Image via WikipediaA couple of weeks ago MITCH ALBOM, a respected writer for the Detroit Free Press devoted a whole column to the subject of atheist advertising. The column titled:” If God made the sky, can atheist fly it” and took atheists to task for flying banners advertising their message on the 4th of July.
An example of one of their ads was a billboard shown in the paper where a smiling young man says “I can be good without God” and the sponsor is the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Well Albom got an earful this Sunday from many letter writers including my favorite, Harry T. Cook; an Episcopalian Minister retired who champions religious “doubt”.
Harry reminds Albom that our Founders created a secular state because they knew full well the damage caused by institutional religions and their theologies to societies and nations and that is a fact that we forget today. He also reminded Albom that an atheist is a-theist i.e. one that cannot and will not confess belief in a deity of theism because NO DEPENDABLE DATA exist on which to base such a belief.
George Shiffer, American Atheists, Allen Park
They forced “under God” into our pledge when the original Pledge did not contain that phrase thereby eliminating non-believers from “one nation indivisible”. They forced “In God We Trust” onto our money. They are forcing Bible study and the absurd Intelligent Design into our public schools and make no excuses for trying to force Christianity into our government and schools. What do you say to that Albom?
I have been following this trend of atheists, agnostics and plain humanists, trying to get their message out through advertising using the common channels for advertising; billboards, flying banners, etc.
I don’t totally understand this since those organizations are not trying to convince anyone about the myth that is institutional religion. I do think they maybe trying to reach people that are confused and don’t know that there are people who are not believers and that these people are good and positive members of society because they genuinely care about humanity and not because they want to find a good spot in the afterlife.
I have also seen ads basically saying “You are not alone with your doubt about God and religion”.
I have studied religion for many, many years and considered the study of religious doubt as something only scholars engaged in and discussions on the subject remained far away from the public view but I guess the time has come, or people feel the time has come, to break out into the open and engage the public.
Churches are obviously angry about efforts to sow doubt into paying parishioners but they have nothing to fear; the hard core religious are just that, hard core but reports are in, saying that more and more people consider themselves agnostics if not full atheists, so maybe it is time to engage the public.
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