Still Hot After All These Years

In the old days atheists were hot because of being burned at the stake and all. These days atheists supposedly are still hot, but for a different reason.

From Atheists hot? You better believe it by Danny Westneat:

Why in heaven's name were atheists sponsoring a road-race water station?

"Because we like that people are running on a Sunday instead of going to church?" said Wendy Britton, 43, a financial consultant from Bellevue and lifelong God-denier.

Joking aside, the atheist presence at the marathon isn't the half of it. Suddenly atheists are hot.

And everywhere. Wearing Santa hats while wrapping gifts for charity. Giving blood in groups of 15. Manning pledge-drive phones at Seattle public radio station KUOW.

Membership in the five-year-old Seattle Atheists has soared — to 122 dues-paying members plus 600 more on the event list.

It has a budget surplus. It's planning ads in Metro buses. It has its own line of "atheist activewear" — T-shirts to mark the wearer as out and proud in their disbelief.

They even have a local hero, Ron Reagan, son of the former president. He has cut radio ads that end with: "Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist. Not afraid of burning in hell."

Mel Gibson was so 2004. Now it's the passion of the rational.

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