I don’t recall exactly, but I think they both copped pleas.
That said, I also think that Waters died three years after getting arrested. Interestingly enough, he stole 600k and bought gold coins with it, which were then stolen from a storage unit by a random break in.
After the Murray’s went missing, Waters put out a book to ‘explain’ their disappearance. It was only through a private investigator and a journalist that justice was finally delivered.
[QUOTE=Sam Lowry]
Have some ads that compare the rates of giving to charity, volunteering, and incarceration or other good and bad things between atheists and religious people.
[/QUOTE]
Just a hint - I don’t think you will want to publicize those rates very much, at least not in America.
Cite.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reasoned argument on a billboard. If you want to make a detailed and reasonable argument, that’s not your format. A billboard is something that is meant to be seen and understood in a couple of seconds by someone who isn’t paying full attention. So if you want to have an argument about religion I don’t know why you would even go with a billboard in the first place. The ads are more dickish than anything else even though the Mormon one is accurate. So there are many, many better ways to have an actual discussion about this.
I will say that I got tired quite a while ago of the conversation about whether a particular message from a particular atheist group is “counterproductive” or if it “hurts atheists” or something. By and large it’s not counterproductive and doesn’t hurt because this is what most people think atheists are like anyway, and if you think one billboard from a couple of people can represent the views of an inherently disorganized group, I don’t think a reasonable discussion was going to change your mind anyway. If you can grasp the fact that a couple of people did this on their own, then there’s a chance for a better conversation, billboard or no billboard. But while these billboards are bad, it’s also true there’s room for both reasoned discussion and atheists forcefully demanding some respect. At some point I think some people came up with the idea that the only acceptable options are meek politeness and academic discussion and self-assertion and satire and other things are not on the table, which is ridiculous.
So are you saying we should have less caring people on this planet?
Anything is going to whip up controversy - it seems like the nut cases (on every issue ) have unlimited time to do this. Ignore them. And remember that few of the nutcases have an attitude of “be religious, any religion”. Many of them would complain about billboards of any religion other than their own. Whoever is putting up these billboards shouldn’t be worried about them. The organization should be concerned about their own goals and how best to achieve them.
If I were putting up these billboards with the goal of improving the perception of non-atheists , in addition to Sam Lowry’s recommendations, I would probably try to publicize the fact plenty of school prayer lawsuits , etc have been filed by religious people. Catholics, Mormons, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses , and probably others. Lot’s of people “blame” atheists for the lack of organized school prayer, but it’s not only atheists who have an interest in keeping church and state separate.
Let’s compare billboards.
edited to add: Check out the one from Kentucky-“If God doesn’t matter to him, do you?”, with a kid pointing a rifle at the viewer.
Lovely.
Well, my side serves in the food shelf and washes cars for free, donates more to charity, and occasionally behaves like jerks. Your side donates significantly less, and occasionally behaves like jerks. (Probably less often, because there aren’t as many of you, but still.)
Yet there are a lot more people who think atheists are assholes than who think religious people are assholes.
So, as Dr. Phil would say, how’s that working out for ya?
Regards,
Shodan
It’s worked really well so far in every single other aspect of culture and society.
It’s a billboard, not a pamphlet. Can you do it in one or two lines, with one or two syllable words?
Treating atheists like assholes(at best) has been a long-standing Christian tradition. So far, rolling over and playing dead has been to advantage of Christians, so we know that that isn’t working at all well for us.
Related question: has anybody ever changed his mind about any complex issue based on a billboard? Forget religion, I’d be hesitant to get off the highway and stop at a restaurant based on a billboard. Maybe American Atheists Inc. should save its billboard money and communicate through some other route. Your link indicates what I think everybody should’ve already known: by and large billboards are for the loud and the stupid.
Remembering that I’m not a marketer how about something like :
Separation of Church and State- It’s not just for atheists. Religious people have filed lawsuits fighting organized prayer in schools- and if you were a Christian living in a majority Jewish area , so might you.
Three lines and a couple of three syllable words, but I’ve certainly seen billboards with more text than this.
I’m afraid that there is enough research out there that shows that advertising works, and that sharp, concise messages can influence the public, otherwise so much money wouldn’t be spent on them. They are used to change minds, but they are also used to * reinforce* an already held position.
That doesn’t say anything for billboards in general or anything about this particular topic.
Religion does not equal caring. If you believe people need religion to be caring, that says more about you than him.
Considering that there are many more religious people than atheists, it stands to reason that more people think atheists are assholes. They also equate them, as I have pointed out, with murderers and rapists.
For a majority of people to think that religious people are assholes, then most religious people would have to think that religious people are assholes. And that just ain’t gonna happen.
ETA: As far as giving more to charity, does that include tithing or giving to churches as charity?
You are misrepresenting my statement, please read my above threads.
I agree that religion does not equal caring, never has never will, but irrelevant to this.
From Shodan’s link:
I don’t believe in gods, but the billboards are insulting, which equals “Stupid” in my book.
Ah, thanks…I forgot that he had linked in a previous post.