By James Haught
James Haught is editor of West Virginia’s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette, and a senior editor of Free Inquiry. He is 87-years-old and would like to help secular causes more. This series is a way of giving back, as he opens in No Qualms (Ed., published on 2018, July 18, i.e., when he was 86), “I’m quite aware that my turn is approaching. The realization hovers in my mind like a frequent companion. My first wife died ten years ago. Dozens, hundreds, of my longtime friends and colleagues likewise came to the end of their journeys. They number so many that I keep a “Gone” list in my computer to help me remember them all. Before long, it will be my turn to join the list.”
[Ed., Thank you, Jim, truly.]
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The modern freethought movement is gigantic. Thousands of skeptic organizations, magazines, websites, books, online blogs, student secular chapters, videos, podcasts and other voices spread the message that supernatural religion is absurd – that gods, devils, heavens, hells, miracles, prophecies, divine visitations and other church dogmas aren’t real. In other words, it’s a bunch of lies.
But America has a strange contradiction: Mainstream magazines, newspapers, television shows, radio programs and other general media rarely allow a direct challenge to supernatural faith. They cover demographic trends such as the decline of churchgoing, and sometimes they report about atheist groups, but usually they won’t publish frontal assaults saying religion is false.
I think it’s because they’re mostly for-profit commercial businesses dependent on advertising and/or subscribers. They have multitudes of Catholic and Protestant customers who would stop paying or listening if insulted, causing severe audience and ad revenue loss.
As a longtime newspaper editor in Appalachia’s Bible Belt, I know the dilemma first-hand. Years ago, a syndicate agent visited our newsroom. I told him I’d like to write a national atheist column. He choked on his coffee. I knew my proposal was impossible. No newspaper would print such a column. We couldn’t even print it in my own paper. We would lose thousands of subscribers, maybe sink into bankruptcy.
(Print media especially is an endangered species these days, barely clinging to life. Hazards must be avoided like the plague.)Since for-profit mainstream outlets are forced into silence, our nonprofit freethought movement lives mostly within its own realm, greatly aided by the wide-open Internet. We have freedom to speak in our own domain, but aren’t fully welcome in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, etc.
However, religion is dying in the United States, in the same manner that a secular tsunami swept Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and elsewhere. American churches have lost 20 percent of their members in the past two decades. About one-fourth of adults now say their religion is “none” – and for young adults, it’s one-third. Eventually (I hope) “nones” may become the largest category.
In other words, we skeptics are winning the cultural struggle. Scientific-minded honesty is prevailing. Maybe this snowballing trend eventually will force mainstream media to open its doors.
As for now, commercial media doesn’t dare assert that religion is hokum. But our freethought community can. We don’t depend on religious subscribers or goods-selling advertisers. We can proceed full steam ahead to proclaim rational truths, without risking losses. We are free to act – driven by convictions, not by the profit motive – thus the “free” in freethought has multiple meanings.
A great social transformation is occurring in America. Supernaturalism is withering away. The Secular Age is blossoming. And our freethought movement is delivering the message, while for-profit public media cannot.
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Link here at Daylight Atheism.
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Canadian Atheist Associates: Godless Mom, Nice Mangoes, Sandwalk, Brainstorm Podcast, Left at the Valley, Life, the Universe & Everything Else, The Reality Check, Bad Science Watch, British Columbia Humanist Association, Dying With Dignity Canada, Canadian Secular Alliance, Centre for Inquiry Canada, Kelowna Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists Association.
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Other National/Local Resources: Association humaniste du Québec, Atheist Freethinkers, Central Ontario Humanist Association, Comox Valley Humanists, Grey Bruce Humanists, Halton-Peel Humanist Community, Hamilton Humanists, Humanist Association of London, Humanist Association of Ottawa, Humanist Association of Toronto, Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics of Manitoba, Ontario Humanist Society, Secular Connextions Seculaire, Secular Humanists in Calgary, Society of Free Thinkers (Kitchener-Waterloo/Cambridge/Guelph), Thunder Bay Humanists, Toronto Oasis, Victoria Secular Humanist Association.
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Other International/Outside Canada Resources: Allianz vun Humanisten, Atheisten an Agnostiker, American Atheists,American Humanist Association, Associação Brasileira de Ateus e Agnósticos/Brazilian Association of Atheists and Agnostics, Atheist Alliance International, Atheist Alliance of America, Atheist Centre, Atheist Foundation of Australia, The Brights Movement, Center for Inquiry (including Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science), Atheist Ireland, Camp Quest, Inc., Council for Secular Humanism, De Vrije Gedachte, European Humanist Federation, Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, Foundation Beyond Belief, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Humanist Association of Ireland, Humanist International, Humanist Association of Germany, Humanist Association of Ireland, Humanist Society of Scotland, Humanists UK, Humanisterna/Humanists Sweden, Internet Infidels, International League of Non-Religious and Atheists, James Randi Educational Foundation, League of Militant Atheists, Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, National Secular Society, Rationalist International, Recovering From Religion, Religion News Service, Secular Coalition for America, Secular Student Alliance, The Clergy Project, The Rational Response Squad, The Satanic Temple, The Sunday Assembly, United Coalition of Reason, Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics.
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Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash