http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/...es-faith-with-billboards/

As "rational" people do you guys think this is a good idea? Clearly you see the incredible hypocricy and irony in calling these religions 'big bigotry' and 'promoting hate' while posting a mocking billboard? Do you think blatant trolling furthers your cause? Does it not strike you as ridiculous that your biggest complaint about religion is that it flaunts itself in your face, yet you wage frequent billboard campaigns flaunting atheism? Just curious if these groups represent a majority of atheists or if its just an obnoxious subgroup...

Btw, calling those that disagree with you 'full of hate' or 'hateful' is the most annoying part of our political dialogue these days and way too common. It mostly comes from liberals but conservatives do it too. Its awful.

I would've gone with a different message, but I'm not the one paying for the billboard.

My billboards would be:

'So you mean to tell me that you guys believe that Dinosaurs walked the earth with Adam and Eve roughly 6,000 years ago?' and then I would've had a picture of the Fry meme of 'Not sure if serious.... or just thoughtless sheep'

or!

'Did you know God once sent bears to kill 42 children because the children made fun of his prophets' lack of hair? WHY ARE YOU WORSHIPPING THIS ASSHAT?' with a disappointed McKayla meme picture on it.


but on a serious note, my billboard would be this:

If sanctity of marriage is so important, we should make divorces illegal.

I think it is a mistake to assume that atheists are more rational than religious people.


"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this." - Bertrand Russell.

Heh those are somewhat amusing; but perhaps not exactly the clearest message...

*facedesk*

These outfront atheists are ruining my dislike of organized religions :( Let people believe what they want, both sides need to keep to themselves

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/...an-would-do-it/?hpt=hp_c2

What i dont get is, why are atheists so defensive and threatened by religion?

Btw, im neither or, i believe in something but not sure what, also im against all religions and atheism aswell.

Exactly KoH. Atheism is turning into a cult. I blame the internet

Hahahaha. That looks like a parody of atheists more than a real atheism advertisement. The juxtaposition of those childish reductions of religion and the self-proclaimed "Simply Reasonable" statements below is incredible. For a large number of atheists, not believing is less important than being "smarter" than Mom and Dad and the rest of the (far more socially well-adjusted) people out there.

is that a serious question?

Like it or not, atheism is a religion, they have a symbol, believe system, leaders, and gathering places, hence, religion!

...ten foot pole, CHECK
...tin hat to keep out aliens, CHECK
...better things to worry about, CHECK


*checks to see if tongue is bleeding

ty for a spam location of the week

not all atheists believe in the same principles and there is no written script. It is not a religion.

Most people wouldn't have an issue with religion if religion didn't impact them in any way.

When there is a push for a ban for abortions for religious reasons, people can feel threatened. If Christians don't believe in abortions, that's super duper they don't need to have them performed. But why should someone who doesn't believe in your magical imaginary dude not be able to get an abortion because they were raped?

Same thing with gay marriage. It's a way of life for some folks, and for some to call for a ban on gay marriage in the name of religions threatens their way of life.


Can you not see how some people see religion as threatening? And why they get defensive about it when religious nuts try to impact their life for no reason?

I think it isnt right for someone in power to make a choice based on Religious beliefs, rather moral and ethics.

lets spend this money to tell presidential candidates not to believe in god. who cares about institutionalized bribery

not all religious people believe in the same principles either... si religion is not a religion?

Well Trife, I think abortion should be illegal because its killing a person, not for religious reasons. Killing is bad, mmmk?

And I think for most not overly extreme Christians, we have no issue with civil unions, but legalizing it as marriage is only going to lead to lawsuits claiming discrimination when churches refuse to marry gay couples.

What about when atheists impact Christians lives for now reason? Like the taking of the commandments out of places where they were for hundreds of years? Outlawing kids that WANT to pray in school from doing so? The list of things that are being outlawed in the name of "tolerance" is just as long as what Christians try to get done as well.

Extremists, whether gay, christian, muslim, mormon, or atheist, are the real problem.

what if their morals and ethics are derived from their religion, jiman?

why should i have to pay for people to murder babies? they believe it's ok, i believe it isn't- why is their belief more important than mine?

trife, out of curiosity, in america each year, how many aborted children are from rape compared to not rape? (this is a serious question for anybody to answer)

how come atheists get to stand up and beat their chests over crosses being visible from public roadways while on private property, is that not threatening ways of life?

atheists shouldn't be allowed to champion any sort of anti religious sentiment if religious people aren't allowed to champion any sort of religious sentiment- now we're at a crossroads, and neither of us talk to one another about either of them :P

"'So you mean to tell me that you guys believe that Dinosaurs walked the earth with Adam and Eve roughly 6,000 years ago?"

why so literal? in one hand i can hold sand, and the other i can hold a rock. i'm going to guess very few christians will argue the history of either ;)

Conversation is key:)

There are open minded followers of major world religions.

