Correspondence with David Silverman, American Atheists

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Tom Gilson

On March 12, 2012, I sent an email to David Silverman, president of American Atheists, having been given Mr. Silverman’s contact information by a mutual friend:

Dear Mr. Silverman,

Greetings to you… [mention of mutual friend],

I’m writing to ask if you would be interested in sharing sponsorship with me in giving Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig one more opportunity to share a stage together in debate, while Dr. Dawkins is here in the U.S. later this month. I’m leading the True Reason project, which, as you may or may not be aware, is bringing Christians to the Reason Rally for respectful dialogue with attendees there. Additionally, this morning we released an ebook that has already climbed to best-seller status in the atheism category at Amazon.com, and has attracted enough notice that I’ve been asked to write an op-ed on it for the Washington Post.

I mention these things simply to give you some confidence that I’m representing a legitimate potential debate sponsorship partner to work on this with you and American Atheists. Dr. Craig is again wiling to meet Dr. Dawkins in debate. I have a contact at Georgetown University that would work with us to provide a venue for debate. Would you be open to joining me in inviting Richard Dawkins?

I’ll look forward to hearing you.

Regards,

Mr. Silverman’s response came the next day. This is the entire and complete content of his message back to me.

Mr. Gilson,

The Reason Rally is an event by and for the nonreligious population and their supporters.  It is not an opportunity for Christians to push themselves into other people’s lives (yet again).    I would never support infiltrating a Christian event with atheists on some kind of recruitment mission – that would be horribly rude.

Make no mistake – you are not welcomed guests at the rally.  We are not going to DC for ‘dialogue’ with people who believe ridiculous things – we are going to have fun with other like-minded people.  Those who proselytize or interfere with our legal and well-deserved enjoyment will be escorted to the 1st Amendment pen by security, which will be plentiful, where you can stand with the Westborough Baptists and shout yourselves hoarse.

Spreading out among the crowd is not a substitute for a permit.  Indeed, I will be meeting with the Parks Commission on Thursday to discuss how to handle your infiltrative permitless counter-protest.

Dr. Dawkins has made it clear that he doesn’t want to debate Mr. Craig.  I am not sure how much clearer he (or I) could be.

Sincerely,
David Silverman
President
American Atheists, Inc.
www.atheists.org

Office: (deleted out of respect for privacy)
Cell: (deleted out of respect for privacy)
Fax (deleted out of respect for privacy)

American Atheists is America’s premier nonprofit organization by and for atheists.

Some material in this email may be confidential.

Our intentions are not at all as Mr. Silverman represented them to be (see the bottom of this page), and we have been assured by the Park Service that we need no permit to do what we intend to do there.

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