A nontheist Friend or an atheist Quaker is someone who affiliates with, identifies with, engages in and/or affirms Quaker

Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...

 practices and processes, but who does not necessarily accept a belief in a theistic understanding of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

, a Supreme Being, the divine

Divinity

Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...

, the soul

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

 or the supernatural

Supernatural

The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...

. Like traditional Friends, nontheist Friends are actively interested in realizing centered peace

Peace

Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the...

, simplicity, integrity, community, equality, love

Love

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...

, joy, and social justice

Social justice

Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...

 in the Society of Friends

Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...

 and beyond.

Beliefs

Quakers in the unprogrammed tradition have recently begun to examine the significance of nontheistic beliefs in the Society of Friends, in the tradition of seeking truth. Non-theism among Quakers probably dates to the 1930s, when some Quakers in California branched off to form the Humanist Society of Friends (today part of the American Humanist Association

American Humanist Association

The American Humanist Association is an educational organization in the United States that advances Humanism. "Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that...

), and when Henry Cadbury

Henry Cadbury

Henry Joel Cadbury was a biblical scholar, Quaker historian, writer, and non-profit administrator. A graduate of Haverford College, he was a Quaker throughout his life, though essentially an agnostic...

 professed agnosticism in a 1936 lecture to Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...

 students . The term "non-theistic" was first written in a Quaker publication in 1952 on conscientious objection . As early as 1976, a Friends General Conference

Friends General Conference

Friends General Conference is a North American Quaker organization primarily serving the Quaker yearly and monthly meetings in the United States and Canada that choose to be members...

 Gathering hosted a well-attended Workshop for Nontheistic Friends (Quakers).

There is a nontheist Friends' website and nontheist Quaker study groups. Os Cresson began a recent consideration of this issue from behaviorist, natural history

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

, materialist and environmentalist

Environmentalist

An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...

 perspectives. Roots and Flowers of Quaker Nontheism is one history. Friendly nontheism also draws on Quaker humanist and universalist traditions. The book Godless for God's Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism offers recent, critical contributions by Quakers. Some Friends are actively engaging the implications of human evolution

Human evolution

Human evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...

, cognitive anthropology

Cognitive anthropology

Cognitive anthropology is an approach within cultural anthropology in which scholars seek to explain patterns of shared knowledge, cultural innovation, and transmission over time and space using the methods and theories of the cognitive sciences often through close collaboration with historians,...

, evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...

, bodymind questions (esp. the 'relaxation response' ), primatology

Primatology

Primatology is the scientific study of primates. It is a diverse discipline and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychology, veterinary sciences and zoology, as well as in animal sanctuaries, biomedical research facilities, museums and zoos...

, evolutionary history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, evolutionary biology, biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 and consensus decision-making

Consensus decision-making

Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that seeks the consent, not necessarily the agreement, of participants and the resolution of objections. Consensus is defined by Merriam-Webster as, first, general agreement, and second, group solidarity of belief or sentiment. It has its...

 in terms of Quaker nontheism.

Nontheist Friends are a group of individuals, many of whom are affiliated or actively involved in the unprogrammed tradition in Quakerism. Friendly nontheists are attempting sympathetically to generate conversation with others who are more comfortable with the traditional and often reiterated language of Quakerism. Questioning theism, they wish to examine whether the experience of direct and ongoing inspiration from God ("waiting in the Light") – "So wait upon God in that which is pure. ..." – which traditional Quakers understand as informing Silent Meeting and Meeting for Business, might be understood and embraced with different metaphors, language and discourse.

Notable Nontheist Friends

• Piers Anthony
  Piers Anthony
  Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is most famous for his long-running novel series set in the fictional realm of Xanth.Many of his books have appeared on the New York Times Best...
  
  
• David Boulton
  David Boulton (UK journalist)
  David Boulton is a British journalist, author, documentary producer and lecturer. Following five years in print media, Boulton pursued a 40-year career in broadcast journalism as a producer, editor, and executive, winning several awards. Boulton has authored or edited 21 books in the fields of...
  
  
• Henry Cadbury
  Henry Cadbury
  Henry Joel Cadbury was a biblical scholar, Quaker historian, writer, and non-profit administrator. A graduate of Haverford College, he was a Quaker throughout his life, though essentially an agnostic...
  
