Atheists hot? You better believe it

Four miles into last Sunday's Seattle Marathon, runners came on a sight so singular that some stopped to be photographed with it.

It was a banner, 3 feet by 6 feet, that read: "SEATTLE ATHEISTS — WE BELIEVE IN YOU."

Behind it, handing out water to the runners and cheering, were 30 volunteers with one thing in common: They say there is no God.

Why in heaven's name were atheists sponsoring a road-race water station?

"Because we like that people are running on a Sunday instead of going to church?" said Wendy Britton, 43, a financial consultant from Bellevue and lifelong God-denier.

Joking aside, the atheist presence at the marathon isn't the half of it. Suddenly atheists are hot.

And everywhere. Wearing Santa hats while wrapping gifts for charity. Giving blood in groups of 15. Manning pledge-drive phones at Seattle public radio station KUOW.

Membership in the five-year-old Seattle Atheists has soared — to 122 dues-paying members plus 600 more on the event list.

It has a budget surplus. It's planning ads in Metro buses. It has its own line of "atheist activewear" — T-shirts to mark the wearer as out and proud in their disbelief.

They even have a local hero, Ron Reagan, son of the former president. He has cut radio ads that end with: "Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist. Not afraid of burning in hell."

Mel Gibson was so 2004. Now it's the passion of the rational.

"We do feel like a dark cloud has lifted," says Jerry Schiffelbein, 46, a Bothell database consultant. He was a baptized Catholic until he realized he didn't buy the biblical creation story.

It's not that there are more atheists. It's that the political setback for conservative evangelicalism has atheists practically breaking out in song.

"It's OK now to be atheist," Schiffelbein said. "Society is changing. I feel I can see the day, 20 years from now, when we'll have an atheist running for president. In 40 years maybe we'll elect one."

Well, let's not get carried away. Atheists still are among the most despised minority groups. A running joke was that the best way for atheists to help Obama was to form a group called Atheists for McCain.

Some of this stigma is self-inflicted. Some atheist groups come off as know-it-alls, with obnoxious moves like naming themselves the "Brights" (implying that everyone else is the "Dims").

Or take that sign in the state Capitol. I'm all for it, in theory. But even I cringed that they used the occasion to attack religion. Is the only point to start a fight?

Britton agreed the words "are a bit harsh." But she said it's mild next to all the times she's been called, often via signs, a degenerate sinner who will burn for eternity.

Can we all get along? No. No, we cannot. Not when it comes to religious symbols.

Which is why the atheists are winning. If you allow an overtly religious symbol such as a Nativity scene in the Capitol, then all can follow. So come on down, atheists, Muslims, Hindus and Jews. Satanists, Wiccans, Animists and you. And Ken Hutcherson, too.

Now that's a diorama that would light up the Capitol! Not to mention holiday hearts. But I bet it gets decided that it's better for both government and religion to put all this where the atheists said it should go all along: out.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday.

Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.