Juhem Navarro-Rivera is a political scientist, Secularism Scholar, blogger and author of the 2010 U.S. Latino Religious Identification survey:

What is your current identification (atheist, agnostic, etc.)?

Definitively an atheist since I do not believe in the existence of deities. As for labeling, I prefer the term “None” for a couple of reasons. First, sociologically it denotes kinship with the larger nonreligious community. Second, because atheism is not a religion if I were ever asked to answer a religion identification survey None would be the correct term.

What is your cultural/religious background (i.e. were you raised in a religious household) and when did you make the shift to your current belief system?

As a child growing up in Puerto Rico in the 1980s and 1990s I had contact with many religious denominations, all of them Christian (or fellow-travelers). My parents sent me to religious schools: an evangelical elementary school and Catholic middle and high schools. I was exposed to religion in other ways: Protestant neighbors who invited me to their churches, friends and family who became “born-again” Christians. In practice I guess I was a Catholic: I was baptized and had my first communion and confirmation ceremonies.

I cannot pinpoint the exact moment in which I became an atheist, this happened gradually. My atheism isn’t the result of philosophy or science, I was never good at any of them, but I have always been suspicious of power. Priests, nuns, preachers make up their authority out of thin air. Being introduced to different types of Christians with different interpretations of what god and Jesus said and did was a great experience. These religious “leaders” convinced me that religion is just an institution dedicated to overpowering people: their wills and desires, their actions and thoughts. With their actions they showed that religion is also a very human institution.

 How have atheism, freethought and/or secular humanism shaped your world view?

Secularism has shaped how I view politics and power. Religion is an excellent example of how easily corruptible human institutions are. Part of my research as a political scientist is the link between constituents and representatives and how they influence each other, but more importantly, how constituents can keep politicians in check. In a secular republic we can ask for accountability from our representatives. In a theocracy, you’re basically questioning the will of god. Needless to say, I love secular republics.

Donald Wright w/Black Skeptics L.A.

By Naima Cabelle

In 2010, activist and author Donald R. Wright of Houston, Texas proposed a Day of Solidarity in hope of unifying black atheists and getting them to become active in the secular community. This year, on Sunday, February 26th marks the third annual National Day of Solidarity for Black Non-believers, however it is vital to focus beyond the 26th and to continue to celebrate and promote freethought, social justice, and universal human rights year round.

Everyone in the U.S. has the right to worship as they please; the government has no authority to dictate if or how its citizens engage in religious rituals or religious beliefs. Those who believe in god(s) may openly say so; openly attend a house of worship; and may freely join or leave a religious denomination.  The rights of all believers are protected by the US Constitution, and although religious beliefs may be sacred to those who follow them, what is also protected is the right of others to openly challenge or reject any or all religious beliefs.  Laws prohibiting blasphemy are nothing more than attempts to silence not only non-believers but to keep other theists from challenging religious beliefs as well. Laws designed to prohibit the critique of religious beliefs are in fact laws that are designed to prohibit free speech; and such laws in this country are unconstitutional.

Many believers, particularly those who are interested in recruiting atheists to their religious denomination, often avoid giving explanations about their beliefs by equating atheists with infamous figures such as Adolf Hitler; but not because the atheists are anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist, genocidal maniacs. By accusing atheists of being followers and/or the equals of Adolf Hitler, the believer seeks to avoid explaining as well as proving their incredible beliefs by focusing on the ethics, motivations, and behavior of the atheist.

From the Steve Harvey school of armchair anti-atheist philosophy, Denzel Washington discusses preparing for the new film Safe House with NBC’s Matt Lauer:

“I read this book called ‘The Sociopath Next Door,’ and that was like my Bible, that I related to,” he told TODAY’s Matt Lauer. “The traits of a sociopath: No conscience, no sense of remorse, usually atheist, just always want to win, dominate…. He’s about to get waterboarded and he’s telling the guy he brought the wrong towels. He’s still trying to win.”

Talk to us about atheist sociopathy Denzel: Endorsement of waterboarding as a no-torture zone: good Christian fascists George W. Bush , Dick Cheney

Extension of war, torture, slaughter of innocents through endless drone and troop deployment: “He will guide” us Christian soldier Barack Obama

By Sikivu Hutchinson

This is God’s body, the girl says. She is one of a group of middle school students participating in a youth workshop on misogynist images in media. The subject has turned to abortion, and her peers nod vigorously in agreement. Imani Moses, a high school senior who is facilitating the workshop as one of my Women’s Leadership Project students, challenges her to examine her position—“does God sleep, eat, live in and control ‘this body’ 24/7?” She asks, pointing to her own body. “No, this is my body, and I control it.” A ripple of unease goes through the room, as the girls chew on Imani’s defiance. Making the leap from God to self-determination is blasphemous for some. Yet, the persistence of these beliefs underscores the special peril the current fight over abortion rights poses for women of color.

