The subject comes up during a Fellowship of Freethought board meeting, held in a tiny room at a community center. The windowless space is crammed with eight board members, about 15 people in the audience and two roaming, very bored toddlers, the children of board members.
"We all get isolated," says a guy named Chad. "My brother runs the soundboard at his church. My mother cleans hers. It's church in, church out."
Photo by Anna Merlan
Aron Ra poses for photos with Houston street preacher David Stokes.
Photo by Anna Merlan
Houston street preacher David Stokes believes "hell awaits" atheists and an assortment of other people whose lifestyles and beliefs he opposes.
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This group also holds regular Sunday gatherings, ones that can feel, ironically, pretty churchy: music, speakers, rows of chairs in a straight line.
That shouldn't turn people off, says Tim Brewer, a former youth pastor and preacher's son. He leads the local chapter of Recovering From Religion, a nationwide nonprofit that tries to help once-religious people ease their transition into nonbelief. "Fellowship, music, getting to know people, becoming a better person — these are things we all need," he says. "Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on live music." After leaving the church, he says, he "fell into nihilism and loneliness" for a time. "Until I discovered Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on happiness either."
But not all atheists have come to terms with that. During the FOF meeting, they agree to immediately stop using the "pew/row formation" of chairs, to help de-church the vibe.
They also don't want to put out a huge banner that screams ATHEIST, something that makes some members uncomfortable. Alix Jules, FOF's executive director, has a solution: He hands out buttons, each emblazoned with FOF's logo, a clover-shaped sort of emblem. They're for members to wear to identify themselves at public meetings.
"This is it," he tells the group. "This is as nondescript as it gets. There's no scarlet A here. Most people have no idea what it is. So wear your badges, please."
Then there's the matter of paying for those badges. Atheists seem to give less to charitable causes, and especially to atheist ones, than the religious do. That's according to Jules, who's struggling with how to increase active membership and donations among the group; of their 2,000-plus members, only a fraction show up in person. And if they all did happen to show up, FOF would have no place to put them. They don't own their own building, instead meeting in borrowed spaces all over town.
To become a more powerful force, Jules says, FOF members might have to be willing to put some money behind the cause.
"We give less to our freethought causes than what churches give," he tells the FOF board and its audience. "And we give less to freethought than to things like the SPCA."
Moore agrees. "Church members give ten times more to churches and ten times more to organizations like the Red Cross," he says. FOF is also trying, so far unsuccessfully, to put together a modest scholarship fund for four college students.
It's about messaging as much as it's about money. The point — to the giving, to the billboards, to the blogging and to the church visits — is to show the world that atheists, agnostics and skeptics have their own moral compass, and that it works fine without any deity guiding it.
The Rockwall Presbyterians are interested in Moore's non-God-centered view of morality, to be sure. During his visit, one elderly gentleman gets into a long, rather stubborn hypothetical back-and-forth with him about, of all things, Hitler.
"How do you justify telling him what he's doing is wrong?" he asks, several times.
"You're right, I can't threaten him with hellfire," Moore says. "But I can say that what he's doing is causing suffering."
The rest of the group is more interested in what it might take to change Moore's mind about the whole atheism thing. Moore takes the question seriously. "I don't know what it would take," he says. "Not to be flippant, but I would like what Thomas [the Apostle] got. He got to see the risen Christ." He pauses for a moment.
"If there is a God," he says finally, "surely he knows what it would take to change my heart."
"What about personal relationships with Christ?" asks an older lady in the front row. "What do you think about prayer?"
"I'm a scientist," Moore replies. He talks about a study he's read about the efficacy of prayer on healing people after serious operations. "It appeared to make people worse," he tells the group apologetically: more side effects, longer healing times and the like. A woman in a pink sweater puts a hand to her cheek, horrified.
The older lady has a point to make, though: "Your parents still pray for you and have not given up on you, right?" she asks. Moore nods.
"Well," the older lady responds, very firmly. "The Holy Spirit won't give up on you either."
Moore smiles. He seems genuinely touched.
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"Are you hostile or friendly?" Richard Dawkins drawls. The famous British atheist is sipping an IPA and looking up at my reporter's notebook and pen. Dawkins has wedged himself into the booth alongside three women in their 20s. They look thrilled and a little nervous. He looks impatient, and submits to being interviewed roughly the way a standoffish cat allows itself to be petted.
