I’ve stood at the front of history in the making. Literally.
On March 24, 2012, the first ever Reason Rally was held at the National Mall in Washington D.C. The rally drew a crowd of over 20,000, making it the largest secular gathering in world history. I was one of the people at the front of that crowd.
The Reason Rally is exactly what it sounds like: a rally for the virtue of reason. It celebrated basing one’s beliefs on logic and evidence, as well as the American value of the separation of church and state. But is such a “rally for the obvious,” as one of the speakers, Richard Dawkins, puts it, needed? Alas, there are actually people who are against reason, and they constitute a larger part of the population than I like to think about.
Take, for example, the issue of evolution. Although it is not a problem at JC, teaching evolution is still a struggle in America, especially in the South. In 2008, a conference of American science teachers was held in Atlanta, Georgia. One teacher reported that students “burst into tears” when they found out that they were studying evolution, while another teacher told how students screamed “No!” when he began talking about the subject.
The current GOP candidates are another omen that such a rally for reason is needed. Currently, there seems to be a voter mentality of preferring politicians who are “more like me and not like those intellectual elitists,” which accounts for why Rick Santorum can be considered a serious candidate for president. People want someone they can relate to rather than someone who is qualified for the job.
Perhaps the most poignant reminder of why the Reason Rally needed to happen was a particular group that attended to protest it. Yes, I encountered the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a hateful organization that condemns pretty much everyone to hell. In a society where faith is considered an item of moral goodness and virtue, it is often forgotten that the idea of believing in things without proof can be a source of tremendous harm.
Just ask Nate Phelps, the son of WBC leader Fred Phelps, who spoke at the rally. His voice was filled with sorrow as he apologized for all the hate his family has spread. “Seeing my family out there protesting, standing behind barriers with their garish signs, espousing the ideal of their god – the prevailing emotion for me is sadness,” he said. “I see the results of a lifetime of controlled indoctrination. I see a system [that] vilifies new ideas, shuns new discoveries — clinging rather to ancient notions about the nature of our world.”
Hopefully, 100 years from now, we won’t need to hold such rallies to remind us of the importance of reason and the harrowing effects that a lack of such reason can have.
Scott Novak is an Opinion Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.