Reason Rally in DC over the weekend...

It was, one speaker said, their coming-out moment.

Atheists, non-theists, secularists and others who say they believe in reason, not God, gathered Saturday on the Mall for the first Reason Rally, where they pledged to stand up for their beliefs in a society that they say sometimes views them with skepticism and distrust.

Richard Dawkins spoke with The Washington Post's Sally Quinn about the upcoming Reason Rally, a gathering of atheists, agnostics and non-believers, that will take place on the National Mall on Saturday.

“God is a myth,” said Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists. “Closet atheists, you are not alone.”

Despite intermittent rain, several thousand people gathered on the lawn across from the National Museum of American History to hear a roster of speakers that included comedians, activists and the first openly atheistic member of Congress — Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.).

“We’re here,” the crowd yelled in a chant led by Fred Dewords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason. “We’re godless — get used to it.”

Organizers said the aim of the rally was twofold: to unite individuals with similar beliefs and to show the American public that the number of people who don’t believe in God is large and growing.

“We have the numbers to be taken seriously,” said Paul Fidalgo, spokesman for the Center for Inquiry, which promotes scientific method and reasoning and was one of the organizations sponsoring the rally. “We’re not just a tiny fringe group.”

According to the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008, the number of people who claim no specific religious belief was 34 million, 15 percent of the U.S. adult population. A survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2008 yielded similar numbers.

Saturday’s attendees included a mix of young and old, white, black, Hispanic and Asian. Inside the exhibitor tent, they could speak with representatives of groups ranging from the Society for Humanistic Judaism, a group that embraces the secular roots of Jews, the Hispanic American Freethinkers and Recovering from Religion, a group whose goal is to help people leave their religion.

A small number of counterprotesters stood at the fringes of the rally, holding signs that said, among other things, “Jesus forgives sin” and “Fear God.” Some of them engaged in heated debate with non-believers. One woman, a Reason Rally attendee, approached a group of counterprotesters with a sign on which she’d written, “So many Christians, so few lions.”

Catherine Williams, 13, of Leesburg came to the rally with her mother, Lisa, and brother Nathaniel. She said she attends a small conservative private school where she is the only student who is openly an atheist. Sometimes, she said, it can be uncomfortable because many of her classmates are vocal about their religious beliefs. When talk in the classroom focuses on religion, students turn and look at her for her reaction, she said.

“Coming here makes me feel less alone,” she said, a sentiment echoed by many in Saturday’s crowd.

Dustin Taylor, 21, a student at SUNY Cortland, attracted some attention with his T-shirt, which said: “Free drinks to the person who can prove God exists.”

The student, who plans to become a science teacher, said he wants to ensure that his future students have a strong grounding in science. Too often, he said, people believe something simply because it’s what they’ve been told.

Taylor, along with classmates Erica Deretz and Nick Gardner, recently formed the Secular Student Alliance on the SUNY Cortland campus. The three were in the District for the rally and to take part in the American Atheists National Convention, meeting Sunday and Monday in Bethesda.

Deretz carried a poster with the slogan, “Let’s have a moment of science.”

Matthew Zemo, 29, of Brooklyn said atheists have been too nice for too long. He said he hopes the rally will encourage people to step up and speak out.

“This gathering is long overdue,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”

‘Godless’ rally for recognition - The Washington Post

“Free drinks to the person who can prove God exists.”


Free drinks, or whatever, to the person who can prove God doesn't exist.......

That's silly. I don't know why the religious think that the burden of proof is on everyone, it's not, it's solely on them. If there's evidence/proof at all for something, yet you say there is, you then can't say "prove to me it doesn't exist". It doesn't work that way, we don't have to prove anything...you have the burden of proof because you are claiming the reality of something. The existence of something when there is no evidence of that something.

If I believed in aliens and I wanted you to believe in them as well, I have to prove to you and give you solid evidence that they do exist. I just wouldn't simply say "prove they aren't real", you didn't make the claim, I did...therefore it's on me to back it up. That's nothing but ad ignorantiam, an argument that something is true because we don’t know that it isn’t true. Every argument I have ever seen in support for an existence for a god is always some type of logical fallacy.

Hopefully in 50 years, Christianity will be on the back-burner in numbers of followers. Another thing that holds this country back in areas and other countries pass laugh at us. It's embarrassing.

You may want to take a look at actual history, Jesus Christ was a real person and actually did exist and much of the Bible has been proven factual. Biblical Archaeology: Factual Evidence to Support the Historicity of the Bible

How can you say that other countries laugh at us for being a christian nation when 90% of them are the same? Just because the vast majority of this country believes in man/woman marriage and not killing unborn children that holds us back??? Take a look at you heroes in the middle east and see how they treat gays, rape victims and women by order of their religious beliefs.

Sounds like the Arrogance Association.