Dialogue and work together with them you may have more in common than different:)

"Recent AGI literature has given figures of abortions following rape or incest. For example, an April 2005 information sheet [7] states that about 13,000 women have abortions following rape or incest. This is 1.0% of AGI-estimated annual abortions in 2000-2002. This figure appears to be derived from the 1987 survey percentage (or from preliminary results of the 2004 survey)."

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/...abortion/abreasons.html#2

At what point did they become a person, and why? What gives you the right to force a woman to have a separate organism grow inside of her? It takes months before a fetus is anything more than just a blob of cells. Yet you're allowed to put down animals that are viable living creatures on their own? What makes you think that an unviable blob of cells is so special and has more rights than many other intelligent creatures?



Why should your belief deny them the right to do with their bodies what they will? Is your belief more important than theirs? Also murder is a pretty strong word for stopping the growth of a small bundle of cells that has the potential to turn into a child; maybe you should start arresting women every time they have their period, and every time a guy blows a wad, as they also have similar potential?

Also, why are religious buildings and properties exempt from taxes?

This is why I advocate being vegan as well :) And I don't have to force a woman to have a baby grow in her. In at the least 85% of the case, she should have kept her damn legs shut if shes not gonna make sure she doesn't get pregnant. Abortion != birth control

Heh; well I agree abortion != birth control, but it's also responsible to do the "planned parenthood" approach; unwanted children are, on the average, more of a burden on society. We should be promoting life for the sake of living well, not simply for the sake of covering the the surface of the planet with as many humans as physically possible.

Good points, in the end it's all opinions - unless someone can prove that the imaginary folks are real!


So why do folks have issues with athetists speaking their minds?

Atheists haven't liked religion being thrown in their face, and now religion doesn't like having the lack of religion being thrown back at them.

:)

I dont need religions shoving their bibles in my pocket
i dont need atheists shoving their theories of evolution down my throat (even though its not clear thats how we came about)

And i certainly dont need both groups pushing me aside cuz i dont agree with neither, and for that...

/flips off both groups

Oh yea, the the church needs to be taxed!

Actually, I love things like these billboards. Because it sparks discussion with others about my beliefs, and then I can witness to people about what God has done in my life :)

o.O

Yes, it's pretty damned clear! Who have *you* been listening to? Go read some papers, evolution is pretty solidly founded, about as well as gravity (and we're pretty sure that we're still being held to the earth by it's mass).

My wife is an anthropologist, dont bull fluff me, qz....

churches can't be forced to marry gay people. they're protected bty the constitution. the state s hould marry them. denying that is discrimination outright, and to be against gay marriage because of unfoudned concerns about your church having to marry gay people, which your church is against for god knows why, omg...

on another note who cares about some dumb display of commandments... i dont know why atheists get bent out of shape about it, they're weird... but lol why do you care about that... same with school prayer... these rules are clealry what the constitution calls for... kids can still pray at school if they feel like it, it just can't be sponsored by the public school... makes sense.

"extremists" in america...? extremists republicans and extremist democrats? hahaha.

"Why should your belief deny them the right to do with their bodies what they will?"

you follow this logic for prostitution and the war on drugs, right? if you can't tell a woman not to murder babies, you can't tell her not to inject heroin on the street or go take it in the ass for a quick fifty.

"What makes you think that an unviable blob of cells is so special and has more rights than many other intelligent creatures?"

just let me grab a meat cleaver, and we'll meet in the coma ward of a hospital, we'll have us a grande ol' time chopping up blobs of cells.

also, ejaculate into a petri dish, let me know how your child is. heck, go get a woman to ovulate into the same petri dish, let me know how your child turns out.

and as a tax paying citizen of canada, qz, like everybody else, i have as much right or say in where my tax dollars go- you wouldn't want to be taxed so i can sit at home all day smoking pot reading the bible, and i don't want to be taxed so teenage girls can not have to raise an unwanted child.

(and at the end of the day i *do* pay for the latter, you do not pay for the former)

I get bent out of shape with the 10 commandments being posted in schools and government building's because it's (BEEN REPEATEDLY DETERMINED) unconstitutional.

But yet, we find school systems keep trying to put it up and wasting our tax dollars to fight the court battles.

Heh are you being serious? Any anthropologist who's read up a bit should understand evolution and believe in science 100%; though they do, admittedly, work with a far shorter time frame generally speaking.





I don't think test-tube babies are that far from reality tbh. As for the war on drugs, well I tend to think it's a waste of time and money; I personally don't do any drugs (unless you count caffeine, and then only rarely), but I think it would be far safer and more efficient to tax and regulate drugs, in a similar way to cigarettes. Obviously some would have to be prohibited still, meth-amphetamine for example can have seriously horrible effects on the brain....

As for your coma-ward comment; some will awaken from a coma, some will not; you can understand wanting to keep alive somebody who's existed for many many years, much energy went into their life; though at some point families should have the option to euthanize if the prospects look hopeless.

yeah i agree they dont belong there but if i see them im nmot gonna be like oh fluff and start shaking and crying, and running off to file a lawsuit to get rid of them.. who cares. its not liek im being oppressed by displays of the 10 commandments. theres so many real problems in the world and a public display of religion really *is;nt* a problem.. at all...

