American atheists are on the rise. They have radically different visions of the future.
Reason Rally 2016 believes science can cure the social ills of religion. But it isn't sure what a "healthy" society will look like.
by Emmett Rensin on June 29, 2016
Peter, who has a temporary tattoo of the anarchy "A" on his upper arm, is ready for the age of reason. He fucking loves science. Or he loves logic, he says; it's the only thing he's interested in.
He has come all the way from Madison, Wisconsin, to Washington, DC, to hear the nation's foremost atheists tell an expected crowd of 30,000 the good news: We are at a turning point in American life. Religion, the long-stubborn source of our national ills, is finally dying away.
But there aren't 30,000 people here. The crowd extending from a stage at the base of the Lincoln Memorial stretches scarcely a quarter of the way up the Reflecting Pool and is thin on the sunny side. We are off to a slow start, one made slower by the loss, over dozens of speakers and days of events, of any kind of clarity or point.
This is the second Reason Rally, the first since 2012. It is, according to its organizers, a turning point in history, an opportunity for the quarter of Americans who are atheists to "stand up and be counted."
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/29/12051872/reason-rally