I participated in a charity buddy walk benefiting Down Syndrome, held by the Down Syndrome Association of Orange County. It was held at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. The company my wife works for sponsored a few walkers. It was fun. The walk itself is all of a mile. Although it takes around 45 minutes because everyone walks in slow motion. There were several thousand people in attendance.
I have a family member with Down Syndrome, a cousin. She is a wonderful young lady who loves to sing and dance. She is not the main reason we walked. My wife is on some committee at work, and where she goes, I go.
I took my camera and fished for shots in the crowd. I caught Darth Vader recruiting for the Dark Side. I managed to enjoyed myself despite the light rain.
In noticed two things which I want to blog. First, the event was sponsored by several churches and a "family friendly" Christian radio station called The Fish. Religion, specifically Christianity, was on display in a way which helps build their brand. Charity work is uplifting and a worthy cause. I could tell it was their moment. The owned it. What was missing from the evet was any kind of secular presence. No Orange County Atheist, no secular organizations, nothing at all. I know the Atheist Community of Austin is fairly good about community outreach. I think it would have been nice to do something similar. Maybe next year.
The second thing relates to how I handled questions about religion. The lady who organized the event asked or referred to her faith several times. I like to think of myself as open about my Atheism. Yet I resisted saying anything every time it was brought up. In thinking about it later, I realized that I did not want to put my wife on the spot with her co-workers.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a5afd278-fb78-40da-8a59-c1594ee0e505)
Logging you in...
Volly · 866 weeks ago
There's nothing wrong with holding your peace when you have the opportunity to declare your atheism. I'm sure that if the religious lady in question had made some disparaging comment about atheists, gays or others, simply because she thought there weren't any around to hear her, you'd have said something. But just throwing out the fact of your atheism to watch her squirm would have been a wasted opportunity and merely self-serving.
I work for a very evangelical company but am a Unitarian Universalist. When our neighboring congregation was devastated by a gunman a few months ago, I heard a co-worker speculating about whether UU was "so" liberal as to just outrage someone into shooting the place up. I took the opportunity to explain a little about UU, and by the time I was done, I think she was about ready to pull out her checkbook and send money to the Knoxville Relief Fund. I was not able to keep silent in this case because 2 people had lost their lives as the result of ignorance. However, this was a departure from my usual habit of ignoring the crap that gets spouted up and down the aisles by colleagues on a daily basis. Why get myself ostracized by people who are just expressing their opinions?
Mojoey 107p · 866 weeks ago
learning disability · 865 weeks ago