Should atheists build churches? A video chat with Todd Stiefel

What should atheists learn from religion? Our first video interview highlights the potential benefits of church-like religiosity for the 19% of Americans with no religious affiliation. Todd Stiefel, dubbed the “George Soros” of the atheist movement, co-hosts The Humanist Hour (http://podcast.thehumanist.org), is the founder of the Stiefel Freethought Foundation (http://www.stiefelfreethoughtfoundation.org), and serves on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America (http://secular.org). In our conversation, Stiefel provided his insights on the dangers of online anonymity, the strong reaction to his “Ask An Atheist” column in The Blaze, the challenges of being a secular preacher, and the merits of strip-podcasting. Also, as we discussed, there is a small but growing movement of atheist-friendly church-like communities, including the Unitarian Universalists, the Ethical Culture movement, and all the interesting Google hits for “atheist church”. For more background, see Stiefel’s Reddit IAMA answers, check out our podcast on this topic and Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists. Watch the video below!

We have also released an audio podcast version: download it here.