This Is What We Are Up Against

OK awesome atheists, Team Atheist and the Mighty New Atheist Summer/Fall Edition 2011...this is what we are up against. Outreach Magazine, ya know that magazine that y'all subscribe to, has come out with a list of the top 100 mega churches. Yippie.

O.M. lists the largest 100 mega churches (and the top 100 fastest growing churches) and Lakewood church came in first place with a whopping weekend attendance of 43,5000. Folks that is a lot of saved souls.

This is a reminder of what a major minority The New Atheists are (did that make sense). Howz about, we are totally in the minority. That's better. Sure we have Skeptics in the Pub (with whopping attendance of some or a little bit), a convention here and there with attendance in the one or two thousand (if that), the Secular Student Alliance in colleges, organizations like American Atheists and FFRF and our local skeptics meeting in scattered towns. But really, we do not have a weekend attendance in the tens of thousands every weekend, much less a top 100 list of mega atheist events (and that is just the top 100. What if it was a list of the top 200 mega something somethings).

I have never been to a church like Lakewood, but I can only imagine what they teach (or do not teach) there.  Off the top of my head, do they teach that women must be submissive to the men folk, that the founding fathers absolutely intended for this to be a Christian nation, that climate change is just a theory (thanks Rick Perry) and that more and more scientists are speaking up against it, that creationism/Intelligent Design is equal to evolution thru natural selection and finally, that Christian peeps have the mission to dominate the world and that their particular Gawd said so.

What do we have? We have those pesky facts that skeptics keep talking about, some would call it the truth. We have passion and the desire to make the world a better and more peaceful place, for everyone regardless of belief or lack of. We have the scientific method and rational thought.

Ya know what I have, kind gentle and very good looking readers, I have the ability to predict and see the future. I see that we are on the correct side of history and that if we keep the nose to the grindstone...we will emerge victorious in our mission for a secular society. Extremist religion(s) will be put in their proper place (which is away) and one day, one day I tell ya...

There will be world peace.

* Faith and Reason USA Today