Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Reason Rally 2016



So tomorrow begins the 2016 Reason Rally event in Washington DC. I will be headed down there tomorrow morning and will be meeting several friends who are active in the New York City atheist community. There are many events lined up in addition to the main rally on Saturday. I'm taking part in the Advocacy Days training session for lobbying senators and congressmen about secularism and to put pressure on them to respect the wall (between church and state). It should be fun, especially since marijuana is legal in the city. The Wu-tang clan are going to perform. Bill Nye will speak and Lawrence Krauss, and they're always interesting. Originally Johnny Depp was going to speak but his recent mother's death and divorce hoopla caused him to decline. Damn. I was looking forward to seeing him and possibly meeting him since I know a guy who knows the organizers.

If you can make it to the event I highly recommend you come. It is very important that atheists, skeptics, and secular people are represented and show America that we're one of the largest growing segments of the population and that we're just not going to tolerate the absurdity of religion into the government process anymore. A rally for reason, it would seem, shouldn't be necessary. It's the 21st century. Heck it's the second half of the second decade of the 21st century. We as a people should be past religious dogma hindering our policies. But in reality it's technically more broad than that. Rational thinking is needed in all areas of human existence, not just politics. We absolutely need rational discourse in every aspect of our lives from politics to policy to economics to our personal lives and views. It's not just religion that is hindering rational thinking. There are multiple kinds of irrational ways to think that involve no appeal to religion or any god. I suppose that's what the Reason Rally is really about - at least I hope. We need to stamp out all ways of irrational thinking, especially among religious, but also among the non-religious.

And speaking of which, I will be posting a blog I wrote last year on how to infer ontology that I never published that will outline my views on exactly how to think rationally about ontological claims. Expect that to be done within the next week or two - depending on how busy I am from the rally.

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