nones and what factors lead an individual to return to religion. This second edition includes substantial updates with new chapters and current statistical and demographic information. The Nones gives readers a nuanced, accurate, and meaningful picture of the growing number of Americans who say that they have no religious affiliation. Burge explains how this rise happened, who the nones are, and what they mean for the future of American religion.
Author: Isaac Kramnick
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393315240
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
The Godless Constitution is a ringing rebuke to the religious right's attempts, fueled by misguided and inaccurate interpretations of American history, to dismantle the wall between church and state erected by the country's founders. The authors, both distinguished scholars, revisit the historical roots of American religious freedom, paying particular attention to such figures as John Locke, Roger Williams, and especially Thomas Jefferson, and examine the controversies, up to the present day, over the proper place of religion in our political life. With a new chapter that explores the role of religion in the public life of George W. Bush's America, The Godless Constitution offers a bracing return to the first principles of American governance.
Author: Paul Froese
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199752605
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
Despite all the hype surrounding the "New Atheism," the United States remains one of the most religious nations on Earth. In fact, 95% of Americans believe in God--a level of agreement rarely seen in American life. The greatest divisions in America are not between atheists and believers, or even between people of different faiths. What divides us, this groundbreaking book shows, is how we conceive of God and the role He plays in our daily lives. America's Four Gods draws on the most wide-ranging, comprehensive, and illuminating survey of American's religious beliefs ever conducted to offer a systematic exploration of how Americans view God. Paul Froese and Christopher Bader argue that many of America's most intractable social and political divisions emerge from religious convictions that are deeply held but rarely openly discussed. Drawing upon original survey data from thousands of Americans and a wealth of in-depth interviews from all parts of the country, Froese and Bader trace America's cultural and political diversity to its ultimate source--differing opinions about God. They show that regardless of our religious tradition (or lack thereof), Americans worship four distinct types of God: The Authoritative God--who is both engaged in the world and judgmental; The Benevolent God--who loves and helps us in spite of our failings; The Critical God--who catalogs our sins but does not punish them (at least not in this life); and The Distant God--who stands apart from the world He created. The authors show that these four conceptions of God form the basis of our worldviews and are among the most powerful predictors of how we feel about the most contentious issues in American life. Accessible, insightful, and filled with the voices of ordinary Americans discussing their most personal religious beliefs, America's Four Gods provides an invaluable portrait of how we view God and therefore how we view virtually everything else.
Author: Jerome P Baggett
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479867225
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 394
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Book Description
A fascinating exploration of the breadth of social, emotional, and spiritual experiences of atheists in America Self-identified atheists make up roughly 5 percent of the American religious landscape, comprising a larger population than Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus combined. In spite of their relatively significant presence in society, atheists are one of the most stigmatized groups in the United States, frequently portrayed as immoral, unhappy, or even outright angry. Yet we know very little about what their lives are actually like as they live among their largely religious, and sometimes hostile, fellow citizens. In this book, Jerome P. Baggett listens to what atheists have to say about their own lives and viewpoints. Drawing on questionnaires and interviews with more than five hundred American atheists scattered across the country, The Varieties of Nonreligious Experience uncovers what they think about morality, what gives meaning to their lives, how they feel about religious people, and what they think and know about religion itself. Though the wider public routinely understands atheists in negative terms, as people who do not believe in God, Baggett pushes readers to view them in a different light. Rather than simply rejecting God and religion, atheists actually embrace something much more substantive—lives marked by greater integrity, open-mindedness, and progress. Beyond just talking about or to American atheists, the time is overdue to let them speak for themselves. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in joining the conversation.
Author: Richard J. Meagher
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498558585
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169
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Book Description
Today atheists, it seems, are everywhere. Nonbelievers write best-selling books and proudly defend their views in public; they have even hired a lobbyist. But, as political scientist Richard J. Meagher shows, atheist political activism is not a new phenomenon. From the "Freethought" movement of the late 1800s, to postwar "rationalists" and "humanists," to today's proud atheists, nonbelievers have called for change within a resistant political culture. While atheist organizing typically has been a relatively lonely and sad affair, advances in technology and new political opportunities have helped atheists to finally gain at least some measure of legitimacy in American politics. In Atheists in American Politics, one of the first works to take atheism seriously as a social movement, Meagher highlights key moments within the political history of atheism and freethought, and examines how the changing circumstances that surround the movement help explain political mobilization. In doing so, this book also highlights the ways that social movements in general gain momentum, and how a number of interlocking factors are often necessary to enable a movement to "take off" in American politics.
