I spent the day at the big Reason Rally on the National Mall. I'd say it was a huge success! According to rally host Paul Provenza, the official estimate from the Parks Department was 20,000 people. Not too shabby, especially considering that it was cold and very rainy all day.
I'm sticking around for the Americn Atheist's convention tomorrow. I'll have a full report on everything when I get home.
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It was cold, and it was pouring rain for much of the afternoon, but the rally was a huge success nevertheless. The official estimate from the Park's Department was 20,000, which seems about right to me. I'm not generally a real social person, and I'm not much of a joiner. But given that I live…
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Don't forget us who cannot physically be there but nevertheless remotely supportive of you guys. Good Job!
Up with Chris Hayes on msnbc is having an atheism special inspired by the reason rally. Susan Jacoby, Richard Dawkins, and others will be on. It starts at 8:00 A.M.
One of the rally participants looks for a sign from God, but there are some that would like to see a sign from the rally participants. At present, it appears to this casual observer that there is a primitivistic form of atheist belief. A primitive theist might reason as follows:
If there is a lightning bolt, then there is Zeus
The primitive atheist seems almost to reverse this reasoning:
If there is Zeus, then there is Zeus' lightning bolt
There is no Zeus' lightning bolt
Therefore there is no Zeus
What is missing from this reasoning is a consideration of the problem of existence. The theist sees himself as situated in between the world and the source of his existence. If I understand Dawkins from his televised debates, he appears to believe that we are situated at some point subsequent to the existence of nothing. The "existence of nothing", however, appears to involve a contradiction. It implies that nothing both is and is not at the same time. I would suggest that this area of discussion is the critical one for convincing non-believers in atheism.