Evan Carroll insists stirring up trouble is not his intent. His objective, he says, is to simply provide a social setting for like-minded people — those who don’t believe in God.

Carroll, 26, of Kingwood, formed the Kingwood Humble Atascocita Atheists in late January as a splinter group of the Houston Atheists who operate four chapters around the city. The reason for starting his own group, he says, is to create a more publicly visible organization.

While the more than 1,100 members of the Houston Atheists meet discreetly, Carroll and his group have crawled out of hiding and boldly meet at area restaurants for dinner socials. Meeting announcements can be found in area chat rooms, on community boards, social media outlets and public calendars.

With 40 members on Facebook alone and growing, Kingwood Humble Atascocita Atheists are coming out of the closet.

“I want this group to be seen,” Carroll told The Observer during a March dinner social at a Kingwood restaurant. “I want people to know that we are offering this support network right here in Kingwood and they don’t have to drive 30 miles to Houston.”

Rod Bryant, senior pastor at Calvary Christian Fellowship in Kingwood, said he feels no animosity or fear toward atheists or atheist groups. Like most people, he said, atheists are simply in search for the answers to four fundamental questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? How do we define what is right and wrong? And where are we going?

“Judeo-Christian ideas answer all these things. But regardless of what your religious views are, all of us humans grapple with these basic elements of origin and meaning. That’s just part of who we are as a people. I say, that’s just how God created us,” Bryant said.

“If we had a society that was vacant of that, society would die. Communism tried its best to eliminate society from contemplating those ideas, and we have seen the effects of it. It not only destroys people’s morale and psyche, it also destroys the economic structure of a society because people lose their will when they can’t find their purpose. You lose your soul.”

Bryant acknowledges that as a clergy member, his tolerant view of atheists may be considered unusual. That’s not to say he doesn’t see severe fallacies in atheist logic and disagrees vehemently with the inherent denial of God’s existence. Admittedly once skeptical himself in the midst of a personal upheaval, Bryant said he found the answers to his own questions through meticulous research and detailed study of ancient texts.

“In my congregation I present the idea that I won’t tell you what to think. I want to show you how to process the ancient scriptures so you can find the answers yourself,” he said. “At least our atheist friends and neighbors are asking questions.

“I’m concerned about a society that is involved in religion and asks no questions. Atheists often accurately quote religious leaders as saying you don’t need to understand, just believe, have faith. That defies all human logic. Skepticism is not bad.”

The members of the Kingwood Humble Atascocita Atheists are as diverse as local demographics: black, Asian, white, men and women of all ages, marital status and backgrounds. One of the members is a political activist. Even a 76-year-old former Catholic priest has joined the club. Carroll himself is a computer programmer with a real estate license.

During the recent dinner social, the conversation ranged from politics to current events, TV shows to town gossip. Surprisingly, the topic of religion barely even came up.

“It’s about having a support group that matches your world view. We don’t care if you’re a non-theist, an atheist, an agnostic. Christians have their church groups. Why shouldn’t we have this?”

Porter resident Richard Roy says he was actively looking for an atheist group when he eventually stumbled upon the Houston Atheists after doing some research online. When Carroll’s group splintered off, he followed. Raised in a strictly Catholic family — like Carroll, who also went to Catholic school — Roy started questioning his religion as an adolescent. His parents’ dream for their son to become a priest was shattered.

“Using reasoning, I couldn’t understand the rituals of the Catholic Church, especially confession,” Roy said. “The process didn’t make any sense to me, it wasn’t logical. That’s when I started questioning the logic of a God.”

Roy said he wanted to join an atheist group to get away from the “hidden agendas” he felt were commonplace whenever he found himself in the midst of a religious group that learned of his atheist views.

“There are no religious undertones here. Nobody says, ‘God wouldn’t like this, wouldn’t like that,’” he said, “and I don’t have to worry about offending someone.”

Bryant said just like believers, atheists arrive at their conviction for a variety of reasons and outwardly display their beliefs in a number of ways, or sometimes not at all.

“I do believe there is a segment that decided to hit the delete button on God because they have chosen an immoral and unethical lifestyle. As for those who are very vocal in their atheism, it kind of puzzles me. To recruit, hold meetings — I call them evangelical atheists. If you don’t believe in something, why not just go about your life and don’t believe,” he said.

“But those who are truly searching for the meaning of their life, their origin and purpose, I encourage them to continue doing what they’re doing.”

DAVID VS. GOLIATH

As atheists in the Bible Belt, Carroll and his group are meeting with frequent opposition.

Posts on message boards get deleted. Hostile glares from restaurant management when reserving tables for Kingwood Humble Atascocita Atheists dinner socials are hard to miss. And at a local coffee shop, Carroll said his fliers inviting new members were promptly removed.

While friendly opposition is something Carroll says he expects, welcomes even, discrimination is not. He compares his fight for equality to the battle for equal rights by homosexuals and minorities.

“I don’t want any special treatment, just equal,” he said. “If the treatment is unequal, I will be unrelenting. If the treatment is equal, I play ball by the same rules.”

On this, Carroll and Bryant agree. Both atheists and religious groups should be afforded the same courtesies, Bryant said — the same rights to free assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. If the tables were reversed, as they sometimes are, Bryant said, that would create problems.

Bryant said he has difficulty understanding why some people may get angry at Carroll and his group. Carroll may wear a T-shirt proclaiming himself as “Your friendly neighborhood atheist,” he said, but that’s no different than a religious person wearing a shirt that challenges, “Ask me about God.”

“I would ask, why are you so angry? Are they creating doubt? Are they challenging your views of God? And if they are, you need to hit the books. Are they asking questions that frustrate you because you don’t know the answers?” he said.

“I don’t understand that, except maybe they believe atheists are somehow one step away from attempting to outlaw or disband God and the idea of God in a society. They’re concerned you’ve taken him out of school, you challenge him everyplace, you’ve removed him of the public place, what’s next? I can understand how that would be threatening. ”

Carroll says he does not employ pressure tactics or seek a fight. In fact, he says, he won’t even broach the subject of religion or the lack thereof unless someone else takes the initiative.

At the dinner social, a teenage girl who likely spotted the Kingwood Humble Atascocita Atheists table topper from the next table approached Carroll, challenging him about the purpose of his atheist group, voicing her disagreement. A lively discourse about religious perspective ensued.

“The problem is some people don’t know how to take a group like this. There are plenty of people, even today, who get violent about this, who get malicious about it,” he said. “There’s this extreme desire to censor anything that speaks against organized religion. The vast majority of people are so alien to the idea of atheism, and they are just as hostile as they are afraid. And that’s something we’d like to amend in the community.”

Since the beginning of time, Bryant said, the world has been divided in believers and non-believers.

“There have always been those who vigorously attempted to stand up for one God, the creator of the universe, and those who follow their own devices,” he said. “Take Cain and Abel — it’s always been about freedom of choice.”

Carroll can be contacted via Facebook under the group “Kingwood Humble Atascocita Atheists.” Bryant can be reached via email at rodney.bryant@ccfh.net.