Over the past several years, Black and Latino fundamentalist anti-abortion groups have vigorously aligned themselves with the white Religious Right in the battle to takedown family planning. Indeed, the recent furor over the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to withdraw funding for Planned Parenthood highlighted the role of Eve Sanchez Silver, founder of a little known group called the International Coalition of Color for Life. According to the Los Angeles Times, Sanchez Silver, a former medical research analyst for and charter member of the Komen Foundation, has been a leading advocate against Planned Parenthood within Komen.

The International Coalition of Color for Life frames its mission as “protecting minority life from birth to natural death.” Its website is chock full of shrill abortion-as-God’s-scourge propaganda. To bolster its claims that abortion is genocide images of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger are stamped with Nazi swastikas. Historically revisionist assessments of Planned Parenthood conveniently omit the connection many early 20th century progressive Black activists made between family planning, birth control, abortion, and black liberation. Tellingly, prominent Nazis like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mary McLeod Bethune and Ida B. Wells supported Sanger’s controversial work with the Birth Control Federation of America. As African American historian Dorothy Roberts contends in her book Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty, “Sanger (may have) adopted the eugenicists’ view of the dangers of racial deterioration…but she rejected their biological explanation for its cause…she held uncontrolled fertility responsible for bringing children into conditions of poverty and deprivation.” Roberts unpacks the nuances of Sanger’s views and policies, noting that “it appears that Sanger was motivated by a genuine concern to improve the health of the poor mothers she served rather than a desire to eliminate their stock.”

However, by using Sanger as a smokescreen to vilify abortion, anti-abortion foes of color are really savaging women’s right to agency. Twenty first century women’s liberation demands that women of color have safe, legal, and unrestricted access to abortion. As reproductive justice organizations like Sister Song have made abundantly clear, contemporary women of color are not serviceable wombs for the agenda of patriarchy, the state or organized religion. It is precisely because of right wing opposition to universal health care coverage that Black, Latina, Asian, and Native American women are more likely to rely on the wraparound health care

By Bob Avakian

Tim Tebow, quarterback for the Denver Broncos in the National Football League, is being widely, and seemingly endlessly, promoted—as an icon not only in the realm of sports but much more broadly.  I have followed sports, including football, for many decades now, and I cannot recall ever witnessing anything like this. In a highly orchestrated and concentrated campaign, Tebow is being held up as a “worker of miracles” on the football field but, more than that, as a “role model” and moral standard-bearer.

This hype around Tebow is completely and strikingly out of proportion to any demonstrated ability or actual accomplishments on Tebow’s part, in terms of performance as a professional football quarterback. If you have been paying attention not only to the arena of sports but to things more broadly in this society and the world, you should be able to quickly guess why this is: Tim Tebow is a religious fanatic—of the Christian fundamentalist variety—who aggressively promotes his medieval views and values in a way that is obviously considered useful by significant sections of the powers-that-be in the U.S. Among other things, during the Super Bowl (the American professional football championship) a couple of years ago, Tebow was the centerpiece of an ad whose purpose was to oppose the right of women to reproductive freedom, in particular abortion. The ad was sponsored by a right-wing Christian organization which aggressively opposes the right of women to abortion (it is also a fact, and highly revealing, that as a general rule the reactionary Christian fundamentalist forces that oppose a woman’s right to abortion also want to ban birth control).

This promotion of what is in reality a fascist outlook and program, in the form of fundamentalist Christianity, is aided by the notion—aggressively championed by some, and far too often unchallenged by others—that there is a direct connection between how religious someone is and how “moral” he or she is. Which avoids the critical question: What is the content of this morality? More specifically: What, in fact, is being promoted through the propagation of religious fundamentalism,

By Frederick Sparks

In case you’re short on *facepalm* moments today, check out this video of  an odd coronation of scandal plagued pastor Eddie Long as a Hebrew king by a fellow who appears to follow some variant of Messianic Judaism and who, because he has dual citizenship with Israel, speaks on behalf of the “Jewish people”.

In the sea of inanity that is this video, the stretch I found particularly interesting was the segment on the number 22: 

 ”There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet…22 chromosomes in the human body (the 23rd was added by man)..22 amino acids…Jewish doctors say if you look at cells through a microscope, they look like Hebrew script.” 

OK……

An associate professor of Hebrew critiques the scriptural claims here.  I’ll leave the rest to those with a working knowledge of biology and biochemistry.

Nicome Taylor is a member of Black Skeptics Los Angeles

What is your current identification (atheist, agnostic, etc.)?

