Atheists Rally For...What?

          You could call it the Show Rally About Nothing, I guess.  Several weeks ago, more than 20,000 atheists gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  David Silverman, President of American Atheists, said “We are here to deliver a message to America: We are here and we will never be silent again.”  While I certainly appreciate these folks’ constitutional right to peaceably gather and say what they want…I can’t help feeling puzzled.  What, exactly, are they saying?  I’ve heard of rallies in support of things, in protest of things, rallies to influence politicians, and rallies for redress of infringed upon rights.  In football-crazy Alabama, we have rallied over coaches hired and coaches fired.  But this particular rally of atheists is a contradiction of itself.  A person generally believes in a coach’s ability, or believes a vote should go a certain way, or believes abortion is murder, or believes that George Zimmerman should be arrested.  Their beliefs may be right or wrong, but they believe, therefore they turn out, and they rally.  Now we have a group of atheists, a large group at that, who claims to believe in…nothing, at least not spiritually, yet they rally so strongly and emotionally.  Why waste your limited energy rallying against something that you don’t even believe exists? 

          As human beings, I think we often wage the most violent wars against those things that we know to be true.  So perhaps these rallying atheists are battling that voice inside each of them that tells them there really is something bigger out there.  Or as Shakespeare once penned, “Thou doth protest too much, methinks.”