"When the cops arrive, blame the theists..."

This is, unbelievably, what a fellow atheist actually recommended to me back in '07 when I was considering attending the upcoming National Day of Prayer event on May 2nd. He instructed me to show up with protest signs and make some serious noise, and then to deflect any personal responsibility when law enforcement officials arrived to break up the ensuing melee. The advice greatly saddened me and led almost directly to my temporary retreat from atheism. In spite of the burnout that was already in full progress at the time, I ended up attending my local event, which was being held in a public park.

I'm so glad I didn't show up with the signs and vitriol, as had been suggested by my godless pal. Had I done so, the signs would have certainly remained in the car, and my clenched fists would have unclenched completely. Truth be told, I'd have been pretty embarrassed to have gone in ready for a fight.

Keeping in mind that there were other events around the local area that may have been better attended and intending no offense to anyone, it was an awkward little affair. I counted about fifty people total. A listless-looking child held a Christian flag in his hand, and participants talked quietly amongst themselves. I noted the presence of a local Lutheran pastor whose church I had attended for a couple of Sundays in the time before I made my final decision to settle into a nonreligious worldview. The city's Mayor gave a speech (yeah, I get it - the violation of separation of church and state thing) and led a small prayer. Overall I sensed very little impetus or energy in this display, and I left about halfway through the event just shaking my head. (Note that I keep saying I - no other sign-carrying, indignant atheists had even bothered to show up. Interesting.)

What do I think of the National Day of Prayer? If you're asking, I think that it is a semi-organized, last-ditch effort to reassure its own participants that their weakening faith is still somehow dominant in our society. Those possessing stronger faith, who feel no real threat to their personal worldview, likely went about their May 2nd normally and continued incorporating daily prayers as they surely would have on May 1st, April 22nd, or December 25th. Wiser people understand that every day is a national day of prayer, whatever the belief system, and in spite of the Newdows and the FFRF's and the Madalyn Murrays, no one is threatening their personal right to to personally engage in conversation with God whenever they feel the need. The infamous Radical Response Squad of Blasphemy Challenge fame will not be sending armed militants into churches to disrupt services any time soon, and no magic machine has yet been developed by mad scientists to physically stop an individual from transmitting a mental or verbal communique to the Divine. I'm not counting small, high-velocity projectiles, and I hope that I do this with good justification. If jerkism is becoming pandemic amongst atheists in modern-day America, we haven't yet as a movement become murderers.

Let's keep it that way.