The Atlantic Assesses American Atheists

Interesting article, even Pepe friendly. Check it out, Frenchie:

Twain’s unbelief, for Mencken, was almost the fulfillment of his Americanness. “Mark was wholly of the soil,” he proclaimed. Here the American comic atheist rises up: unencumbered, disenthralled, in rude existential health, not huddled palely in some priest-ridden twilight but soaking up the UV of reality. Fuckin’ innocent, in a word.

Note the intellectual tradition, that is, how this begins in the latter half of the 19th century. And no, atheist doesn't equate Nihilist.

But don't get too excited, Pepe: Another Atlantic article says the following:

Islam is surging. Orthodox Judaism is growing among young people, and Israel has gotten more religious as it has become more affluent. The growth of Christianity surpasses that of all other faiths. In 1942 this magazine published an essay called "Will the Christian Church Survive?" Sixty years later there are two billion Christians in the world; by 2050, according to some estimates, there will be three billion. As Philip Jenkins, a Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University, has observed, perhaps the most successful social movement of our age is Pentecostalism (see "The Next Christianity," October Atlantic). Having gotten its start in Los Angeles about a century ago, it now embraces 400 million people—a number that, according to Jenkins, could reach a billion or more by the half-century mark.