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| Tom Gilson's morning view of rally |
The
Reason Rally of atheists and
skeptics is gathering today upon the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to
celebrate a common lack of belief in any particular faith and to demarginalize
as a collective voice. But today is not so much about good reasoning as it is
about:
...drawing attention to our movement. This is about getting
media attention. This is about getting all those people not attending the
rally (or who don’t even know there are so many other atheists out there) to
notice us... --FriendlyAtheist
Invitations to reasoned debate and dialogue from Christian apologists of the
True Reason collaboration have
been
abruptly declined, whereas an invitation to the rally was
graciously extended to Fred Phelp's infamous Westboro Baptist Church, attracting
objections
from bloggers of the Christian Apologetics Alliance and Ratio Christi. It seems
Reason Rally organizers so highly esteem publicity that they will invite it
even when it runs completely counter to reason.
Peer review is completely lacking in
refusing to encourage dialogue
with those critical of the atheist worldview and trained in reasoned debate.
Rather, the rally organizers create an atmosphere of mutual ridicule,
inviting Westboro Baptist.
Edited by Tom Gilson and Carson Weitnauer, the book side of the
True Reason response
includes contributions from William Lane Craig and Sean McDowell and discusses
the "Explanatory Emptiness of Naturalism", how evolution and God's
existence do not conflict, "Historical Evidences of the Gospels", the
problem of evil, slavery, "Did God Command the Genocide of the
Canaanites?" and how the New Atheist movement's persuasive techniques rely
more on rhetoric and appeal to emotion than reason.
