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 A billboard criticizing Christianity is going up in Charlotte, North Carolina, host city of the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
August 13th, 2012
10:03 AM ET
First on CNN: Atheist group targets presidential candidates' faith with billboardsBy Dan Merica, CNN Washington (CNN) - A prominent atheist group is using next month's Democratic National Convention to take aim at the presidential candidates' religion, putting up billboards targeting Mormonism and Christianity in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Our political system is rife with religion and it depends too much on religion and not enough on substance," said David Silverman, president of American Atheists, sponsor of the ads. "Religion is silly and religion has components that are inherently divisive. … There is no place for any of that in the political system,” he said. The billboards go up Monday in Charlotte and will stay up for a month at a cost of roughly $15,000. The Democratic convention runs September 3-6. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories The billboard targeting Christianity features an image of Jesus Christ on toast and this description of the faith: "Sadistic God; Useless Savior, 30,000+ Versions of ‘Truth,’ Promotes Hates, Calls it ‘Love.’ ”
The billboard targeting Mormonism lambastes - and, Mormons would say, distorts - specific Mormon doctrines: "God is a Space Alien, Baptizes Dead People, Big Money, Big Bigotry.” The Mormon billboard features a man in white underwear, a reference to special Mormon garments. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter Both billboards feature the line "Atheism: Simply Reasonable." American Atheists had wanted to put the anti-Mormon billboard in Tampa, Florida, to coincide with the Republican National Convention there later this month. Presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney is a Mormon. When no billboard company in the city would lease the group space for such a sign, Silverman said the organization decided to focus solely on the Democrats in Charlotte. “Presidential conventions are for ideas, not ideology - platforms, not platitudes," Silverman said. "If a person believes stupid things, we have every right to question his or her judgment, and that directly impacts how the nonreligious voter votes.” CNN Belief Blog: Atheist leader hopes to mobilize closeted nonbelievers Some religious leaders said the billboards showed a misunderstanding of how faith works. "That billboard makes the most common high-school error when it comes to atheism," wrote the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, in an e-mail to CNN. "It's not arguing against the existence of God, but against religion. The American Atheists need to go back to school on this one." Martin also questioned the language used on the billboard: "And as for 'promoting hate' they're doing a bang-up job themselves with that billboard." Terryl Givens, a Mormon professor at the University of Richmond, called American Atheists "petty and vindictive." “If this example of adolescent silliness is what atheists mean by being reasonable, then neither Mormons nor other Christians have much to worry about," he said of the billboards. "When atheists organize to serve the poor and needy of the world, they will be taken more seriously." CNN Belief Blog: Unbelieving preachers 'come out' as atheists It's not the first time the American Atheists group has released in-your-face billboards. Earlier this year, the group put up two billboards in heavily Muslim and Jewish enclaves in New Jersey and New York bearing messages in Arabic and Hebrew. “You know it’s a myth … and you have a choice,” the billboards said. At the time, Silverman said the signs were intended to reach atheists in Muslim and Jewish areas who may feel isolated because they are surrounded by believers. In addition to the billboards, Silverman said his group plans to stage protests at both conventions. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMi05YmRkODVlODFmZDI4M2Q2
Not until recently in my life was I ever exposed to the atheist.....Upon meeting them, I did so with an open mind. I have since come to the conclusion that they see themselves as intellectuals.....however, I am now sure they are a group of ignorant...bitter...lonely...sad...scared....ugly little people...........I really pity them.
We pity you.
For your condescending ways, for your lack of tolerance, for your vile hatred, for your dogma and utter stupidity.
@Fran,
To be fair, there is a better than good chance that at some earlier point in your life you interacted with one of the many atheists who doesn't believe in gods, and as such didn't feel the need to discuss their lack of belief, and they were just a regular person. So much so that you didn't even know it. If you've recently dealt with annoying ones, I'm sorry to hear that, but I have a way to fix it. Avoid douchbags, regardless of their religion, and the problem will be solved.
Ugly? Bitter? Sounds like we don't need your pity, it sounds like you need ours. Good luck.
Way to generalize and spread more hate, Fran. Thankfully, I'm an agnostic. We're the only group who isn't too full of themselves and their beliefs to insist they know better than everyone else. We're OK with saying "we don't know the answers".
Ok, against my better judgement, I'll bite...
Please tell us why/how exactly you reached such negative conclusions.
I'm agnostic, but the Atheist I've met have been wonderful people, who are loving and non judgmental. As for the ignorant part, come on. You can't be serious. It is the Christian right that is drowning in ignorance with a hate for science. You couldn't be more clueless.
Wow, Fran...and how many have you met?
