America is climbing out of the hole. Slowly.

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, non-believers now make up 15% of Americans, and I believe this is a wonderful achievement.

There are some who believe it's a waste of time trying to educate the public about religious dogma and ignorance. Who are we (atheists) to tell others what to believe in, or more accurately, what not to believe in. Why should we ruin a good thing for the believers?

Daniel C. Dennett put it best in his book Breaking the Spell:

The problem is that there are good spells and then there are bad spells. If only some timely phone call could have interrupted the proceedings at Jonestown in Guyana in 1978, when the lunatic Jim Jones was ordering his hundreds of spellbound followers to commit suicide! If only we could have broken the spell that enticed the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo to release sarin gas in a Tokyo subway, killing a dozen people and injuring thousands more! If only we could figure out some way today to break the spell that lured thousands of poor young Muslim boys into fanatical madrassahs where they are prepared for a life of murderous martyrdom instead of being taught about the modern world, about democracy and history and science! If only we could break the spell that convinces some of our fellow citizens that they are commanded by God to bomb abortion clinics!"

We could try to stop these events from happening by punishing the radicals, but that's not going to be the solution to the massive problem of ignorance. Ignorance is bliss until somebody gets hurt, and in the case of religion it happens much too often to ignore. It's not enough to punish the radicals, by then it's too late. We need to ensure that religion does not escape the scrutiny of scientific investigation and question. If we can get a Christian to even read an atheist book - that is a massive achievement. Regardless of whether he chooses to accept its facts or not.

We're on our way to making good progress.