The Reason Rally

The symbol for the American Atheists group ("Permission is hereby granted to all who wish to use the logo for any reason other than to defame.") within the public domain Purple Poly Mobius symbol. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You may have spotted in the news that this weekend a bunch of atheists are gathering in Washington D.C. to celebrate reason. A couple of logical errors with this, if I may.

Number one. By having this ‘Reason Rally’ it would seem that they’re inferring that anyone who has faith in anything supernatural is somehow choosing to be unreasonable. By opposing the thoughts behind this rally I’m clearly disagreeing that reason is a bad idea…but I don’t. And, obviously, no-one does. No-one actively holds a position they consider unreasonable. So these atheists that are rallying clearly feel so little confidence in their beliefs that they feel the need to use straw man arguments. Good starting position.

Number two. David Silverman from American Atheists explained the reasons behind the rally:

The Reason Rally is not about eradicating religion. There is a difference between wanting a secular government and a nontheistic government. A secular government is one that gives no preference to any religion or to non-religion. This allows the government to remain neutral and to protect all religious belief.

Oh, well done, David! Maybe you are being reasonable after all!

Oh, no, actually it seems he’s not. Have a little read of his blog at the Washington Post and you’ll see that his issue is that people in America vote for religious people over atheists regardless of how similar their manifestos may be. So he’s not bothered about atheists not being able to run (he’s obviously not rallying against public policy) but he is bothered about people being informed of how to vote by their faith.

In other words, he’s saying that faith is fine, so long as it only affects your private life rather than being demonstrated in public.

Which is ironic, seeing as this is being communicated through a public demonstration.

Oh, and as a little postscript, the Washington Post has also stuck on a blog post written by a guy who shows the New Atheists’ irrationality a little clearer than I do.

Atheists say dead heroes shouldn’t be honoured

Seven firemen killed as a result of their heroic actions on 9/11 were publicly honoured by the American population – they earned the title ‘the Seven in Heaven’, and a commemorative street sign was erected.

Of course, this didn’t please a bunch of atheists, who have now come out and are threatening a lawsuit to remove the sign.

They do have a point – they say that heaven is a distinctly Christian idea, and that city officials, by allowing this sign to be publicly displayed, are going against the separation of church and state.

But they’re wrong. Let’s just start with the Christian concept – Christians believe that we’re saved by grace, not works. So no Christian would say that these firemen have any greater or lesser chance of getting into heaven based on their heroic actions on that day – it’s already been achieved by Jesus.

But in addition to that absolutely basic misunderstanding, here’s a quote from Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists:

It’s really insulting to us…We’ve concluded as atheists there is no heaven and there’s no hell…And it’s a totally religious statement…It’s irrelevant who it’s for, we think this is a very bad thing…

I find it ironic that he’s able to say ‘we’ve concluded there’s no heaven’, then say that belief in heaven is ‘a totally religious statement’. Double standard anyone?

David Silverman, president of American Atheists, said:

It implies that heaven actually exists…People died in 9/11, but they were all people who died, not just Christians. Heaven is a specifically Christian place. For the city to come up and say all those heroes are in heaven now, it’s not appropriate.

And this is where the argument falls short, because it’s going round in circles. First, heaven doesn’t exist, now it’s wrong because they might not have been Christians? Is he basically saying that he’d rather the sign said ‘Seven turned to ash’ if they were atheists?

But it gets better – this is Silverman again:

All memorials for fallen heroes should celebrate the diversity of our country and should be secular in nature. These heroes might have been Jews, they might have been atheists, I don’t know, but either way it’s wrong for the city to say they’re in heaven. It’s preachy.

What? Hang on. All memorials should celebrate the diversity…should be secular. But the vast majority of Americans would say that they have faith in at least one god. So you’ve just contradicted yourself in one breath – either you celebrate diversity in beliefs, or you admit that you think you’re right and everyone else is wrong – you can’t have it both ways.

Again, it’s ironic that using the word heaven on a street sign is preachy, but then demanding that everything should be secular isn’t.

Rant over.

For the moment.