  
• Kersey Graves
  Kersey Graves
  Kersey Graves was a skeptic, atheist, spiritualist, Nontheist Friend, reformist and writer.-Life:Kersey Graves was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania on 21 November 1813.. His parents were Quakers, and as a young man he followed them in their observance, and then later moved to the Hicksite wing...
  
  

See also

• American Friends Service Committee
  American Friends Service Committee
  The American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...
  
  
• Friends Committee on National Legislation
  Friends Committee on National Legislation
  The Friends Committee on National Legislation a 501 lobbying organization in the public interest founded in 1943 by members of the Religious Society of Friends...
  
  
• Nontheistic religions
  Nontheistic religions
  Nontheistic religions are traditions of thought within religions, some otherwise aligned with theism, others not, in which nontheism informs religious beliefs or practices...
  
  

Further reading

• Atran, Scott. 2004. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Evolution and Cognition Series). Oxford. ISBN 0195178033
• Cresson, Os. 2007. Roots and Flowers of Quaker Nontheism. NontheistFriends.org. Jan 23. Accessed online: Dec 30, 2008. http://nontheistfriends.org.
• Crom, Scott. 1972. "The Trusting Agnostic." Quaker Religious Thought. Vol. 14(2): 1–39. Includes two carefully thought out replies and Crom's response.
• Dawkins, Richard. 2002. An Atheist's Call to Arms. Accessed online video: July 17, 2007. Monterey, CA: Ted Talks.
• Dennett, Daniel. 2006. A Secular, Scientific Rebuttal to Pastor Rick Warren. Accessed online video: July 17, 2007. Monterey, CA: Ted Talks.
• Durham, Geoffrey. (ed.). (in Press – Sep 2010). The Spirit of the Quakers. (Contains a nontheistic Friends' perspective by Alpern, Robin). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Foucault, Michel. 2002. "Course Summary" in 'The Care of the Self.' The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France 1981—1982. Picador.
• Jackson, Kenneth T. 2007. A Colony with a Conscience: This republic owes its enduring strength to a fragile, scorched and little-known document known as the Flushing Remonstrance. Dec. 27, 2007. Accessed online: December 27, 2007. New York: New York Times online.
• Riemermann, James. 2006. What is a Nontheist? Sep 20. Accessed online: July 17, 2007. http://nontheistfriends.org.
• Russell, Bertrand (E. Haldeman-Julius, ed.). 1927. On Why I Am Not a Christian: An Examination of the God-Idea and Christianity. Accessed online: July 17, 2007. Little Blue Book No. 1372.
• Williams, Jonathan. 1975. My Quaker-atheist friend (who has come to this meeting-house since 1913) smokes & looks out over the Rawthey to Holme Fell. Larry and Ruby Wallrich Publishing. ASIN: B0007AHBQO

Quaker Nontheism

Allott, Stephen (1989). Quaker Agnosticism. The Friends Quarterly, 25(6): 252-258

Allott, Stephen (1994). Is God Objective Fact? The Friends Quarterly, 28(4): 158-166

Alpern, Robin (1997). Why Not Join the Unitarians? Universalist Friends, (28): 23-28. Also at http://www.universalistfriends.org/alpern.html

Amoss, Jr., George (1999). The Making of a Quaker Atheist. Quaker Theology 1: 55-62. Online at http://www.quaker.org/ quest/
issue1-4.html Also see James and Amoss (2000), below.

Boulton, David (1996). A Reasonable Faith: Introducing the Sea of Faith Newtwork. Loughborough, England: Sea of Faith Network. Also at http://www.sofn.org.uk/sof/reasonable_faith.html

Boulton, David (1997). The Faith of a Quaker Humanist (Pamphlet #26). London: Quaker Universalist Group

Boulton, David (1999). Gerard Winstanley and the Republic of Heaven. Dent UK: Dales Historical Monographs

Boulton, David (2002). Real Like the Daisies or Real Like I Love You?: Essays in radical Quakerism. Torquay, Devon, England: Quaker Universalist Group with Dales Historical Monographs

Boulton, David (2002). Facing Up To Diversity. The Friend, 2002

Boulton, David (2005). The Trouble with God: Building the Republic of Heaven. Ropley, Hampshire, England: John Hunt Publishing

Boulton, David (editor) (2006). Godless for God’s Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism, Dent UK: Dales Historical Monographs

