Liberal, Missouri: A Town founded by and for Atheists

[Ian David]

Literally an Atheist Community
Posted on September 17th, 2009 by Staks

A few months ago, I saw the Academy Award nominated film, Milk about gay activist, politician, Harvey Milk. One of the things that I noticed about as I saw the movie was that the main character was able to gain political power because he formed a strong gay community to elect him. I remember wondering if atheists could form a local community and elect leaders.

Last night, I was checking out some other atheist blogs and the Friendly Atheist did a story on a small town called Liberal, Missouri. I did a little more research on this because it sounded interesting to me. The town of Liberal was founded in 1880 as a town for atheists only. There was actually a law to keep Christians out of the town. There were no churches and on Sunday mornings school children would learn about science and philosophy.

Of course, a town which advertises as a town for atheists only is going to be a target for Christian missionary groups. Sadly, Christians started moving into the town on the “down-low” and holding secret worship services. Some Christian groups even bought up property next to Liberal and erected giant signs pushing Jesus.

Don’t get me wrong though, Liberal was no paradise, it certainly had its problems. For one thing, while I understand the desire to outlaw religion I do see that level of authoritarian control to be detrimental to society. Nevertheless, I think that modern atheists can learn a lot from Liberal, Missouri. Maybe the time has come to try this experiment again in a more modern way.

I don’t think we can actively exclude Christians and other god believers, but we can certainly find a place where we can form the majority and use the democratic process to create a community of our own. Of course, fundamentalist Christians will undoubtedly come to proselytize and we would have to deal with that. First things first however, what are people’s opinions about the idea? Where would be the best place for such a town? How willing and able would you be to move to an atheist town?

More:
http://www.dangeroustalk.net/?p=575


See also:


Liberal, Missouri
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Liberal is a city in Barton County, Missouri, United States. The population was 779 at the 2000 census.

<snip>

The Founding and Founder of Liberal

Liberal, MO, named after the Liberal League in Lamar, Missouri (to which the town’s organizer belonged), was started as an atheist, "freethinker" utopia in 1880 by George Walser, an anti-religionist, agnostic lawyer. He bought 2,000 acres (8 km2) of land and advertised across the country for atheists to come and

"found a town without a church, here unbelievers could bring up their children without religious training,” and where Christians were not allowed. “His idea was to build up a town that should exclusively be the home of Infidels...a town that should have neither God, Hell, Church, nor Saloon.” Some of the early inhabitants of Liberal even encouraged other infidels to move to their town by publishing an advertisement which boasted that Liberal “is the only town of its size in the United States without a priest, preacher, church, saloon, God, Jesus, hell or devil.”

From the December 1, 1938 edition of the Sikeston (Missouri) Herald:

The founder of this unique community experiment, George H. Walser, was born in Indiana in 1834. He went to Barton county immediately after the war, where he was soon recognized as one of the best lawyers in southwest Missouri. He was elected prosecuting attorney there, and became a member of the 25th assembly. With an eye for future developments he purchased 2,000 acres (8 km2) of land and selected the site of Liberal as the home of an experiment in intellectual community living. He was an agnostic and placed himself in open opposition to organized religion. “With one foot upon the neck of priestcraft and the other upon the rock of truth,” he declared, “we have thrown our banner to the breeze and challenge the world to produce a better cause for the devotion of man than that of a grand, noble and perfect humanity.” In harmony with the purpose for organizing the town a number of unusual institutions designed to promote the ideal community were tried during the 1880’s and 1890’s. The first of these was a Sunday Morning Instruction School, where children were taught from “Youth Liberal Guide” and from various works on physics, chemistry, and other sciences. In another class organized for older young people elementary experiments in the physical sciences were performed under the supervision of teachers whose avowed function was to encourage and direct free intelligent discussion. In the Mental Liberty Hall lectures were given each Sunday evening, and scientists, philosophers, socialists, atheists, Protestant ministers and Catholic priests were invited to speak—respectable decorum being the only limitation placed upon any speaker. Large enthusiastic crowds gathered each week in the interest of mental liberty. The Liberal Normal School and Business Institute was another institution organized by Walser to promote liberal education free from the bias of Christian theology. This school was well advertised and soon had a large enrollment. According to a tract published in 1885, the Liberal Normal School and Business Institute was “located in the liberal town, taught by liberal teachers and courted only the patronage of liberal patrons.” Out of this organization developed Free Thought University, which opened in 1886 with a staff of seven teachers.

Christians Send Missionaries

Christians, of course, found in Liberal a perfect mission field.

As news spread about Liberal, Christians came to convert the town. Walser tried to keep them out by posting his followers at the Liberal train station to tell passengers that if they were Christians they were not welcome, according to an 1896 article in The Kansas City Star. They came anyway. Some Christians quietly bought homes and began holding religious services. Walser would interrupt them and even put a stop to it after he proved to a court that the services were being held on properties he still partly owned. The Christians then bought land next to Liberal and moved more than a dozen houses there from Liberal. The last building had a sign attached that said: "And the Lord said: Get thee out of Sodom." Walser then built a barbed wire fence to keep them out of Liberal. It was time to fulfill the original aim of the town to "enjoy the full benefits of free American citizens without having some self-appointed bigot dictate to us what we should think." (Kansas City Star on Saturday, December 22, 2001)

Regarding the adjoining town that the Christians created:

In an effort to throw off the yoke of Walser, the Christians purchased an eighty-acre tract of land adjoining the town, called the place Pedro and moved their houses and places of business out of Liberal. (Sikeston (Missouri) Herald, December 1, 1938)


More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal,_Missouri

[Soylent Brice]

1. that's pretty cool, and not a bad idea.

thanks for posting!

[DavidDvorkin]

2. I wonder what the demographics are now

Is the percentage of atheists in Liberal higher than in surrounding towns or the same?

[enlightenment]

3. Wonder what 'saloon' had to do with the rest?

If I had to be a tee-totaling atheist, I wouldn't want to live there . . .

There were quite a few Utopian communities in the 19th century that fostered interesting ideas (free love, meditation, pure socialism, etc) - but most (if not all - I'd have to check) failed. The problem I see with creating this sort of community is that you are automatically operating from a defensive position, saying 'keep XXX away from us'.

That's no different than Christians' wanting to keep atheists out of their communities.

This town had problems it wasn't addressing, if Christians were able to 'infiltrate' and hold secret meetings - religion may be an opiate, but only if you smoke it. You can't get hooked on it if you're not interested in trying it out . . . and if you do, it would seem to indicate that you're not satisfied by non-belief.

[Synnical]

4. Why do the xians always have to screw everything up?

And I do mean everything, at least in the US.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale