Village Atheists : How America's Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation / Leigh Eric Schmidt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schmidt, Leigh Eric, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Atheism--United States--History--19th century.

Atheism.

Atheists--Political activity--United States.

Atheists.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (361 p.)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2016]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation's moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet, village atheists-as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century-were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to majoritarian entanglements of church and state. Village Atheists explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life.Leigh Eric Schmidt rebuilds the history of American secularism from the ground up, giving flesh and blood to these outspoken infidels, including itinerant lecturer Samuel Porter Putnam; rough-edged cartoonist Watson Heston; convicted blasphemer Charles B. Reynolds; and atheist sex reformer Elmina D. Slenker. He describes their everyday confrontations with devout neighbors and evangelical ministers, their strained efforts at civility alongside their urge to ridicule and offend their Christian compatriots. Schmidt examines the multilayered world of social exclusion, legal jeopardy, yet also civic acceptance in which American atheists and secularists lived. He shows how it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that nonbelievers attained a measure of legal vindication, yet even then they often found themselves marginalized on the edges of a God-trusting, Bible-believing nation.Village Atheists reveals how the secularist vision for the United States proved to be anything but triumphant and age-defining for a country where faith and citizenship were-and still are-routinely interwoven.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction The Making of the Village Atheist

Chapter 1 THE Secular Pilgrim or, The Here without the Hereafter

Chapter 2 The Cartoonist or, The Visible Incivility of Secularism

Chapter 3 The Blasphemer or, The Riddle of Irreligious Freedom

Chapter 4 The Obscene Atheist or, The Sexual Politics of Infidelity

Epilogue The Nonbeliever Is Entitled to Go His Own Way

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9781400884346

1400884349

OCLC:

1132670799