On Thursday night, I checked out the first-ever Great American God-Out, held in Midtown Manhattan (at a little place called Metro 53). Turnout was a little lighter than one might have expected in godless New York City (Home of the Jews and the Gays), but there were at least 60 God haters on hand, partying the night away.

Fighting a bad cold, I spent most of the evening reading Scientific American Mind at a table and nursing a gin and tonic (a drink noted for its cold-fighting properties). The bar had the Democratic debate on, without sound, which really is the ideal way to follow politics. The debate was replayed over the next few days on CNN; I watched with my wife and can confirm that sound did not enhance the experience.

Anyway, I was mostly interested in checking out the program from the stage — and I was not in the least disappointed…

[Before offering any commentary here, I suppose I should clarify my own entry point into all of this: I’m an agnostic, bordering on atheist. I’m broadly sympathetic to the goals of movement atheism (less religion in public life), but I’m in no way an activist or proselytizing atheist. Who has the energy?]

First up (after an introduction by event organizer Lydia Hartunian) was Margaret Downey, president of Atheists Alliance International. I’m afraid to say this was the “stereotypical shrill atheist” part of the program. Downey told how early that morning she blocked out the words “In God We Trust” on all of her currency. She had two dozen black markers to give out to the crowd so that they could do the same with their currency. “We refuse to be a link in a chain of proselytization,” she proclaimed. Michael Newdow, noted “Under God” unenthusiast, will apparently be bringing a lawsuit challenging our Deistic currency soon in the Ninth Circuit.

It’s not that I’m unsympathetic to the basic idea — if I could snap my fingers and remove the word “God” from every facet of our national life, especially any and all implements of government, I would — but the benefit-to-engendered-hatred-of-atheists ratio here is just incredibly low. If the goal of the atheist movement is to foster more people to “come out” as atheists and to convince others that atheists are A-OK folks — well, this is just about as backward a way to go about things as possible.

Next up was an incredibly painful act by “the singing Darwin scholar,” Richard Millner. The less said here the better. (A blues song about the Scopes trial… OK, I’ll stop.)

After that was the main event, a talk by Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine. Now, right before Shermer came on stage, I found myself thinking: “I’ve seen this all before… the nerdiness… the social misfits convinced they’re right while everyone else is wrong… the ill-conceived ideas about how to win friends and alienate voters… yes, these people are libertarians!” Coincidentally enough, Shermer started off by mentioning that he’s a libertarian — but said he wasn’t going to get into that tonight.

Now, I’m guessing that the majority of the folks in attendance would not have called themselves libertarians (this was Manhattan after all, probably they were mostly Democrats or Independents or Greens or whatnot). But it did lead me to wonder: What percentage of libertarians are atheists, and what percentage of atheists are libertarians? I’ve never seen survey data, but that’s not to say there isn’t any out there. I’m guessing the overlap is pretty significant.

Despite not getting into the libertarian angle, though, Shermer’s talk was thoughtful and sobering. “This is about as good as it’s ever been for atheists,” he declared. And that sounds right, even if a thrice-married black, gay, Mormon would have a better chance of being elected president than an open atheist. (I think it’s more than likely we’ve had plenty of closeted atheist presidents, just as it’s likely we’ve had a closeted gay president [you thought the link would be to an Abe Lincoln joke … you were wrong].) Shermer pegs the number of atheists in America at 60 million, very broadly defined to include folks like Buddhists, who don’t believe in a traditional theistic religion. What’s more, he argues, President Bush, 9/11, extremist Evangelicals, and murderous Muslim extremists all have contributed to a climate of more and more Americans being fed up with religion. Atheists shouldn’t demand anti-God purity, he argued. Atheists (and we should just embrace the term, instead of trying to come up with ridiculous neologisms like Brights) should embrace like thinkers with open arms.

Meanwhile, Shermer argued, sociological research is discrediting long-held prejudices with regard to atheism. Studies make it clear that believers and non-believers exhibit precisely no difference in sinful behavior such as adultery, murder, theft, etc. etc. etc. (Our behavior is guided much more by societal norms and an evolutionary need to fit in and cooperate.) In fact, the religiosity of a modern, industrialized society seems to have an inverse relation to societal health — that is, the more religious belief there is in a society, the more likely it is to display signs of cultural dysfunction, like crime, abortion, drug use, etc. (see: Western Europe versus the United States).

In the end, paradoxically, the best weapon against religion seems to be removing the wall of separation between church and state. Whereas religion thrives in America as churches and religious denominations have to compete with each other for members and money, European religion has withered, fat and happy with its state support.

Perhaps having “In God We Trust” on the currency isn’t such a dangerous thing after all. Perhaps it’s just a day late and a dollar short.