Richard Dawkins' OUT Campaign
Professor Richard Dawkins Has Launched a Campaign to Unite Atheists.
Dec 29, 2007
Professor Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist and popular science writer who was until recently best known for his book The Selfish Gene (1976). He has been at the forefront of the ‘New Atheist’ movement in the UK since the publication in 2006 of his best-selling book The God Delusion, and set up the Richard Dawkins Foundation in 2007 to promote rationalist and humanist thought.
Atheists face prejudice and intimidation
The OUT Campaign has been set up by Prof Dawkins to encourage atheists all over the world, but particularly in the US, to speak up and identify themselves and to stop being cowed or intimidated into a pretence of faith.
Dawkins has said that while making his Channel 4 TV series Root of All Evil, shown in January 2006, he was struck by how many atheists in the US felt unable to admit their status and by the negative prejudice they were subjected to by the majority of US society.
In other countries atheists may face imprisonment or death. Even in the UK, one of the most tolerant societies as far as religion and atheism are concerned, Prof Dawkins claims that many people do not regard the views of atheists as being as deserving of respect as those of religious people.
"Atheists are not devils with horns and a tail, they are ordinary nice people. Demonstrate this by example. The nice woman next door may be an atheist. So may the doctor, librarian, computer operator, taxi driver….. Atheists are just people with a different interpretation of cosmic origins."
The OUT campaign consists of five areas:
Come OUT
There are probably far more atheists ‘in the closet’ than we realise, people who for whatever reason have been reluctant to identify themselves as non-believers. Prof Dawkins stresses that the name of the OUT campaign is in no way an encouragement to ‘out’ other people and emphasises that revealing oneself to be an atheist must be voluntary.
Reach OUT
The campaign is a way that atheists can contact one another – even those who have not publicly declared their atheism will know that they are not alone.
Speak OUT
The campaign challenges the idea that it is not necessary to believe in a god or to follow a religion to be a decent person with high moral standards and values.
Keep OUT
One of the most important aspects of the campaign is to oppose the intrusion of religion into schools and into politics. Dawkins says, "We need to KEEP OUT the supernatural from our moral principles and public policies."
Stand OUT
A simple but effective and for many people possibly quite challenging task – supporters of the OUT campaign are encouraged to buy and wear an OUT T-shirt with a large scarlet letter A on the front. It is hoped that the more people wear the T-shirts, the more people will feel encouraged to reveal their atheist status.
Although some critics have argued that the campaign is too strongly identified with Prof Dawkins as an individual. Dawkins has responded to this by arguing that atheists are notoriously difficult to get to band together on anything – they are by their very nature independently minded. The OUT website also features a long list of websites and blogs by individual atheists.
