{"id":3069,"date":"2014-11-09T12:53:27","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T18:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=3069"},"modified":"2014-11-09T12:53:27","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T18:53:27","slug":"secular-outreach-at-the-peace-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2014\/11\/09\/secular-outreach-at-the-peace-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Secular Outreach at the Peace Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 268px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.onlyimage.com\/photo\/minimalistic-peace-sign-free-image-9944-2473915\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #dddddd\" title=\"Minimalistic peace sign free image | (9944)\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/11\/minimalistic-peace-sign-free-image-9944-268x268-2473915.jpg\" alt=\"Signs &amp; Symbols\" width=\"268\" height=\"268\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A minimalistic peace sign (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.onlyimage.com\/photo\/minimalistic-peace-sign-free-image-9944-2473915\" target=\"_blank\">via<\/a>\u00a0OnlyImage.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>My kids and I spent the first\u00a0half\u00a0of yesterday at the <a href=\"http:\/\/city-sentinel.com\/2014\/10\/29th-annual-fall-peace-festival-brings-shopping-and-enlightenment-to-the-metro\/\" target=\"_blank\">29th annual Peace Festival<\/a>, a riotous cacophony of &#8220;local groups and organizations active in social justice, human service, human rights, environmental sustainability and peace,&#8221; according the\u00a0director of Oklahoma City\u2019s Peace House. The local UU churches were there, the NAACP, the city\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.homelessalliance.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Homeless Alliance<\/a>,\u00a0the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/okc.raindrop\/timeline\/story?ut=43&amp;wstart=0&amp;wend=1417420799&amp;hash=-5226637927464200368&amp;pagefilter=3\" target=\"_blank\">Raindrop Turkish House<\/a>,\u00a0a local &#8220;womanist organization with a strong lesbian focus&#8221; known as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Herland-Sister-Resources\/138897648960?sk=info\" target=\"_blank\">Herland<\/a>\u00a0(presumably named after the <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2014\/01\/17\/freethought-fridayreads-herland\/\" target=\"_blank\">utopian novel<\/a>)\u00a0along with\u00a0any number of environmental activists and progressive lobbying groups. All of these\u00a0groups are actively working to make the world a better place, some for the sake of their own constituents, others for the sake the general welfare.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.OklahomaAtheists.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">local atheists<\/a> were on hand, as always:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Representing at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/PeaceFestOKC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#PeaceFestOKC<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/s75ti5UavI\">pic.twitter.com\/s75ti5UavI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Oklahoma Atheists (@AtheistOK) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AtheistOK\/status\/531109679225913344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 8, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>And the local church-state separationists as well:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3070\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3070\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/11\/B17uM0wIAAAjGCX.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3070 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/11\/B17uM0wIAAAjGCX.jpg\" alt=\"It's not really child labour if you don't have to pay\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/11\/B17uM0wIAAAjGCX.jpg 600w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/11\/B17uM0wIAAAjGCX-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/11\/B17uM0wIAAAjGCX-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3070\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stay on message, kids!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>What I usually find most striking about the Peace Festival is the inclusivity of their approach. In previous years I&#8217;ve tabled with the Oklahoma Libertarian Party, advocating for freer minds and markets while seated right across from the representatives of the\u00a0International Marxist Tendency. Every year, godless skeptics compete for headspace with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Urantia_Book\" target=\"_blank\">The Urantia Book<\/a>. People pushing for a more science-based approach to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CitizensClimateLobby.norman.ok\/posts\/763911886988537\" target=\"_blank\">climate change<\/a> are seated two tables down from the essential (snake) oils sales booth, where they have somehow <a href=\"http:\/\/pediatricinsider.wordpress.com\/2014\/01\/23\/essential-oils-when-shady-marketing-and-quackery-meet\/\" target=\"_blank\">combined alt-med quackery\u00a0with multi-level marketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blueballskeptics.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/11\/20141108-163749.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"765\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Riotous diversity: Amulets, tarot, UUism,\u00a0Buddhism, Paganism, Sushism, and even\u00a0science<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I have no love for Marxism nor Essential Oils, but I do think it is admirable how The Peace House manages to bring together such diverse set of people and ideas under one roof. This is surely in marked contrast to how social-justice activism generally plays out on the internet, where litmus tests and outgroup-shaming run rampant. Maybe it is the temperament of the people behind The Peace House which\u00a0makes this sort of diversity possible face-to-face, or maybe\u00a0there is something about the depersonalization or demographics of the internet that makes it so much worse.<\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My kids and I spent the first\u00a0half\u00a0of yesterday at the 29th annual Peace Festival, a riotous cacophony of &#8220;local groups&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-movement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}