HUNTSVILLE, AL - A national Atheist group was in the Tennessee Valley for a convention over the weekend. Roughly 200 people attended the event, held at the Holiday Inn in downtown Huntsville.
Buzz about this convention began roughly a month ago, when the group American Atheists put up a billboard advertising the event. The billboard declared all religions “scams.”
The convention itself has provoked both prayer and curiosity in believers, but attendees say it simply gives them a place to be with others just like themselves.
Amanda Gulledge decided to attend the Southeast Regional Atheist Meet after spotting the group's provocative billboard on Memorial Parkway. She says, “When we stopped, I took out my blackberry and went to the web site that was on there, and there was a convention in Alabama."
Gulledge appreciates the chance to be with like-minded people. She explains, “I'm not alone, even though I'm in the South and religion is everywhere. I'm just really glad I saw the billboard and that I was able to join a group like this."
Just across the street in Big Spring Park, Evangelical Christian Carmen Cacioppo flipped through a stack of religious pamphlets he planned to give to the atheists. Instead of judging them, he says he’s reaching out: “If you love people, His love through you will do more to change a heart than anything else you can do."
WAAY 31 spoke with another Christian in the park, Chris Burns, who says he respects their right to meet, but hope these atheists find faith. Burns explains, “I’m not happy about it, but we do live in a country where we're supposed to have freedom of speech, freedom of religion…You're going to get arguments saying, ‘well who says the Bible is right?’ Well take a look around at the trees and the clouds and the skies.l If you can't believe there's a God, then something's wrong. You know, as a Christian, all I can do is pray."
But American Atheists President David Silverman feels faith in a higher power isn't necessary: “Atheism is the realization that reality rules. That we're here, we have one life. Let's make a positive impact on this community before we die."
And despite the controversy atheism entails, Gulledge is beginning to embrace it. She says, "The word 'atheist'—still I'm trying to get comfortable with it. 'Humanist,' 'freethinker' are a little easier for me to say, but to be honest I'm an atheist. I don't have a God. I haven't heard one or talked to one."
The American Atheists' national convention will be held in Iowa this April.
