People for the American Way. The longstanding lobbying group’s Web site combines rich content with sophisticated production values results in an essential source of up-to-date materials on the organization’s key areas of interest—Civic Participation, Independent Judiciary, Civil Rights, Religious Freedom, and Public Education; sidebars on the home page comprise “Recent News,” “Right Wing Watch,” “In the States” (individual states have their own pages—an excellent resource for following church-state issues in one’s own region), “On Capital Hill,” and “In the Courts.” Well-funded and heavily staffed. Boasts a remarkable collection of reports and a proud twenty-year history of grassroots activism.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The well-known and highly-effective lobbying and legal association is concerned with Religious Right Research; “Faith-Based” Initiatives; Religion in Public Life; Church Electioneering; Free Exercise of Religion; Religion in Public Schools; Religious School Funding/Vouchers; Marriage and Family Life; Religious Symbols on Public Property; and Judicial Nominations. Serves as umbrella for numerous religious and secular organizations that promote separation of church and state and offers a useful list of the same, along with a directory of AUfSoSAC chapters nationwide. Lists current judicial activity in each area. Publishes brochures aking with Church & State Magazine, available online as well.
Freedom From Religion Foundation (Madison, WI) is devoted to “promoting the constitutional principle of separation of state and church and to educating the public on matters relating to nontheism.” The organization files lawsuits, publishes Freethought Today, sponsors high school and college level essay contests on freethinking, and established a “freethought book collection” at the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library as well as a 2,000-volume office collection.
The Right Web: part of International Relations Center. An encyclopedic catalog of individuals, organizations, and corporations that benefit from and influence right-wing policy. A super site for novices, for ongoing research, and for updates.
American Atheists is a national organization devoted to perpetuating whatever it was, exactly, that was gained by Madelyne Murray O’Hare all those years go. Currently led by the very earnest and very photogenic Ellen Johnson, the group publishes American Atheist, lobbies on legislative matters, and assists with freedom-from-religion based lawsuits.
Truthdig includes an Atheist Manifesto composed by Sam Harris followed by an extensive thread. Harris, author of the bestselling anti-religious potboiler The End of Faith, has his own site, which includes links to published pieces, media accounts, a reading list, and a well-attended ongoing forum which serves as a clearinghouse for precisely the kind of ill-considered, sophomoric anti-Islamic rants Harris spawned in his book. So, you know, you can go there to find out what the atheists are up to these days; and you can read Harris for yourself; or you can read Richard Dawkins on The God Delusion or have Christopher Hitchens explain why God is not Great [and] How Religion Poisons everything. Or you can go here and see the whole crew via video clips.
Bart Koen provides a valuable and entertaining list of Skeptic Links.
The Skeptic Dictionary doth protest too much; that “science” hasn’t explained, or explained away, something does not require that it be relegated to the mystical trashbin. But it’s still a great resource, worthy of consulting whenever you smell quackery.
The Secular Web is the flagship Web site of Internet Infidels, Inc, a non-profit dedicated to spreading the hypothesis that “the physical universe is a ‘closed system’ in the sense that nothing that is neither a part nor a product of it can affect it. So naturalism entails the nonexistence of all supernatural beings, including the theistic God.” The site claims to be “the largest and most heavily visited nontheistic website on the Internet.” It aims high, too; articles have to pass a standard peer-review process, and many are written by scholars of some note. Highlights include extensive Libraries, Modern and Historical, dealing with everything from “Ethics Without God” to “Biographies of Freethinkers” to Intelligent Design; an excellent newswire on matters of religion and culture, international in scope and updated daily; numerous forums, from the scholarly (Formal Debate Proposals) to the Mundane (Secular Lifestyle); a section on non-theistic activism, lists of electronic resources (web rings, list serves, and podcasts; and a huge list of related organizations.
