The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: sheila on December 07, 2010, 11:08:19 am
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City Room - Blogging From the Five Boroughs
November 29, 2010, 8:00 am
For the Holidays, an Atheism Billboard
By DANIEL E. SLOTNIK
Among the many advertisements lining I-495 in New Jersey en route to the Lincoln Tunnel is a new one promoting atheism for the holidays rather than another gift.
The billboard shows three crowned men riding camels toward a humble manger in which a man and woman kneel beside a straw-filled bassinet, all silhouetted beneath a prominent six-pointed star. The message — “You know it’s a myth. This season, celebrate reason!” — is emblazoned in large white letters above the nativity scene.
The provocative 14-by-48-foot billboard was rented for $20,000 by American Atheists, a national atheist organization, and went up Nov. 22. It is the latest in a series of campaigns promoting atheism in the city in recent years, most notably advertisements on city subways and buses. (Those campaigns were the work of the New York City Coalition of Reason, an umbrella group of secular organizations, and NYC Atheists, a local American Atheists affiliate, respectively.)
David Silverman, the president of American Atheists and the man behind the billboard, said it would remain in place at least until the winter solstice on Dec. 21 and possibly through Christmas. He said the billboard was partly inspired by one that American Atheists’ founder, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, set up in Dallas in the 1970s proclaiming “Atheism: It’s not what you believe.”
Mr. Silverman said the billboard served two purposes. The first was to get the many people who do not actually believe in God but practice religious rituals to “come out,” in his words.
He said the billboard’s location was especially effective because commuters “drive by this sign very slowly every day for a month, right in the Christmas season.”
“And when they go into New York to go shopping,” he said, “they’re going to see it.”
The billboard also stands up to what Mr. Silverman described as a reactionary assault on atheists driven mainly by the religious right.
“Every year, atheists get blamed for having a war on Christmas, even if we don’t do anything,” he said. “This year, we decided to give the religious right a taste of what war on Christmas looks like.”
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Seems fair enough. You don't have to be religious to do what's right.
Ian
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Didn't they have a similar thing going on the London buses and Underground? It met with a lot of opposition, wonder who from :D :&>
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Atheism..........................A non-prophet organisation ;D
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;D ;D ;D ;D :&>
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lazybee.....a classic!