Not Enough Reality

Caught up recently with the announcement of a world meeting of atheists in Melbourne, Australia, in March next year. I'm very tempted to go, not just because of the caliber of speakers (including Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer) but just because it is a big assembly of rational human beings all in one place, and atheists don't often get to experience that.

Got me thinking. The advantage of the big cathedrals and megachurches to the religious is obvious. You sit down (I speak hypothetically in my case), and looking all around you see people who share the same delusion. Must be right then, you think, all these people can't be wrong. I suppose, though I've never done this either, that it must be the same feeling you get as one of a large number of people on stage at a hypnotism show, all barking like dogs, or eating soap. Must be right, they think, all the others are eating this lovely yellow cake, too.

So I think Richard Dawkins could do the world an even greater service than he has already by funding places of atheist non-worship in all the countries afflicted by religion. I would call them Reality Domes, but he might have other ideas.

And there we could all sit, and looking around could be reassured that we were not alone, that there were, in spite of all the religious madness we see on the news, day after day, other rational people in the world. More, perhaps, than we think.

I suppose I could change the name of The Watermelon Blog to the Reality Dome, to signal the start of brave new day.