Britton, David (2010). Knowing Experimentally. Friends Journal, October, 56(10), 5

Cadbury, Henry J. (1936/2000). My Personal Religion. Universalist Friends, (35) Fall-Winter: 22-31, with corrections in (36): 18 Online at www.universalistfriends.org/UF035.html

Cadbury, Henry J. (1966). Quakerism and/or Christianity. Friends Bulletin, 35(4), 1-10

Cresson, Osborn (2003). Quaker in a Material World. Quaker Theology 5(1), Spring-Summer, 23-54. Also at http://quest.quaker.org/issue-8-cresson-01.htm, or www.nontheistfriends.org

Cresson, Osborn (2006). Quakers from the Viewpoint of a Naturalist. Friends Journal, 52(3) March, 18-20

Cresson, Osborn (2009). On Quaker Unity. Friends Journal, July, 55(7): 5; also in “Notes on Quaker Unity,” expanded version online at www.nontheistfriends.org

Cresson, Osborn (2010). Roots and Flowers of Quaker Nontheism. Unpublished manuscript, online at www.nontheistfriends.org
Drake, David E. (2003). Confessions of a Nontheistic Friend, Friends Journal, 49(6): 18-20

Fager, Chuck (2007). Review of Godless for God’s Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism. Quaker Theology, vol. 13, online at http://www.quaker.org/quest/Issue13-7.htm

Holmes, Jesse (1928/1992). To the Scientifically-Minded. Friends Intelligencer, 85(6): 103-104; reprinted in Friends Journal, (1992) 38(6): 22-23. Short version online at
http://media.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/wp-content/archived_issues_pdf/Bulletin_2000_03.pdf

Holmes, Jesse (2003). ‘Our Christianity’? Universalist Friends, 39 (Fall & Winter, 2003): 15-22

James, Edward and George Amoss Jr. (2000). An Exchange: Quaker Theology Without God? Quaker Theology, Issue #2, 2 (1), spring 2000. Also at http://www.quaker.org/ quest/issue2-6.html

Johnson, Eric (1991a). Why I Am an Atheist. Friends Journal, 37(1): 17; also in Quaker Universalist Fellowship (1991), Variations on the Quaker Message (Pamphlet #201). Landenberg, Pennsylvania: (author)

Johnson, Eric (1991b). Atheism and Friends (letter to the editor). Friends Journal 37(5): 6

Linton, John (1979/1986). Quakerism as Forerunner. Friends Journal, 25(17): 4-9; reprinted as Quakerism as Forerunner (Pamphlet #1) (1979). London: Quaker Universalist Group; also reprinted in Quaker

Universalist Fellowship (1991), The Quaker Universalist Reader Number 1: A Collection of Essays, Addresses and Lectures. Landenberg, Pennsylvania: (author)

Loukes, Harold & H. J. Blackham (1969). Humanists and Quakers: An Exchange of Letters. London: Friends Home Service Committee
Manoussos, Anthony (2008). Is It Time to Lay Down God? (editorial and
replies), Western Friend.

Miles, Thomas R. (1998). Speaking of God: Theism, Atheism and the Magnus Image. York, England: William Sessions Ltd.
Morgan, Arthur (1954/1998). Should Quakers Receive the Good Samaritan Into Their Membership? (QUF Pamphlet). Landenberg, Penna.: Quaker Universalist Fellowship

Rush, David (2002). They Too Are Quakers: A Survey of 199 Nontheist Friends. The Woodbrooke Journal, 11, Winter 2002. Also at http://www.universalistfriends.org

Seeger, Daniel A. (2010). Why Do the Unbelievers Rage? The New Atheists and the Universality of the Light, Friends Journal, (56) January: 6-11

Swayne, Kingdon (1980). Confession of a Post-Christian Agnostic. Friends Journal, 26(3): 6-9. Also in Quaker Universalist Fellowship (1990), Variations on the Quaker Message. Landenberg, PA: (author)

Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends (1976). Report From The Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends. Unpublished report, Friends General Conference Gathering at Ithaca NY, June 26-July 3, 1976

External links

• Nontheist Friends' web site: Nontheist Friends
• Nontheist Friends (atheist Quakers?) open, teaching and learning subject at World University and School Nontheist Friends (atheist Quakers?)