In that specific instance I’m not feeling outrage. The article was dated March 2012, the policy against controversial ads was passed in “June”, which I’ll guess means 2011. The article says that ads for politicians and political issues are not permitted. The ad for a blog with links to “Holocaust-denial websites” seems like a strained example, and if the ad promoting adoption vs abortion was displayed before the June policy change, then it’s not an example of selective enforcement.
As for the OP and the billboard issue, I wouldn’t welcome similar billboards from religious groups being posted in urban areas. I usually see nutball religious signs in the country side. If Charlotte has gloating signs from churches then counter-assaults are justified, just to get the other viewpoint into the dialogue. Would less mocking signs be better? Probably.
I believe part of this topic is the effectiveness of those atheist billboards. I believe they were meant to counteract the increasing pandering to Christians by both political parties. Remember, they were originally intended to be displayed outside the Republican convention, but that was blocked. They are not so much intended to gently sway Christians, but to say that the side attacking them has a few glaring inconsistencies and problems of its own.
Sorry, my wording wasn’t specific enough. I meant the topic of religion and atheism, not the topic of this thread: I was saying that the fact that advertising is effective in general does not mean that billboards are effective or that billboards are a good format for this particular subject matter. My thinking is that they’re probably fine for roadside restaurants and amusement parks and probably not so much for, you know, cosmology.
I don’t think your typical religious billboard reader knows the definition of “cosmology”, and thinks that it might have something to do with cosmetics or something.
But, a pro-atheist billboard that already exists is more perfect than one that doesn’t, so by definition if it hasn’t been created yet, it’s not the perfectly crafted pro-atheist billboard.
A well-crafted pro-atheist billboard can “rally the troops” so to speak, or be used to return fire, but claiming that a particular pro-atheist billboard is bad because it offends Christians is disingenuous-any billboard promoting atheism, or for that matter containing the words “atheism” or “atheist” in a manner that doesn’t condemn them, will offend Christians.
I’ve never said that any pro-atheist billboard that offends Christians is bad just because it offends Christians, and I made some points to the contrary in my first post in this thread. I question the utility of doing this by billboard, but putting that aside, given the choice between a billboard that offends Christians with stupidity and one that offends and makes a cogent argument, I’d prefer the second one. These billboards don’t say much of value. Calling out Mormons for the bigotry and big money is very much fair game. Magic underwear if funny but not an argument and perhaps it takes away from a more legitimate point. The Christian one is just inflammatory. As billboard messages go, I prefer the “You don’t need God to be good” variety since at least it asserts something positive about atheism. Failing that I’d rather respond to an action related to religion instead of making a generalized attack.
I’m not making the billboards. If someone starts a campaign, they can find whatever that shows that atheists can be just as good people as religious people.
But I brought up the charity thing specifically because I read in Slactivist, my favorite religious blog, where it was discussing a report from Christianity Today, that although religious people might trumpet about how they give more money to charitable causes, they actually give less once religion is taken out of the picture. As the writer of Slactivist puts it, “Church members, apparently, are likelier to donate to their churches than non-church members are.”
Well, when I was saying that ads should be made with bios of admirable atheists and statistics and other things like that, I was thinking those would be print ads in magazines and newspapers and maybe some like subway and bus ads that can have a little more information than billboards. It’s true that no one is immediately going to change their life after seeing a billboard. But ads can have small, subtle influences on people.
John Doe in Smalltown America who attends Main Street Church might be double thinking this whole religious thing, but afraid to say anything to his friends or family because he’s afraid of being ostracized. But if he sees a billboard that says “It’s okay to be atheist,” maybe he won’t feel so alone. He might go to the website and find some people to talk things over with.
Or Jane Smith is in charge of hiring new people at her office. She only wants to hire good, trustworthy people, so she’s hesitant to hire anyone who doesn’t attend a church. She can’t and doesn’t ask straight out about religious affiliation, but in places where everyone knows everyone else, Jane would still know who goes to church and who doesn’t. Seeing the ads wouldn’t stop Jane from going to church, but maybe she’d stop being discriminatory against them.
If groupthink is your basis for deeming the pious more “right” then maybe tyranny of the majority is your real hidden agenda? Good luck with that.
The problem with the billboards is it speaks more to a symptom of the cultural and societal divisions in this country today. There are more atheists and fewer religious and the numbers converge with each passing generation. Atheists are finally getting fed up with the constant drone of religious dogma seeping into every aspect of civilized society.
Regardless of the atheist organization’s tactics, background or motivation, the religious will have to deal with them sooner or later.
I don’t think I agree with that. You can find skepticism and mockery of religious figures in all kinds of art and philosophy. Certainly churches don’t appreciate that and there have been periods they would kill you if they caught you doing it and there are a lot of religious nuts today who want people to think they can’t say negative things about religion (and some will back that up with violence, too). But all things considered I don’t think that’s true in modern times.
Definitely not as true as it used to be…but you still don’t see letters to the editor accusing someone of being a Christian, or stating that someone’s Christianity means that they aren’t a “true” American. Churches that post anti-atheism messages on their churchfront message boards don’t usually get vandalized for doing so, and I can’t recall ever seeing an organized campaign with civic leaders involved decrying a Christian billboard of any sort.
I’m not claiming who’s right. I’m talking about which group is thought more as assholes, and is thereby less able to get people to agree with them.
Remember what I said earlier to Tad–? People are, incorrectly but understandably, likely to notice the most vocal among groups, and think that the vocal ones are the characteristic ones. My church’s way of being “vocal” is acts of charity, and the occasional assholish act. Some atheists’ way of being “vocal” is the occasional assholish act, and a lot less acts of charity to offset that.
[QUOTE=Sam Lowry]
…although religious people might trumpet about how they give more money to charitable causes, they actually give less once religion is taken out of the picture.
[/QUOTE]
If someone wishes to criticize a Christian in a public forum, a list of specific nefarious deeds is usually necessary for your argument to be even the least bit effective. In that same public forum, if someone wishes to criticize an atheist, one usually only has to name them as such.
Gotta say I’m a big fan of the “Evolution is a fairy-tale for grown-ups !” one.
I’ve seen some beautifully self-defeating arguments in my time, but none quite so concise I don’t think.