Currently I identify myself as an atheist, although growing up I considered myself to be Christian up until the time I begin to research the origin of my beliefs.

What is your cultural/religious background (i.e. were you raised in a religious household)?

Coming from a Southern Baptist background, I was not familiar with atheism at all. I was raised in a household where I attended church regularly as a child, but primarily on religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas. Attending church on Easter was an essential part of my family tradition. During these times, it was a must that we acknowledge what I then believed to be the “Savior” of humanity-Jesus. Questioning specific scriptures in the bible was something that I’ve always done in my moments of silence, but whenever I would question any elders about specific immoral scriptures I was given a soft apologetic response or was told not to question God. Questioning God was prohibited growing up and perceived as a sign of rebelliousness. I later discovered that the only way to be clear on all that was to be understood about the bible was through questioning the unknown and properly reading the context of scriptures and the origin them.

How have atheism or free thought shaped your world view as an African American?

I have always been an outspoken person. Being able to express my atheist views as a Black woman has been a little challenging considering the majority of my friends and family are believers of the Christian faith. It was not challenging out of fear of acceptance, but out of fear of being deemed offensive because of frame of thinking. I have always been out spoken when it came to certain subjects, but being vocal on a subject where you think you stand alone within your thoughts was not something I looked forward to.

 Ad Campaign Highlights Rise in Religious Skepticism among African Americans

Amherst, New York – January 31, 2012 – African Americans for Humanism (AAH), a program of the Council for Secular Humanism that supports nonreligious African Americans, has launched a national multimedia advertising campaign showcasing religious skepticism in the African American community. Coinciding with Black History Month, the campaign features prominent African American humanists from history along with contemporary activists and organizers.

 Ads began appearing January 30 and January 31 in New York City; Washington, DC; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; and Durham, North Carolina. On February 6, the campaign will be launched in Dallas. Advertisements will be placed on roadside billboards and in public transit sites. The Stiefel Freethought Foundation provided substantial creative and financial support for the campaign.

 African Americans may be the most religious minority in the United States, but many feel that the churches don’t speak for them. AAH hopes that the campaign will bring attention to the presence of and increase in religious skepticism within the black community, encourage those who have doubts about religion to share their concerns and join other freethinkers in their local communities, and educate many about the history of black freethought.

 All of the ads display the same message: “Doubts about religion? You’re one of many.” On the ads, images of writer-anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, poet-activist Langston Hughes, and social reformer-publisher Frederick Douglass are paired with contemporary freethinkers. Representing their respective hometowns are activists leading the way for African American nonbelievers, including Mark D. Hatcher of the Secular Students at Howard University, Mandisa L. Thomas of Black Nonbelievers, Inc. (Atlanta), Kimberly Veal of Black Nonbelievers of Chicago, Jamila Bey of African Americans for Humanism–Washington, DC, Veronique Matthews of the Triangle Freethought Society, Leighann Lord of the Center for Inquiry–Harlem, Alix Jules of the Dallas–Ft. Worth Coalition of Reason, and Sikivu Hutchinson of Black Skeptics Los Angeles.

 “African Americans who question religion often feel rejected by religious family and friends, and by the greater black community,” said Debbie Goddard, director of AAH. “But there is a rich heritage of religious skepticism and humanism in black history. By featuring the historical faces as well as the modern in our ad campaign, we show people that questioning religion is not new and that there are many of us here.”

By Frederick Sparks

Given that I may have talked to more atheists and religious people of color than even Be Scofield, I thought it appropriate to add my two cents.

I’ve observed a few the written exchanges between Scofield and Greta Christina and agree with the assessment that he is either sloppy or downright dishonest in his characterizations of what she says.  And Greta of all people least deserves to be a target of criticism on the issue of diversity and the “atheist movement.”

Scofield quotes from Sikivu Hutchinson’s critique of the New Atheists blind spot with respect to social justice issues, and the interplay between African American religiosity and these issues of social justice. Yet if he bothered to read the rest of the book besides the passages criticizing new atheism, he’d see that Hutchinson hardly argues for walling off god belief and African-American religious institutions from criticism. Her critique is aimed at presenting atheism/secularism to African-Americans in a way that makes it relevant because it addresses issues of racial and economic inequality. Specifically she states:

“Those seeking to forge the same kind of community resonance and interpersonal connections as faith-based institutions (without the element of fear, superstition, profiteering and exploitative charismatic leadership)have a long uphill but winnable battle….Humanist community based organizations can provide…social welfare resources that have traditionally been delivered with supernatural strings attached by faith-based organizations.”

