Atheism use to be the mark of a ‘lone wolf’ belief.  The individual as atheist simply didn’t believe.  That’s it.  No elaborate arguments were needed, no books had to hit the best sellers list, and no debates were staged.  An atheist was the epitome of the nonbeliever.  But now, they’ve had to come together in their unbelief.  Commune, let’s say, and invent rituals:

Atheists bond during 'de-baptism'

Nonbelievers say they need to show their numbers

Belief in God symbolically evaporated when more than a hundred atheists were "de-baptized" with a blow dryer yesterday.

Not only must they perform a ‘de-baptizing’ ritual, they must also ‘bond.’  Yes, bond.  We’ve gone from lone wolf nonbeliever to the Atheists’ Support Group:

Organizers of the event in Westerville, described as a "coming out party" for atheists, agnostics and humanists, served root beer and crackers with peanut butter and honey to top off the late afternoon ceremony.

Apparently, children were present, but couldn’t they have livened up the party just a bit?  Root Beer?  Peanut butter crackers?  What?  No wings and real beer!

Putting the sad fair aside, I understand their effort to ridicule the Sacrament of Baptism, but it was simply goofy.  They substituted cheap performance art for their lack of a rational argument.

But it actually gets worse as Frank Zindler, president of American Atheists, pronounced the . . . incantation, I guess, and said:

"Do you agree that the magical potency of today's ceremony is exactly equal to the magical efficacy of ceremonial baptism with dihydrogen oxide, and do you agree that the power of all magical ceremonies is nonexistent?"

He just delegitimized magic and put The Society Of American Magicians out of a job.  He then stated,

 "It sounds perhaps frivolous, but it's a very serious thing,” . . ."The event is more of an invitation to a revolution more than a party in a sense. Until we come out of the closet and let people know our numbers, politicians think they can ignore us."

Apparently, Mr. Zindler recently stepped out of a cave and never heard of Madalyn Murray O'Hara and the fight she won, which reduced a school prayer to a moment of silence, and the removal of a sculpture of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse.  The list does go on.  I just want to know how he figures his belief is being ignored. 

At this session of the Atheists’ Support Group, a young lady reports that after becoming “more vocal about being an atheist after she said she was fired in the fall from a Columbus truck dealership because of her atheism.”   Now, I’m not an atheist but she needs a lawyer because she has a legitimate lawsuit here.  If she’s not pushing for reparations, I find her charge suspect.

Someone else who participated in this symbolic de-symbolizing ceremony “was studying to become an apologist for Christianity before he decided that Christianity wasn't rational.”  First of all, how does one studied to become an apologist for anything, let alone, Christianity?  What school was he going to?  Apologist 101 wasn’t in my course catalogue.  Putting that quandary aside, I will puzzle over how “he decided that Christianity wasn't rational.”  I just don’t know what that means.  But that’s not his fault.  It’s the fault of the woman writing the article.

If I took the ‘ex-studying to be an apologist’ aside, he’d have the opportunity to explain what he meant by “Christianity wasn't rational.”  As far as I know there are many things in the world which defy rational explanation, but people believe in them.  Aliens from outer space always come to mind.  I’m not knocking this person’s unbelief, but he should keep in mind is that what is rational is ways up for debate.

The ‘ex-studying to be an apologist’ also has concerns about the label atheist and “usually avoids the term atheist when he meets people.”  (So, he hides his light under a basket—a little Bible bit there)  "It invites people to have overly simple stereotypes," he said. Stereotypes?  Like people who gather and mock the beliefs of another group. That kind of stereotype?  Of course, he says those other people, "They believe we're moral relativists who don't believe in truth."  Maybe he should consider the fact that there are atheists who are moral relativists, and an ideology such as Marxism is Atheistic and has more than just a little blood on its hands. 

One of the party goers said, "The de-baptism doesn't have any magical or supernatural aspect.”  Oh, really?  No magical or supernatural aspect?  Who’d thought that?  Finally, she concludes by adding, "It's just symbolic and a way to out themselves."

To ‘out one’s self’ is a very popular thing.  But, you see, I know people who believe in Providence as George Washington referred to God, but they don’t ‘out themselves.’ They have no need to.  If you didn’t see them walk through a church door you wouldn’t know they were a religious.   

If an atheist didn’t say, “Hey, I’m an atheist,” no one would know or even care he existed.  Maybe that’s it.  When faced with oblivion, what is a 21^st century atheist to do, but gather in their unbelief, but all in all it’s about one’s self. 

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