The Nontheism Portal

Nontheism covers a range of concepts regarding spirituality and religion which do not include the idea of a theistic God or gods. It can be applied to atheism (both strong and weak), agnosticism, ignosticism and apatheism, to certain Eastern religions including Taoism, Buddhism and some Hindu traditions, and to some Wiccan other Neopagan traditions. Nontheism is an integral part of Humanism and Unitarian-Universalism.

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The brights movement was started by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell in 2003 to provide a positive-sounding umbrella term to describe various types of people who have a naturalistic worldview, without casting that worldview as a negative response to religion (as the terms "atheist", "infidel" or "non-believer" may be taken to do).

Co-founder of the Brights' Net, Paul Geisert coined the term and Mynga Futrell defined a bright to be "a person whose worldview is naturalistic—free of supernatural and mystical elements. A bright's ethics and actions are based on a naturalistic worldview."

The naturalistic worldview may take many forms. For most brights a naturalistic worldview means simply that the world is "free of supernatural and mystical elements", while others may have conceptions falling under "philosophical naturalism".

Notable Brights include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Penn Jillette & Teller, James Randi, Richard Roberts, and Michael Shermer. (Read more...)

Selected biography

Margaret Sanger-Underwood

Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, an advocate of eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League (which eventually became Planned Parenthood). Initially meeting with fierce opposition to her ideas, Sanger gradually won the support of the public and the courts for a woman's choice to decide how and when she will bear children. Though her tentative support of eugenics was less well received, Margaret Sanger was instrumental in opening the way to universal access to birth control.

Sanger remains a controversial figure. While she is widely credited as a leader of the modern birth control movement, and remains an iconic figure for the American reproductive rights movements, she also is reviled by some who condemn her as "an abortion advocate" (perhaps unfairly so: abortion was illegal during Sanger's lifetime and Planned Parenthood did not then support the procedure or lobby for its legalization). Groups opposed to Planned Parenthood and/or legalized abortion have frequently targeted Sanger for her views, attributing her efforts to promote birth control to a desire to "purify" the human race through eugenics, and even to eliminate minority races by placing birth control clinics in minority neighborhoods. For this reason, Sanger is often quoted selectively or out of context by detractors, and her history and involvement with socialism and eugenics have often been rationalized or even ignored by her defenders and biographers. Despite the allegations of racism, Sanger's work with minorities earned the respect of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. (Read more...)

Did you know...

Portal:Nontheism/Did you know/46, 2009

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The pansy has long been the symbol of freethought, originally being used in the literature of the American Secular Union in the late 1800s. The reasoning behind the pansy being the symbol of freethought lies in both the flower's name and appearance. The pansy derives its name from the French word pensée, which means "thought"; it was so named because the flower resembles a human face, and in the month of August it nods forward as if deep in thought.

Nontheism Op/Ed

• A Dissent: The Case Against Faith Sam Harris
• THANK GOODNESS! Daniel C. Dennett
• What's Good About Atheism Frederick Turner
• The Church of the Non-Believers Gary Wolf

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• Atheism: Atheists - Arguments against the existence of God
• Agnosticism: Agnostics
• Criticism of religion: Disengagement from religion - Anti-Islam sentiment - Scientology controversy - Mormonism-related controversies - Books critical of religion
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• Objectivism: Objectivists - Critics of Objectivism - Books by Ayn Rand
• Buddhism: Buddhism and current Issues - History of Buddhism - Buddhist philosophical concepts - Buddhist practices - Buddhist texts
• Taoism
• Neopaganism

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Selected Featured articles about Nontheism:

• Bernard Williams

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• Flying Spaghetti Monster
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