Right, and I don't want my taxes to go to farm subsidies; but we can at least have *logical, scientific* discussions on some of these things, without bringing religion or morality into it.

I also don't to be taxed to support a teenage girl and her unwanted child for like 18 years; the latter is far more costly than a very quick procedure to eliminate that threat.

I'd say religious people are unrational by default, but that's just my opinion ;)

I don't think those billboards will have the effect they want them to have though. I agree that they're hypocritical about bigotry, since their billboard definately are intolerant of the targeted religions.

Hateful? Neh. Criticism isn't hate-mongering. If it was, your message here would be hateful too.

As for flaunting things in peoples faces, religion does it in so many ways other than with billboards. While this is not a huge issue for me with my native Sweden, where the only issue I can think of is the ongoing debate about if classes in elementary school should have their end of semester ceremonies in church or not, I'm disgusted by what is going on in other countries. E.g. for the states; having to swear fealty in school/wait for others to do it every day, the "teach the controversy" debate, gay couples not getting the same benefits as a non-gay, abortion, churches being granted tax reductions and in other ways living in a soceity which supposedly should have separation of church and state but where many laws and policies are pushed by religious propaganda. Of course, there are many nations which are many many levels worse in this regard (*cough* be muslim/don't criticise Muhammed, or die *cough*). It gives a pretty good justification for trying to lessen the influence of religion though, even if it may require a little counter-flaunting in it self.

(and as to not push another discussion about whetever religion is worse than atheism, yes, I'm aware that historically atheists has imposed some nasty fluff on people too, and I condone that)

Yes, qz, im serious, human evolution is yet to be proven to be more than a theory, yes its still a theory, due to missing links in the evolution table.

i'm not an anthropologist but i am a christian, and i believe wholly in evolution- where i lose you, i'm sure, is evolution being gods finest work.

far more impressive to NOT tweak every little thing to make us, but to sit back and let ourselves be created.. i don't know, i have trouble expressing it in words, but i don't find evolution to disprove any sort of religion.

"I don't think test-tube babies are that far from reality tbh."

and if i walked into the lab and destroyed the test tubes, i would be in the wrong. but if i masturbate alone in my bedroom, we're still missing like nine tenths of what is required for a baby to grow (and besides, i thought we *already* had the technology to do it??)

"meth-amphetamine for example can have seriously horrible effects on the brain...."

yes, it does. but you have already established that you aren't allowed to tell women what to do with their bodies (and they champion equality all of the time, so now men get that equal treatment, and we get to fluff ourselves up to our furthest desire)

"but I think it would be far safer and more efficient to tax and regulate drugs, in a similar way to cigarettes."

this i believe you and i agree entirely- well, maybe.. i believe it should be private industry, not lcbo/beer store type of establishment

Actually, I'm referring to the places where they were for over a hundred years, that noone had an issue with until modern times when religion bashing became the new cult of choice.

i don't agree with farm subsidies, but nobody is *harmed* through it.

social safety nets are all well and good, re the welfare comment, but that's why the father sticks around, gets a job and supports his family. and if religion is what he needs to do that, his paternal responsibility, then religion just saved the state those eighteen years of welfare.

sex before marriage should be a burnable offense, those sixteenth century catholics sure got one thing right :P

Were they in schools for a hundred years? or Government buildings?

if so

Maybe it took a while to realize, for enough people to say, well fluff, that's not constitutionally allowed, let's change that. Slavery was legal once =\

Also, I'd be okay with the 10 commandments being put up, but then you'd have to put _ALL_ other religious documents up there with it. Only having one set of religious documents up in a school or government building is equivalent to the government endorsing a particular religion which is expressly forbidden by the constitution.

Haha, my post said:
"its not liek im being oppressed by displays of the 10 commandments. theres so many real problems in the world and a public display of religion really *is;nt* a problem.. at all..."

And you turned around and compared it to slavery

Facepalm... Trolling?



Separation of church and state... Tradition doesn't justify keeping something which has been wrong all along :P

if the church loses tax exemption, any charity should, as well. you donate to breast cancer awareness? tax it. i tithe every sunday, tax it?

lol braden, why. all church activities arent charity

i actually do agree with this, but it's like, the lowest, least important issue ever. i dont know why atheists have a hemorrhage when they see some old historic religious display. no matter how little i were to believe i ngod, i just, wouldnt, care.

trife, i'd throw any of your money that reads in god we trust right out the front door.

oh, so it couldn't bother you all that much, eh?

sifos, too. wrong all along, i'd get rid of it, no sense in keeping it!

off the top of your head could you give me a church activity that isn't charity?

i can't come up with one. bazaar bake sale? funds go to charity. tithes and offerings? charity. buddy who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on our new organ? donated the old one to a poor congregation and.. charity.

before people attack the church, or hate religion, they might just want to, i don't know, give it a chance? i spent twenty four years without faith, and two with.. i far more prefer the faith :)

(you'll excuse the split infinitive)