An open mind doesn't conclude that people are "ugly", etc. What is at issue here is commonplace: EXTREMISM. The more a person believes their viewpoint is the correct, or worse, the only correct way, they become incapable of learning. They already know. That's what's wrong with "right wing" 'ultra liberal" and most other lables. Categorizing people reduces the possibilty of ever understanding or learning from them. On open mind is flexible. Moderate. Sometimes conservative, sometimes liberal. Sometimes an open mind changes its viewpoint. That's normal, healthy, and truly in the best interests of all mankind.
Do I see myself as an intellectual? Yes. Do I make unwarranted attacks on religion*? No. This is one of the problems with modern society, too many generalizations about like-minded groups.
*It's worth noting that the religious have been making unwarranted attacks on us for centuries.
But on a side note, billboards like this are why I won't join any formal group of atheists. While I personally feel that religion is silly and destructive, and has no place in our government, I don't feel the need to try to badger everyone around me into giving it up. If you need religion to get through life, cool story. It's your life to live.
I agree for the most part, Ryan. However, non-believers constantly have to fight believers to keep them from pushing their religion into our government and, thereby, into our lives. I'm all for lettiing anyone have any religion they like provided it stays completely out of my government.
The best thing about those billboards is that every single point that they make about those religions is true. Taken straight from their own instruction manuals.
The claim that Christianity's savior is worthless is a LIE!
The words of Jesus in the New Testament saved my life, so to me Jesus is the opposite of worthless.
Just the sparkly underwear picture was worth the price of admission to this article.
LOL! Silly things the religiously impaired mind come up with. Any chance we could get away with wearing these on Halloween? Make them glow-in-the-dark.
I'm tired of people believing in unicorns, and telling me that I should believe in unicorns. People, send me some donations so I can put up billboards so I can tell people that they don't have to believe in unicorns if they don't want to, and they can join a whole little society that doesn't believe in unicorns... for a fee, of course. Send me some more donations so I can put on big seminars, and pay keynote speakers to tell us the dangers of unicorn belief, and how there's no way that unicorns can exist. I have dedicated my life to not believing in unicorns, and believe that you also should not believe in unicorns, because those are just fairy tales, and because people will donate huge sums of money for me to continue preaching that there is no such thing as unicorns, and unicorns have no place in America.
That's what the AA sounds like.
You whackjobs keep up your defense of your delusions.. we don't care. Your kind wouldn't know what logic is and it always shows up in your spewage.
Religious idiots can rot in every which way possible. Just rot away faster.
So your creation myth (as a rational, nothing-but-the-facts atheist) is the following: Your deity, the Big Nothing (street names Biggie Nuttin', B. Nuttin', Biggie Nutt) created and designed all that exists from his Nuttin' brain. His Nuttin'ness could even violate the law of conservation of energy by creating Everything from Himself, that is from Nuttin'. In spite of His Nuttin'ness violating the laws of science, His followers (His "Nutt Jobs") view themselves as the apex of scientific thought and feel obliged to spread the Nothing to others. Incredible faith you guys have. Let us now join in the ancient Nuttin' Hymn, Dust in the Wind (and ignore its author's heresy in converting to Christianity).
While I totally agree with religion having no place in politics, I don't think that these antagonistic, offensive and borderline rude signs help things any.
I disagree. I think it's high time for religions to be taken to task severely for never having delivered on what they promise, and for all the horrors that they demand and have caused.
But it's still OK when the fundiots plaster the interstates with billboards telling me I'm going to hell, right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA53vCC_MIk
I challenge any religious person to give me any reason why I should pick your religion over any others. None of them are based in facts, and unless you can prove it isn't made up, then please go away.
They will ALWAYS try to emotional coerce you .. be on the look out for their stupid emotional attacks.
You have to wonder about these so-called "Reverends" (to revere – worthy of great honor) calling anyone else narcissistic. Give me a break.
"Our political system is rife with religion and it depends too much on religion....."
I absolutely agree. However, I'm an atheist, and what that means to me is that (1) I don't believe that God is real anymore than I believe that Santa is real, and (2) I do not choose to follow any organized religion because they are divisive and rely in large measure upon myth and the unthinking, blind perpetuation of tradition.
However, to me, billboards such as this (while I agree with what they say in principle) generate antagonism toward atheists and atheism;--i.e., we're shooting ourselves in the foot. I don't belief that Batman is real, either, but I have noo need to put that blief–or lack thereof–on a billboard.
I a pretty "devout atheist", but I've never had much use for American Atheists. They seem to be out to prove that atheists can be just as annoying as any organized religion.
Atheists refuse to accept the fact that there is a God because they don't want the accountability that belief would bring in their lives. Never mind the "religion" aspect that they keep criticizing. To deny that there is a God is not sound reason. Rational thought and critical thinking leads to the undeniable fact that God exists. Because of their inability to think rationally coupled with a unique critical thinking disability, atheists can only take Bible content and distort it out of context to fit some obscure argument they cook up in their weak minds. Silly simple-minded atheists, the Bible has much to say about you and your so-called human wisdom. Furthermore, there is no free thinking in the atheist world, If there was they would all become believers.
