If you’re unreligious, like myself, and haven’t quite figured out how to live in a nation in which so many expect you to be religious, buck up! The House Of Representatives has a caucus for Representatives just like you, as Vox reports:
A new religious group in the US House of Representatives is advocating for more representation and influence. Those members? The nonreligious.
This week, Democratic Reps. Jared Huffman (CA), Jamie Raskin (MD), Jerry McNerney (CA), and Dan Kildee (MI) announced the formation of a new caucus, known as the Congressional Freethought Caucus, to safeguard the interests of nontheists in government, and to promote policies based, in their view, on reason and science.
A press statement emailed to journalists said, “The mission of the caucus is to promote public policy based on reason and science, to protect the secular character of our government, and to champion the value of freedom of thought worldwide.”
According to the statement, the caucus will actively work to “protect the secular character of our government”; promote science-bred public policy; counter discrimination against atheists, agnostics, and humanists; and provide a “forum for Members of Congress to discuss their moral frameworks, ethical values, and personal religious journeys.”
The spirit of Robert Ingersoll lives on. As Vox notes, those who are not part of any particular religious tradition are growing, although formal atheists only make up 7% of the population in a 2017 poll. The slowly receding influence of the old institutions, whether they be Catholic, Protestant, or Judaism, will certainly lead to new developments in many sectors of human society, from government to the private sector; the only major exception might be science, as religion doesn’t play a big part in its continued development, although it does impact funding and acceptance – perhaps I misspeak slightly.
The youth of today should keep an antenna tuned to that question if they don’t want to be caught unawares. Depending on the denomination, some of those sects may not accept their new limitations with grace.
