Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The Growth of Secularism

4/29/2009--First, it was ARIS with its 15% statistic on the nonreligious in America. Then it was Newsweek, with its End of Christian America. Now, the New York Times on Monday, 4/27 and ReligionDispatches on 4/28, continue the growth of secularism story: Laurie Goldstein, More Atheists Shout it From the Rooftops and Ronald Aronson, 40 Million Nonbelievers in America? Aronson is the author of Living Without God.

The main point is that Americans must get used to thinking of secularists as a potential majority, not as a beleaguered minority. That will take some years, of course, but some readers will live to see it.

What does secularism need in order to form a flourishing human civilization? If not religion, what will be the framework of meaningfulness? The answer to that question is not so obvious.

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