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Atheists’ ad blitz calls Christmas a myth
northjersey.com ^ | 11.26.10 | stephanie akin

Posted on 11/27/2010 9:05:56 PM PST by Coleus

Drivers approaching the Lincoln Tunnel this holiday season will be the targets of an atheist advertisement that its sponsors describe as a strike against Christmas. A billboard sponsored by the American Atheists and posted in North Bergen, on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel, reads: 'You KNOW it's a Myth. This season, celebrate REASON.' A billboard scheduled to be displayed near the New Jersey entrance to the tunnel until the end of the holidays shows a silhouetted manger scene with the message, “You KNOW it’s a Myth. This Season, Celebrate REASON.”

The $20,000 campaign, sponsored by a national organization called American Atheists, is timed to preempt annual accusations that liberal groups are waging war on Christmas by asking church adherents to question their holiday traditions, American Atheists President David Silverman said.  “If the religious right wants a war on Christmas, this is what they’re going to get,” he said. “If they want a war on Christmas, we’re going to make sure they know what one looks like.”  The campaign is one of several atheist media blitzes scheduled this holiday season.  It joins a $200,000 national television, newspaper and magazine advertising campaign sponsored by the American Humanist Association and the Stiefel Freethought Foundation meant to challenge biblical morality and fundamentalist Christianity.

Those ads juxtapose passages from religious texts selected because they appear to advocate for “fear, hatred and intolerance,” with quotations from humanist scholars that promote “love, equality, peace, freedom and reason,” according to a press release.  The American Humanist Association sponsored a 48-foot sign erected on the New Jersey Turnpike in 2008 that read, “Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone.”  The campaigns come on the heels of studies reporting that rising numbers of Americans identify themselves as non-religious — 15 percent in 2008 compared with 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the Trinity College American Religious Identification Survey.  The Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life reported in April, however, that of the 5 percent of its survey respondents who said they do not believe in God or a universal spirit, only 24 percent actually identified themselves as atheists.

Silverman said his group interprets such numbers as a sign that the country is on the verge of an explosive growth in secularism.  Many of those potential secularists live in the New York-New Jersey area, Silverman said. The Lincoln Tunnel billboard, one of several the organization plans in the next year, was placed where it thinks generally affluent and highly educated commuters will have plenty of time to think about it as they inch their way through one of the most chronically clogged roadways in the region.  The message is meant to address what Silverman described as closet atheists: people who attend religious services during the holidays without believing in them.  “Stay home,” Silverman said. “Don’t give the church money. Don’t give the church power. Tell the truth to your friends and families.”

Such campaigns have already received one public response from a prominent Christian organization. The New York-based Catholic League reportedly sent statues of Nativity scenes to the governors of all 50 states, asking them to place them in their rotundas in response to atheists “out in force this year trying to neuter Christmas.”  Catholic League spokesman Bill Donohue could not be reached for comment.  Newark Archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness said he is aware of the billboard — his son passed it on his way home from a family Thanksgiving meal Thursday night — and that he isn’t impressed.  He added that the archdiocese declined an offer to buy a rival billboard, stating that it has more constructive ways to spend its money. The message of Christmas is too resilient to be threatened by a sign, Goodness said.

“We’re looking at well over 2,000 years of this message being part of humanity,” Goodness said. “One message on a billboard that’s going to be there for a month isn’t going to change that.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: New Jersey; US: New York
KEYWORDS: atheist; atheists; billboard; christmas; hudsoncounty; lincolntunnel; moralabsolutes; nj; northbergen; waronchristmas; waronchristmas2010
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To: Art in Idaho
another communist front group?>>

I would say Yes

21 posted on 11/27/2010 9:39:30 PM PST by Coleus (Abortion, Euthanasia & FOCA - - don't Obama and the Democrats just kill ya!)
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To: La Lydia
If they are really atheists, why do they care? And why do they care enough to invest in advertisements? I find that very strange.

All religions proselytize. I suppose Atheism's adherents do to get others to share their wretched, meaningless lives.

Pray for them. It will do you good. It may do them some good. Any way, it will irritate them.I know, that's not a very Christian attitude. I'm working on that.

22 posted on 11/27/2010 9:42:39 PM PST by magslinger ('This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18 fighter. Send 'em up, I'll wait!')
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To: Coleus

The problem with atheism is that you almost have to believe in evolution to be an atheist, and everybody pretty much knows by now that evolution is a bunch of bullshit.


23 posted on 11/27/2010 9:42:53 PM PST by wendy1946
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To: Coleus

I’ll never understand the insistence of athiests having to make an issue of others being Christian. If they don’t feel/think/reason that God/Christ are actual entities then why can’t they just think that and not raise an issue.

I think it’s because deep down, in their psyche they have this creeping doubt that they can’t quite understand and it scares them in a way they cannot describe....


24 posted on 11/27/2010 9:43:04 PM PST by phatus maximus ( John 6:29. Learn it, love it, live it.)
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To: Coleus
I don't care if people “believe” or not. Hell, I'm not the most devout person on the planet. But don't try to hurt those who do.
25 posted on 11/27/2010 9:45:24 PM PST by BigCinBigD (Northern flags in South winds flutter...)
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To: hiho hiho
"If they are really atheists, why do they care?"