@Greg, please provide evidence for the exsistance of god. We're waiting.
"Out of Context"? OK, here's and example of context. Ex. 12:29: God kills the firstborn children of Egypt. Partial context: The Pharaoh had ignored the earlier warnings and refused to let the Hebrews go. FULL context: God had "hardened the Pharaoh's heart" to make sure he would ignore all the previous warnings (Ex. 4:21). An all powerful God wasn't willing to just let the people go himself, but he was willing to game the system so he would end up murdering children. Sorry, that's just disgusting.
Anyone who's ever driven across the country gets assaulted by religious billboards of all sorts and all levels of offensiveness – many put up by farmers who seem to have more time on their hands than I thought farmers had. My favorite is the sign on I-65 South of Gary that simply says "Hell is Real" in big letters. I know that always brightens my day.
Someone, those billboards never make the news.
Oops! "Someone" = "Somehow".
@ Jon – I agree. So many more signs then the national news can count are along the highways right now that display "Jesus", "Jesus saves, Repent", and other nonsense. Apparently, those are OK in this country, but put up a couple Athiest billboards up for even a day and this makes national news and is considered "annoying". Please.
On the other hand, the likelyhood these billboards change any fundamentalist minds is quite low. I expect the signs are ment for those people who just don't think NOT believing in a diety is an option.
If you're the sort of person whose opinion will be changed by an "in your face" billboard of any kind, you're probably pretty weak willed and another billboard will change it back later. I think some of the other billboards that have been a little more subtle (eg, "Be good for goodness sake") might be a little more effective.
Atheism is the future. The only reason we haven't advanced is because of the fact that religion stopped us. Technological advances were being made, but then the religions (Christianity in particular) began the Dark Ages. Killing anyone that created technology that did not suit their ideological beliefs and technology that would threaten their very existence.
My wife is my god..I worship her every day, i cant live without her, and with her I can do no wrong. Women are the only god I will ever follow 🙂
Wait, you don't believe in yourself...why should we listen...?
Christianity? Really prove it because there are thousdands cleric scientists. This is just a really short list of the more famous ones. Nicolaus Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Georges Lemaître, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Roger Joseph Boscovich, Marin Mersenne, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Nicole Oresme, Jean Buridan, Robert Grosseteste, Christopher Clavius, Nicolas Steno, Athanasius Kircher, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, William of Ockhamom. The Catholic Church has also produced many lay scientists and mathematicians that are not clergy.
You realize you just typed this into a computer and posted it on the internet, right?
"Atheism is the future"?.....UHHH OHHHKAAAY
Oh please. read serious history, not modern myths that science and religions have always been opposed that you get off the internet. Copernicus' heliocentric studies, for example, were done while he worked in a succession of positons supported by the Roman Catholic Church. On 1 November 1536, Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua, wrote to Copernicus from Rome:
Some years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you... For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe... Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings ...". Many advances in agriculture, technology, banking and even medecine were developed during the middle ages. The Dark Ages were more the product of anarchy resulting from the waning of Roman power than active interference on the part of the church .
@cronewinter
Now this really is funny..an atheist saying someone else is not a true atheist? How christian. you think it is funny well I did not put down someone as ignorant as you that wish to pray to a fantasy being did I? my point was a true Atheist would not give a d@mn that you people live in a fantasy world and give your money to a church in order to buy your way into make believe land after you pass away. trust me it is I that gets a bigger laugh out of ignorant people like you. I just don't go around talking about how ignorant you people are.
Your comment shows how little you understand about Christianity. Dont talk on a subject that you have no education on
@hsgdsfsdf
your comment shows you are nothing but an ignorant bigot. I don't care to understand your Christianity or people that buy into it's dogma. you speak about education but it is not I think believes in a fantasy being. maybe you be better off to get some more education because you allow your Christianity to blind you from the facts.
it is people like you that have to force your views on others because if you did not you have no more control over how people live. go play with your made up God you stupid little fool.
Assumptions make you look uneducated. You assumed all that from my comment? lol. Explain how I am a bigot by saying you have no education in the subject you were talking about. Since you clearly have none. I thought so.
Why do all Athiests think they are scientific scholars? All they do is repeat comments from other Athiests
Data from a recent study-ggogle or bing it- shows atheists know more about science and also know more about religion than the religious do.
And what do the bible thumpers do? Repeat scripture from a man written book(s). Your point is mute Sheep.
Why do all theists think they’re biblical scholars? All they do is repeat comments from other theists.
when you learn about the whole of the universe its history, mans time on this earth, what man has done... and a whole lot of other things that give you KNOWLEDGE, you become an atheist... its that simple... only the ignorant can accept the bs beliefs and explanations that religions provide.
