{"id":2576,"date":"2012-04-06T15:50:33","date_gmt":"2012-04-06T19:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2576"},"modified":"2012-12-30T01:03:38","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T06:03:38","slug":"reason-rally-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/reason-rally-wrap-up.html","title":{"rendered":"Reason Rally Wrap-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Since it\u2019s been two weeks since the event, I\u2019m collapsing some of my other experiences at the Reason Rally<\/a> into a few brief thoughts:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What do we want? ______ <\/em> When do we want it? Now!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Reason Rally, to the best of my knowledge, didn\u2019t have a public policy ask. We weren\u2019t gathered in DC to demand anything from Congress or the President. So I had some of the same mixed feelings that I had about A Week<\/em><\/a>. For the attendees who are already out, what comes next?<\/p>\n

Some of the stories of persecution and attacks told be speakers were deeply upsetting, and at a dinner after the rally, one Christian-turned-atheist, told us that his mother had called him \u2018Anti-Christ\u2019 when he came out to her as a non-believer. It\u2019s been two years, and she hasn\u2019t spoken to him since that conversation.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure how people like me, who live in pretty cosmopolitan areas, where atheists have a pretty easy time of it, can best be of help. I just don\u2019t encounter these kinds of personal problems in my day to day life. Perhaps the answer is to just throw money at the groups that are handling the legal cases. \u00a0Though, for the most case, those suits aren\u2019t only for the benefit of atheists.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hoist on my Own Petard<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been saying for a while that I want the atheist movement to take stands on more than the existence of God and church\/state relations (which as I say above shouldn\u2019t be uniquely important to atheists). But I still had a knee-jerk reaction of anger when said, Darrel Ray, author of Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality<\/em><\/a>, said, in a mock invocation preceding his talk, \u201cWe do not ask that you send us 72 virgins. In fact, we ask that you send us no virgins at all because we don\u2019t want the bother of training them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there I was in the audience, thinking \u201cThanks so much for excluding me from the ranks of worth-the-time humans.\u201d Be careful what you wish for. \u00a0 After the initial flash of hurt, I was mostly able to switch over to appreciating that Ray had staked out a position but wishing he had spent some time trying to persuade people in the audience, instead of assuming we were all in agreement.<\/p>\n

YouTube activist Cristina Rad<\/a> also used part of her lecture time to go beyond negating God. After she finished her main speech, she did a ten minute presentation of the horrors of the Drug War and the urgent need for US prison reform (both especially germane for atheists who believe we have just the one life to live). Her speech was directed more at persuasion than Ray\u2019s. I\u2019d like to see more speakers do atheism and\u2026<\/em> like Rad and Ray, even if it means I feel uncomfortable. Speeches like Ray\u2019s aren\u2019t creating divisions, they\u2019re just revealing splits that already existed and giving us the chance to debate.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking twenty years forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

AJ Johnson from American Atheists gave a talk about the future of the secular movement. Like my fellow Patheos blogger, Greg Epstein<\/a>, she wants to see secular people unite into secular communities. She talked about the way that religion provides full life cycle support to its members, from birth to death, and hoped that the secular movement could start working to fill this gap for those who leave their church and for cradle atheists.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t have been more in agreement with her speech. Certainly I think that support for other people is an worth end in and of itself. and support, especially for those who are leaving abusive religions is critical. \u00a0But I\u2019m also in favor of this shift because I think it means the secular community will be forced to have more of the arguments that Rad and Ray sparked. \u00a0At a certain point, supporting someone means supporting them towards<\/em> something. \u00a0To become a community, the secular movement is going to have to develop more normative moral statements than \u2018live or let live.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since it\u2019s been two weeks since the event, I\u2019m collapsing some of my other experiences at the Reason Rally into a few brief thoughts: What do we want? ______ When do we want it? Now! The Reason Rally, to the best of my knowledge, didn\u2019t have a public policy ask. We weren\u2019t gathered in DC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[88,54,75,95],"class_list":["post-2576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","tag-atheism-conference","tag-atheism-is-boring","tag-conferences","tag-reason-rally"],"yoast_head":"\nReason Rally Wrap-Up<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Since it's been two weeks since the event, I'm collapsing some of my other experiences at the Reason Rally into a few brief thoughts: What do we want?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/reason-rally-wrap-up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reason Rally Wrap-Up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Since it's been two weeks since the event, I'm collapsing some of my other experiences at the Reason Rally into a few brief thoughts: What do we want?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/reason-rally-wrap-up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unequally Yoked\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-06T19:50:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-12-30T06:03:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/files\/2012\/04\/photo-764x1024.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/reason-rally-wrap-up.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/reason-rally-wrap-up.html\",\"name\":\"Reason Rally Wrap-Up\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-06T19:50:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-12-30T06:03:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\"},\"description\":\"Since it's been two weeks since the event, I'm collapsing some of my other experiences at the Reason Rally into a few brief thoughts: What do we want?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/reason-rally-wrap-up.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/reason-rally-wrap-up.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/reason-rally-wrap-up.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Reason Rally Wrap-Up\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/\",\"name\":\"Unequally Yoked\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\",\"name\":\"Leah Libresco\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Leah Libresco\"},\"description\":\"Leah is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. 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