And if they do not believe in God, then why do they hate him? They are in rebellion, like a child that "talks back" to a parent.

26 posted on 11/27/2010 9:49:34 PM PST by UnwashedPeasant (Don't nuke me, bro)
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To: Coleus
I missed their big Ramadan protest.


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

27 posted on 11/27/2010 9:54:11 PM PST by The Comedian (Government: Saving people from freedom since time immemorial.)
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To: Coleus

Attention whore alert. Do these freaks know how pitifully small and rude this behavior is? Will they do the same on Romadon? Why do I doubt the snakes will do that?

They want to take the place of Christ in our society and they are not going to. The cowards know Allah is a fake and his followers would chop their attention whore heads off if they acted this aggressively billigerent to Islam.


28 posted on 11/27/2010 9:54:35 PM PST by SaraJohnson
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To: The Comedian

Will the atheists be out there with picket signs when the Ground Zero mosque opens?(Or would they picket a military funeral—what would the signs say, “Nothing Loves Dead
Soldiers”?...”Thank Nothing For 9/11”?)


29 posted on 11/27/2010 10:00:22 PM PST by raccoonradio
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To: Coleus

Placemark for pingout tomorrow.

Was thinking about you lately - wondered if you were still posting on FR!

I ran into the herb coleus in one of my books. It does a lot of things!


30 posted on 11/27/2010 10:02:07 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.CSLewis)
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To: Coleus

They don’t seem to put so much effort against Islam.

I think they lack confidence in their convictions.


31 posted on 11/27/2010 10:04:59 PM PST by Grizzled Bear ("Does not play well with others.")
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To: hiho hiho
Because they are not atheists, they are anti-theists

A valid distinction. A newborn child with no concept of a deity is the only true atheist.

32 posted on 11/27/2010 10:15:17 PM PST by phredo53 (Caution: This post does not comply with White House standards.)
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To: The Comedian

They were too busy at the ‘Atheists for Palestine rally’ throwing bottles at the Jews.


33 posted on 11/27/2010 10:17:00 PM PST by BenKenobi (DonÂ’t worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.)
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To: phatus maximus
I think it’s because deep down, in their psyche they have this creeping doubt that they can’t quite understand and it scares them in a way they cannot describe....

It's simpler than that. People drawn to organized, militant atheism are jerks; assholes if you will. They get satisfaction from figurative thumbs in the eyes of those around them.

I worked with one once that just loved the look on people's faces when they noticed the comic strip on his cube wall that had Boy Scouts wearing Klan hoods. He was the only one ever talking about religion in the office, which seems peculiar for somebody apparently without a faith. Being known as the guy that doesn't give a damn about your sensibilities is important to him, and gives him some twisted sense of self-importance.

34 posted on 11/27/2010 10:21:08 PM PST by Minn
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To: La Lydia

If God doesn’t exist, why be bothered if people believe in Him? That shouldn’t matter more than what you’ll have for dinner tonight. Yet atheists are bothered by the beliefs of people they dismiss as ridiculous. That is in itself a statement about them, not about the people they try so hard to get to join them.


35 posted on 11/27/2010 10:41:08 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: La Lydia

President Bush said it well in his book “It is not possible to prove God exists, but that cannot be the standard for belief. After all, it is equally impossible to prove He doesn’t exist. In the end, whether you believe or don’t believe, your position is based on faith.”

The irony of Atheist is that they must have faith that God doesn’t exist because they have to use the word “believe” in order to say I don’t believe.

As for their willingness to offend everyone by shoving their views forcefully down someone’s throat, all the while crying that it is being done to them.....hypocrites will enjoy their time with me in Hell. At least I know I will. ::evil laugh::


36 posted on 11/27/2010 11:03:43 PM PST by TheRevolution1776 (2nd Amendment applies also to religous threats. I don't call 911 even after your down.)
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To: phatus maximus
I believe that they have to make an issue of it because the one that they follow (they don't believe in him either) has to deny God. He started it in the garden...”did God really say”...and now it is “there is no God”. Once a person has denied God's word he is just a short trip to denying God.

Psalm 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God...

Proverbs 14:16 A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

God bless and Merry Christmas

37 posted on 11/27/2010 11:07:31 PM PST by WorldviewDad (following God instead of culture)
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To: Coleus
Madelyn Marie O'Hare, the famous atheist who got prayer out of public schools, was known to set up a nativity scene under her Christmas tree, and in front of her children would stomp on it until it was completely smashed.

It would be reasonable to assume that among atheists there would be two types, those who prefer not to believe in God and those who hate him. In other words, some atheists do believe that there is a God but they just hate his guts.

38 posted on 11/27/2010 11:09:10 PM PST by Slyfox
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To: FlingWingFlyer

Tell me about it. The militantly godless have no problem likening Christian practice to Islamic jihad, but won’t ever actually criticize Islamic jihad itself.


39 posted on 11/27/2010 11:11:05 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: Slyfox

And her son rightly perceived that this was just nuts. Why put so much energy into destroying a purported nonentity?


40 posted on 11/27/2010 11:13:00 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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