Secularism in America : A Brief History of Non-Religion Movement

Abstract

On family, art, education, law, and politics, “culture wars” 1 between religious conservatives and secular progressives in the United States have received a blaze of publicity since the 1980s. Protestant “fundamentalists” have often accused its opponents of “secular humanism,” manifesting their protest against anti-religious modern society, against Godless morality, and against secular politics. Despite their experience of several setbacks such as in Scopes Trial, conservatives still replicate campaigns for their own religious cause. Meanwhile, secularism in the United States has been becoming a stronger minority movement than ever before. 2 In 2002, Secular Coalition for America was founded by Atheist Alliance International, Institute for Humanist Studies, Secular Student Alliance, and Secular Web (Internet Infidels), as “the first national lobbying organization representing the interests of atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and Americans”. 3 Secularistic organizations are corporate, though are minorities, of powerful political and economic sectors in the United States today. In addition, secularism is already spread and ubiquitous among educated people today. Richard Dawkins, a British biologist known as the author of Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker, who is also an active atheist, 4 and the current Humanist chaplain at Harvard University 5 are only a few examples among many. Moreover, secularism is more and more familiar in our social life. An interreligious couple may hold a secular wedding ceremony for each other’s pragmatic compromise; their children may choose a non-religious course of life without any―or with more than two―religious backgrounds in their spiritual quest. A BBC documentary program, “A Brief History of Disbelief” has just been brought to public television by the Independent Production Fund on May 4, 2007, with a promotional copy of “the first ever television exploration of the idea that God doesn’t exist” 6 in the United States. Historically, secularists have taken a stand against discrimination, sectarianism, and “theocracy” based on religion. They joined “culture wars” not only for their own individual freedom of/from belief, conscience, and life stance, but also against the religionists’ social and political hegemony over civic life of