Do Obama's Nods to Non-Believers Signal Turning Tide for U.S. Atheists?

February 2, 2009

Author: Lee-Anne Goodman

Source: The Canadian Press

http://www.570news.com/news/international/article.jsp?content=w0202123A

On a bustling day in a downtown D.C. neighbourhood, a street vendor named Samuel is doing a brisk business selling President Barack Obama T-shirts.

He's talking incessantly about Jesus as he makes his sales, until one customer politely tells him she doesn't believe in God.

Emblazoned with the smiling face of the first president to make mention of America's "non-believers" in his inauguration address two weeks ago, the T-shirt is nonetheless snatched away. The money is shoved back into her hand.

"Get away from me, go away from here," Samuel hisses. "I will pray for your soul but you need to get away from me right now."

Three years after a high-profile University of Minnesota study found that atheists outranked Muslims and new immigrants as the most distrusted and despised minority in America, it seems little has changed in a country where 92 per cent say they believe in God.

Other U.S. studies suggest as many as 10 to 16 per cent of Americans are atheists - the numbers are hard to pin down, some say, because there is such a stigma attached to being a non-believer in the United States that respondents often don't come clean to pollsters.

Those figures stand in contrast to the secular situation in Canada, where a survey conducted by The Canadian Press and Decima Research last spring found that 72 per cent of Canadians believed in God, while 23 per cent said precisely the opposite.

Some American atheists were delighted to hear Obama make reference to "non-believers" both in his inauguration address and during his first televised presidential interview to an Arab news network.

"We should be able to take for granted that we will be considered as full and honourable citizens of this nation, but we usually have not been so recognized," Dr. Ed Buckner, president of American Atheists, said in a statement hours after the unprecedented inaugural shout-out.

"Congratulations and best wishes on your presidency, Mr. Obama. And thanks for including us all, right from the start."

Other non-believers are skeptical that Obama's remarks signal the beginning of a growing acceptance in the U.S. of those who don't believe in God.