american athiests, an organization that protects the civil rights of athiests. his president urging athiests to come out of the closet? >> the message is that if you can come out you can come out. and if you can't come out, at least you'll know you're ÷vsoon be able to come out of the closet to your family. >> of the 535 members in both chambers of the u.s. congress, currently there is one, that is one, declared athiest. his name is fortney hillman stalk, jr. aka pete stalk. he is a democrat from california, who has served consecutively since 1973, 40 years. he is now in his 20th term. his district the 13th is alameda county, california's bay area. congressman stalk wins the election every two years with a bowls mandate. if not a landslide. in the last election, 2010, he was . >> % of the vote. question, the secular coalition for america claims that 28 athiests are in the u.s. congress, though a coalition does not name names. were are those athiests all still in the closet except for one? >> i think that americans realize we don't really have the ability to hold

ñrbecom chic to say you're an athiest. >> my late husband was a athiest. >> publicly so?licly. >> tom told me he was an athiest, in a group like this. >> but he didn't want his mother to live who played the organ in the catholic church every morning. there are some people that you feel more comfortable. i think there's a -- a false assumption that if you go to church and you profess a religion, you're somehow -- you get a pass when it comes to morals and ethics, when in fact you can go to a website called happy athiest forum.com and they're saying that athiests need to change their image and they're seen ago a gloomy bunch when they believe you should built a hospital in sid of church and help peep in the here and now. >> isn't that a public -- political group? >> no, they're not political. but i went to a number of events with tom, humanist events, lot of former learningee in t >>> aris stands for the american religious vare. it works with a sample of more than 54,000 american adults. is says traditional religions in u.s. have lost a sizable number of a 28- year period,

, that was a giant leap forward, and a big part of that, i believe -- there are many others, new athiests who don't think this but i'm part of a group that believes religion is an adaptation and i believe it is for cooperation. we build a issuele around -- astill, around a sacred object. a rock in maybe car a box with a rock inside of it. warfare would be impossible if we were just self-interested crete toward but we circle around sacred objects, flags, standards. sacredness means no tradeoffs. it means you defendant the thing that you circled around. so this whys the flag and the bible are so important on the right but the left has its sacred objects, too. how many martin luther king jokes have you heard? probably zero and if i told you one now you would hate me because that would be sacrilege. so i will just read one paragraph from near the end of my book. morality binds and blind. this is not just something that happens to people on the other side. we all get sucked into tribal moral communities, circle around sacred values and then share arguments about why we are so right and they ar