When Rick Wingrove was 14, he heard someone in his Southern Baptist church in West Texas joke about the Bible, saying, “Man created God in his own image.” That sentence caught Wingrove’s attention, illuminating his already growing doubts. He left the church, got a job that required him to work Sundays, and never returned. Now the Leesburg resident and freelance web designer is the Virginia state director for American Atheists, the oldest atheist organization in the world, as well as chief executive officer of Beltway Atheists and an organizer for Northern Virginia Atheists. He spoke to The Washington Examiner about his faith — in science — and the follies of religion. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
I’m not a member of any faith, in the traditional definition of faith. Faith is such a loaded word that I don’t like to use it. I like to say I’ve got confidence in science. I’m a lifelong atheist, even though I spent some time in church as a kid.