In referring to Dr King and the civil rights movement, Scofield also falls into the trap of “the Civil Rights Movement, Brought To You By Black Church”…a bit of historical revisionism that ignores, as professor Anthony Pinn points out, the secular philosophical influences, and that King himself complained that most the black churches were not involved and were not supportive. When Scofield, in a follow-up comment says “Imagine if much of the passion and fire that characterizes much of the New Atheist community could be directed towards the racial, class and patriarchal oppression that believers experience rather than their beliefs about God or heaven”, he appears ignorant of the degree to which specific beliefs about God or heaven reinforce racial, class, heterosexist and patriarchal oppression. When he speaks approvingly of the work of the Metro Community Church with respect to AIDS, he misses the other side of the coin, in which the black church virtually ignored the AIDS crisis unfolding in its own choir pews.  African Americans are most likely to believe in literal interpretations of the Bible; this phenomenon buttresses homophobic and sexist dynamics within the black religious community.  The beliefs are therefore not separate from the social justice issues, they are part and parcel, and challenging them is most definitely relevant.
Yes African Americans have to some degree adapted religious institutions to positive purposes. At the same time,  the $65 million West Angeles Church of God in Christ monstrosity on Crenshaw Boulevard has hardly brought $65 million worth of improvement to the lives of the residents of South Los Angeles.  The presence of churches on every corner in black communities certainly hasn’t done much to cure the social ills. And this phenomenon, and the beliefs that undergird it, are most definitely appropriate targets of criticism.

When the Scofields and Karen Armstrongs of the world talk about how the new atheists just aren’t aware of the liberal, tolerant, sativa smoking, feminist, genderqueer god concept, my response is “I don’t believe in that motherfucker, either.” She’s just as poorly evidenced as the old fashioned patriarchal god. She’s also not the predominant god concept impacting the African American community.

I don’t see an either or proposition between advocating for rational thought, where beliefs are based on evidence, and confronting issues of social justice. The idea that black people should be left alone in their clinging to Jesus due to their history of oppression smacks of just as much paternalism as what Scofield accuses the white new atheists of here.

By Sikivu Hutchinson

The Help, the latest entry in the white woman pining-for-Mammy-atonement series, has garnered scores of accolades.  Following in the venerable tradition of Hollywood favorites Gone With the Wind (best supporting actress for mammy prototype Hatty McDaniel), Ghost (best supporting actress for New Age-mammy Whoopi Goldberg), and Precious (best supporting actress for pathological welfare queen mammy Monique), it is poised to snag Academy Awards for its two black maid playing leads.  In one emotionally charged scene, faithful god-fearing servant Aibileen (Viola Davis) describes evil white woman antagonist Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) as a “godless woman.”

Do tell.

Dear God: I Say A Little Prayer to You, 

Last we spoke, summer of 1980, all your apple-cheeked savior missionaries had been safely dispatched to the freshest nooks and crannies of the third world. Rumor had it amongst the cherubs that there weren’t enough of them to service this corner of the ghetto; that that old time inner city anthropology, with a special serving of gangsta, was a poor way station for the whorishly bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Belatedly then, I say a little prayer to you, in the hope that this time the bloody din of crickets won’t drown out my plea for my own private mammylicious Aryan nation refugee; a hair flipping no-drop anti-diva who’s wicked with a wooden spoon and the arcane funk of cooking oils, a maven empathetic who’s only got the fear of you, Crisco, sweaty make-the-blind-see tent revivals and wayward baby dust weevils plotting in the bottom of a mint julep glass. 

Of course God, this prayer, this petition is only a humble salvo in support of the sistahood, the intimate ties that bind all women regardless of the long dusky shadows of Tara, the mutant bones of Monticello slave cabins, the phantom molecules of rape beds dancing on a feather quill, a pedestal. So it shouldn’t be too much to ask that your fair candidate be versed in forbearance, have a Ph.D. in the province of black pathos, be a Zen master in the fine art of dewy eyes cast heavenward after days of wiping butt cracks and burnishing dirty dishes to a radioactive gleam. Lawdy, give me an Aunt Missy Anne or Uncle Cracker Remus whose world turns on my every utterance and peccadillo, whose practiced snout can sniff out any hint of “man trouble”, whose spider sense tingles at the most abject of feminine woes and ample bosom heaves to harbor all God’s chillun at their most trifling snotty-nosed and godforsaken. Send me some Coolade grinning zip a-dee-do-dah wand waver swaddled in a magical cashmere do rag who can conquer the deep dark wilderness of unbleached roots and lend a soft pale shoulder to slobber my hard luck on. A whole psychic friend network slick as moonshine in Mississippi starlight, sassy enough to anticipate my next petty grievance, my weepy unravelings months before with the mother wit necromancy of rolling pins crushing a hot O’Keefe and Merritt down to cornbread dregs, blessing them with the true grit of the buck dance and the inscrutable ways of white folk.