Best laugh all morning. Pot calling the kettle black.......
I know plenty of science, and the more I learn, the more I believe in God. If energy and matter are relative, then God could make and remake matter from an energy plane, is that so hard to imagine? Athiests say they are free-thinkers and are reasonable, yet they can only fathom what is right in thier face!
I keep reading that athiest want religious people out of politics, that sounds like discrimination to me! Just because you are an athiest, you have the right to influence policy, but as a Christian I should not?
As far as SSM, I could point to all human civilizations over all time past choosing the current definition of marriage, I dont need the Bible, just the history of human civilization to know what is right and what is wrong, why can't you come to the same conclusion?
How about a billboard showing that Stalin was an avowed atheist too?
Stalin and Hitler both had mustaches, your point?
How about a billboard that shows that christian zealots hung my great great grandmother from the gallows in salem massachusetts because she was a witch....as a culture we are all slowly learning that religion was created by man, is the biggest money making scam of all time, and was meant to scare people to behave. I dont need a church to tell me what right from wrong is. I am educated
Would that have the same relevance as Charles Manson being a Republican???
He was raise as a catholic for his whole childhood, his parent was both a priest and a nun. He spend 5 years in a catholic school, before he quit and join politic and kill million of religion people. Stalin can be religion catholic or atheism, but it was his catholic background that make him kill all those people.
What does that have to do with anything? Hitler was a Christian...
Why are most religious half-wits also stunningly uneducated about history? Stalin wasnt an Athiest. Lenin was, Stalin spent his childhood training to be a priest.
Stalin went to seminary and studied to be an Orthodox priest when he was a child. Who's to say he didn't learn his ways from them?
Atheism is not a belief but an absence of a belief. Hitler was not an atheist.
By that logic you'd have equate every murder committed by every religious person to be an act of religion if you were to equate every murder at the hands of Stalin to be an act of atheism. If he was an atheist, he probably wasn't killing in the name of atheism, just like the last Christian who was put in prison for killing someone probably wasn't killing in the name of Christianity.
I agree with the sentiment, but not the method.
No one is going to come to the side of reason with tactics like this.
Romney should use his millions to build a few more nascar tracks in the bible belt. Each of these new nascar tracks will have a dentist's office on the grounds so that teabaggers can get their tooth fixed while they're waiting for the race to begin.
...and if they give the proceeds to a lazy democrap, you will be first in line right?
What no anti Muslim or anti-Jew? I guess atheists are afraid of those two religions
So you skipped the part where it pointed out that the organization already placed the boards in two highly religious neighborhoods, one Jewish and the other Muslim? Don't think they're afraid of much.
Challenge accepted again.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/01/atheist-group-targets-muslims-jews-with-myth-billboards-in-arabic-and-hebrew/
Check out the billboards posted in NJ for these two groups you asked about.
This one is for the two political conventions – and the relegion of the leaders for both nutcamps
jews and muslims don't try and impose their BS ideas on other people, at least in this country...
Actually, if you read the entire article you would have seen the below. So they made billboards to them first. I attached it for ease of use....
It's not the first time the American Atheists group has released in-your-face billboards. Earlier this year, the group put up two billboards in heavily Muslim and Jewish enclaves in New Jersey and New York bearing messages in Arabic and Hebrew.
“You know it’s a myth … and you have a choice,” the billboards said. At the time, Silverman said the signs were intended to reach atheists in Muslim and Jewish areas who may feel isolated because they are surrounded by believers.
In addition to the billboards, Silverman said his group plans to stage protests at both conventions.
American Atheists is a religious organization. Atheism is not a religion, but these people make it theirs. This is an effort by a religious organization.
Go check out the website, it's got all the marks of a religion.
They want your donations.
You can join them for a fee.
They have a magazine. Imagine, a whole magazine about things they don't believe in! I bet it's full of unicorns, and fairies. Why wouldn't it be? Someone needs to put those dirty damn druids in their place!
They have an app.
They have atheists parenting groups... is that where you round up children and tell them what not to believe? Oh, that's not indoctrination... and even children's books.
They have billboards telling people that their beliefs are wrong, join them instead!
Just admit it, guys... you're religious zealots. All religious zealots just think they're spreading the truth.
whatever, believe what you want, you will anyway, good luck in the afterlife
I would agree with you on this. I am an Atheist and I would never be a part of this type of group. these types of people are just as bad as any other religious zealots. But I wish people would stop calling them Atheist because they are not. when you are a true atheist then you are void of religion and it does not offend you.
Yeah...except for that whole dogma, mystical faith thing....sure, it's exactly like a religion. I had no idea that donations, magazines and parenting groups were the earmarks of a religion.