4 We address his claim under the Free Exercise Clause first. An inmate retains the right to exercise his religious beliefs in prison.
Tarpley v. Allen County, 312 F.3d 895, 898 (7th Cir.2002). The problem here was that the prison officials did not treat atheism as a "religion," perhaps in keeping with Kaufman's own insistence that it is the antithesis of religion. But whether atheism is a "religion" for First Amendment purposes is a somewhat different question than whether its adherents believe in a supreme being, or attend regular devotional services, or have a sacred Scripture. The Supreme Court has said that a religion, for purposes of the First Amendment, is distinct from a "way of life," even if that way of life is inspired by philosophical beliefs or other secular concerns. See
Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 215-16, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972). A religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being (or beings, for polytheistic faiths), see
Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 495 & n. 11, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982 (1961);
Malnak v. Yogi, 592 F.2d 197, 200-15 (3d Cir.1979) (Adams, J., concurring);
Theriault v. Silber, 547 F.2d 1279, 1281 (5th Cir.1977) (per curiam), nor must it be a mainstream faith, see
Thomas v. Review Bd., 450 U.S. 707, 714, 101 S.Ct. 1425, 67 L.Ed.2d 624 (1981);
Lindell v. McCallum, 352 F.3d 1107, 1110 (7th Cir.2003).
5 Without venturing too far into the realm of the philosophical, we have suggested in the past that when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of "ultimate concern" that for her occupy a "place parallel to that filled by . . . God in traditionally religious persons," those beliefs represent her religion.
Fleischfresser v. Dirs. of Sch. Dist. 200, 15 F.3d 680, 688 n. 5 (7th Cir.1994) (internal citation and quotation omitted); see also
Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 340, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 26 L.Ed.2d 308 (1970);
United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 184-88, 85 S.Ct. 850, 13 L.Ed.2d 733 (1965). We have already indicated that atheism may be considered, in this specialized sense, a religion. See
Reed v. Great Lakes Cos., 330 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir.2003) ("If we think of religion as taking a position on divinity, then atheism is indeed a form of religion."). Kaufman claims that his atheist beliefs play a central role in his life, and the defendants do not dispute that his beliefs are deeply and sincerely held.
6 The Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent to a "religion" for purposes of the First Amendment on numerous occasions, most recently in
McCreary County, Ky. v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 2722, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2005). The Establishment Clause itself says only that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," but the Court understands the reference to religion to include what it often calls "nonreligion." In
McCreary County, it described the touchstone of Establishment Clause analysis as "the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion."
Id. at *10 (internal quotations omitted). As the Court put it in
Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985):
7 At one time it was thought that this right [referring to the right to choose one's own creed] merely proscribed the preference of one Christian sect over another, but would not require equal respect for the conscience of the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Islam or Judaism. But when the underlying principle has been examined in the crucible of litigation, the Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all.
8
Id. at 52-53, 105 S.Ct. 2479. In keeping with this idea, the Court has adopted a broad definition of "religion" that includes non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as theistic ones. Thus, in
Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982, it said that a state cannot "pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can [it] aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs."
Id. at 495, 81 S.Ct. 1680. Indeed,
Torcaso specifically included "Secular Humanism" as an example of a religion.
Id. at 495 n. 11, 81 S.Ct. 1680.
