Daniel Clement Dennett III is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.
Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene popularised the gene-centred view of evolution, as well as coining the term meme. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards.
The American Humanist Association (AHA) is a non-profit organization in the United States that advances secular humanism.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for atheists, agnostics, and nontheists. Formed in 1976, FFRF promotes the separation of church and state, and challenges the legitimacy of many federal and state programs that are faith-based. It supports groups such as nonreligious students and clergy who want to leave their faith.
Darwin Day is a celebration to commemorate the birthday of Charles Darwin on 12 February 1809. The day is used to highlight Darwin's contributions to science and to promote science in general. Darwin Day is celebrated around the world.
The Secular Coalition for America is an advocacy group located in Washington D.C. It describes itself as "protecting the equal rights of nonreligious Americans."
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a U.S. nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal and to fight the influence of religion in government.
Daniel Edwin Barker is an American atheist activist and musician who served as an evangelical Christian preacher and composer for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984. He and his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor are the current co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and he is cofounder of The Clergy Project. He has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, an American freethought newspaper. He is the author of several books including Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist.
Annie Laurie Gaylor is an American atheist, secular and women's rights activist and a co-founder – and, with her husband Dan Barker, a current co-president – of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. She was also the editor of the organization's newspaper, Freethought Today until 2015. Gaylor is the author of several books, including Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So, Betrayal of Trust: Clergy Abuse of Children and, as editor, Women Without Superstition: No Gods – No Masters.
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is a division of Center for Inquiry (CFI) founded by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 2006 to promote scientific literacy and secularism.
Atheist feminism is a branch of feminism that also advocates atheism. Atheist feminists hold that religion is a prominent source of female oppression and inequality, believing that the majority of the religions are sexist and oppressive towards women.
The term New Atheism describes the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. New Atheism advocates the view that superstition, religion, and irrationalism should not be tolerated. Instead, they advocate the antitheist view that the various forms of theism should be criticised, countered, examined, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on the broader society, such as in government, education, and politics. Major figures of New Atheism include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett, collectively referred to as the "four horsemen" of the movement, as well as Ayaan Hirsi Ali until her conversion to Christianity in 2023.
Jessica Ahlquist is an American activist and public speaker who filed a lawsuit in 2012 against Cranston High School West, where she was a student, to remove a religious prayer from its auditorium. The suit, Ahlquist v. Cranston, was filed with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, and was ultimately decided in Ahlquist's favor. During the lawsuit, Ahlquist received hate mail and was verbally attacked by her peers, media outlets, and online. She received death threats, and required police escorts to and from classes. On the day following the ruling, Rhode Island State Representative Peter G. Palumbo spoke on a local radio show and referred to Ahlquist as "an evil little thing".
Jerry DeWitt is an American author and public speaker. He is a former pastor of two evangelical churches and publicly deconverted to atheism in 2011.
Anne Nicol Gaylor was an American atheist and reproductive rights advocate. She co-founded the Freedom from Religion Foundation and an abortion fund for Wisconsin women. She wrote the book Abortion Is a Blessing and edited The World Famous Atheist Cookbook. In 1985 Gaylor received the Humanist Heroine Award from the American Humanist Association, and in 2007 she was given the Tiller Award by NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Recovering from Religion (RfR) is an international non-profit organization that helps people who have left religion, are in process of leaving, or are dealing with problems arising out of theistic doubt or non-belief. RfR provides support groups, telephone and chat helplines, an online peer support community, and online meetings for "people in their most urgent time of need". It is headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas.
The secular movement refers to a social and political trend in the United States, beginning in the early years of the 20th century, with the founding of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in 1925 and the American Humanist Association in 1941, in which atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, freethinkers, and other nonreligious and nontheistic Americans have grown in both numbers and visibility. There has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated, from under 10 percent in the 1990s to 20 percent in 2013. The trend is especially pronounced among young people, with about one in three Americans younger than 30 identifying as religiously unaffiliated, a figure that has nearly tripled since the 1990s.
Robyn Ellen Blumner is an American attorney, civil rights expert and the current president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the secular educational organization Center for Inquiry (CFI) and executive director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. She holds a J.D. degree and worked for several years as director of local affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union advocating for civil liberties and civil rights before becoming a newspaper columnist and editorial writer in Florida.
Humanist Global Charity (HGC) is a 501c3 non-profit in California.
