Over the past two years, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has been very active. In Britain we undertook a major opinion poll to coincide with the National Census. This pulls the rug out from under those lobbyists who – following the previous census – attempted to argue that Britain is a Christian country. In the US, we have expanded our staff in order to alert more and more people to the war being waged against reason, science and secularism.

More than just a website

We have made strenuous efforts to increase our worldwide presence by completely redesigning our already successful website. Our expert web team has created a website that can grow to meet the needs of what we hope will be a rising tide of atheism and secularism in the future. Our team is taking advantage of new developments in technology, as well as popular social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

We are developing parallel websites for specific populations, such as ex-Muslims, secular families, African Americans, Latinos, Women, LGBT and others. Our Spanish site will be the first of our foreign language sites to be launched. It will not only translate articles from the RDFRS website, but will host articles and discussions about issues specific to the Spanish speaking world.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation is committed to taking a leadership role in developing new tools and applications that will be made available to other secular organizations, large and small. Soon, the new global events calendar will be launched, which will allow organizations to easily upload their events – both on a local, national, and global level. This will be accompanied by a worldwide map, in which users can “drill down” to their local area to see secular meetings and other relevant events near them.

Such efforts testify to our determination to show that we are a growing segment of the population that will no longer tolerate the intrusion of radical religiosity to control politics, education, science, medicine, and the lives of those who cannot defend themselves.

Grassroots activism

The Richard Dawkins Foundation will be working with other organizations to encourage more grassroots activism on all levels: local, state, and national. This is a monumental effort, but RDFRS US is in a unique position to facilitate increased cooperation among the various secular groups. We will offer grassroots training and help to bring in speakers and encourage other activities that will help us regain the ground that has been taken by religious radicals. We need to take back school boards, city councils, state legislatures, and finally relegate those politicians who want to take the US into a theocracy back to the pews whence they came.

Our goal is ambitious, to hold Freethought Conventions in at least 25 states by 2020. We want both major US parties to recognize that atheists and secularists are a constituency that they need to court., We are a fast growing demographic and we are not happy with how most politicians suck up to the religious radicals.

Speaking tours

RDFRS will continue to sponsor speaking tours, including the Louis J. Appignani lecture series featuring various intellectuals across a number of disciplines. I will continue to travel around the US and other parts of the world in order to bring together like-minded individuals – but I need your help. After each visit, when I return to Britain, it is important that we take advantage of such energy and excitement as I hope to have generated, and work together to create a real force of change.

Capitalizing on our past successes

We will continue growing the OUT Campaign, supporting child care for national conferences, assisting student and local organizations to raise money, and working with national groups on conferences and joint objectives such as the Reason Rally.

I am asking for your help

These major objectives are doable, but not without your support. I am grateful for the support many of you have given in the past.Without your help we could not have got this far. Religious fundamentalism is a billion dollar industry. The yearly cost to US taxpayers through subsidies to religious organizations is $71 billion annually. The funds raised by all the secular organizations combined is a drop in the bucket by comparison. But rather than be discouraged, we should be energized. I am dedicating my time and energy not only to growing our movement, but to creating a powerful force for positive change. Please, join me and donate to RDFRS.

With my very best wishes and thanks for your support.

Richard Dawkins

Written By: Richard Dawkinscontinue to source article at