More openly reject religion

Muslim extremism, Christian fundamentalism blamed

BURGESS HILL, ENGLAND -- Every morning on his walk to work, high school teacher Graham Wright recited a favorite Anglican prayer and asked God for strength in the day ahead. Two years ago, he stopped.

Wright, 59, said he was overwhelmed by a feeling that religion had become a negative influence in his life and the world. Although he once considered becoming an Anglican vicar, he suddenly found that religion represented nothing he believed in, from Muslim extremists blowing themselves up in God's name to Christians condemning gays, contraception and stem cell research.

"I stopped praying because I lost my faith," said Wright, a thoughtful man with graying hair and clear blue eyes. "Now I truly loathe any sight or sound of religion. I blush at what I used to believe."

Wright is now an avowed atheist and part of a growing number of vocal nonbelievers in Europe and the United States. On both sides of the Atlantic, membership in once-quiet groups of nonbelievers is rising, and books attempting to debunk religion have been surprise bestsellers, including "The God Delusion," by Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins.

New groups of nonbelievers are sprouting on college campuses, anti-religious blogs are expanding across the Internet, and in general, more people are publicly saying they have no religious faith.

More than three out of four people in the world consider themselves religious, and those with no faith are a distinct minority. But especially in richer nations, and nowhere more than in Europe, growing numbers of people are saying they don't believe there is a heaven or a hell or anything other than this life.

Many analysts trace the rise of what some are calling the "nonreligious movement" to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The sight of religious fanatics killing almost 3,000 people caused many to begin questioning -- and rejecting -- all religion.

"This is overwhelmingly the topic of the moment," said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society of Britain. "Religion in this country was very quiet until Sept. 11, and now it is at the center of everything."

Since the 2001 attacks, a string of religiously inspired bomb and murder plots has shaken Europe. Muslim radicals killed 52 people on the London transport system in 2005 and 191 on Madrid trains in 2004.

Many Europeans are angry at demands to use taxpayer money to accommodate Islam, Europe's fastest-growing religion, which now has as many as 20 million followers on the continent. Along with calls for prayer rooms in police stations, foot baths in public places and funding for Islamic schools and mosques, expensive legal battles have broken out over the niqab, the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes.

Christian fundamentalist groups who want to halt certain science research, reverse rights for abortion and gays and teach creationism rather than evolution in schools are also angering people, according to Sanderson and others.

"There is a feeling that religion is being forced on an unwilling public, and now people are beginning to speak out against what they see as rising Islamic and Christian militancy," Sanderson said.

Though the number of nonbelievers speaking their minds is rising, academics say it's impossible to calculate how many people silently share that view.

"Where religion is weak, people don't feel a need to organize against it," said Phil Zuckerman, an American academic who has written extensively about atheism around the globe. "Any time we see an outspoken movement against religion, it tells us that religion has power there," Zuckerman said.