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Mike Thom speaks about the National Atheist Party
As you have seen already, Reason In the Rock was a major success and played host to many amazing secular speakers. I was honored to take photos of the event for the website and was blown away by all the amazing people I met there. It was my first time to experience such an event and could not believe how much I’d been missing out on.
Since The Secular Nerd covered what happened at Reason in the Rock, I wanted to share with you how much it empowered me. What really hit me most was that a lot of the speakers had gone through what I myself had gone through. Jerry DeWitt and Teresa MacBaine’s stories really hit home because they too were recovering from religion like I had been and still am in certain aspects. My father, who is an overly religious man, had kept me in the dark for years with his preachy ways and forcing me to go to church. I did what most kids would do in that situation, I believed him. I went to church camps and and even a missionary trip to Arlington, TX for these people. I don’t think of it like a waste of time, just one of those mistakes you make in life that make you who you are.
JT Eberhard mentioned something that hit home with me about Columbine, and how Christian’s target their youth by telling them to say yes if it ever happened to them. When I was in my early teens I was still attending church at the time, and they showed this video of Christian youth groups speaking out about how they would say yes and so should you. I remember sitting there thinking, “Is this really what I would do? What I should do?”.
Of course now the answer is obvious, but it took me until the age of 17 to finally break away from my father. When Jerry talked to The Secular Nerd and I about Recovering From Religion I was so excited because I realized that I would finally get a chance to help those who also had gone through what I had and I can’t wait to share my story with them and help them to recover from religion.
Thank you everyone who came to Reason In the Rock and I am so glad to have met every one of you. Lauren was especially fun to hang out with! I can’t wait to become more involved and help others. See you all at Skepticon!
-That Heathen Girl
