{"id":7726,"date":"2009-05-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/05\/18\/more-atheists-shout-it-from-the-rooftops\/"},"modified":"2009-05-18T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-18T12:00:00","slug":"more-atheists-shout-it-from-the-rooftops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/05\/18\/more-atheists-shout-it-from-the-rooftops\/","title":{"rendered":"More Atheists Shout It From The Rooftops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/04\/27\/us\/27atheist.html?_r=1&#038;em\">www.nytimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">CHARLESTON, SC, USA, April 27, 2009: More than ever, America&#8217;s atheists are linking up and speaking out. They are connecting on the Internet, holding meet-ups in bars, advertising on billboards and buses, volunteering at food pantries and picking up roadside trash, earning atheist groups recognition on adopt-a-highway signs.<\/p>\n<p>Polls show that the ranks of atheists are growing. The American Religious Identification Survey, a major study released last month, found that those who claimed &#8220;no religion&#8221; were the only demographic group that grew in all 50 states in the last 18 years. Nationally, the &#8220;nones&#8221; in the population nearly doubled, to 15 percent in 2008 from 8 percent in 1990.<\/p>\n<p>At the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, 19 atheist students gathered in a group that uses humor to convey their opinion. They say that their goal is not confrontation, or even winning converts, but changing the public&#8217;s stereotype of atheists. A favorite activity is to gather at a busy crossroads on campus with a sign offering &#8220;Free Hugs&#8221; from &#8220;Your Friendly Neighborhood Atheist.&#8221;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.nytimes.com CHARLESTON, SC, USA, April 27, 2009: More than ever, America&#8217;s atheists are linking up and speaking out. They are,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}