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A 14x48-foot billboard emblazoned with the John Lennonesque message, "Imagine No Religion," and a stained-glass window backdrop, went up this week for one month on I-20, near the Riverside exit en route to Talladega.
Drivers going to Talladega from Atlanta or Birmingham will pass the billboard, believed to be the first such freethought (atheist, agnostic) message ever placed in Alabama.
The colorful billboard went up just in time for the annual "Glorious 4th" celebration in rural Talledega sponsored by the Alabama Freethought Association this year on July 3-5. The event is held at a freethought "advance" (not retreat), which includes a lake, and air-conditioned auditorium and facilities. The event has attracted as many as 200 freethinkers from the South and all over the United States.
The billboard is part of a national educational campaign sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics), which works to keep church and state separate. The state/church watchdog has 13,600 members, and the Alabama Freethought Society is an FFRF chapter.
"There are many atheists and agnostics in America, including Alabama, and we want them to know they are not alone. We'd also like to invite believers to imagine a world free from religious wars, sectarian strife, and superstition," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, Foundation Co-President.
"We can have a better world without religion, by placing our energies in making this world, our only world, a better place, instead of investing our best efforts in trying to get to achieve a make-believe afterlife."
"Like John Lennon, I've found that nature and reality are enough for me. I, too, like to imagine no religion, no hell below us, above us only sky. The only afterlife that should concern us is a secure and pleasant future for our descendants," said Dan Barker, author of Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One's America's Leading Atheists (Ulysses Press, 2008).
Among the speakers at the freethought event are Joann Bell, director of the ACLU of Oklahoma. Barker, a songwriter/musician who used to be a missionary, teams up with Steve Benson, a former Mormon missionary, for a satiric look at religion in the news called Tunes 'N Toons. Benson is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the Arizona Republic, and the great-grandson of Mormon president Ezra Taft Benson. The event also includes an "atheist versus agnostic" softball game, poetry reading, hiking, and many other speakers.
The Foundation has placed billboards in about 16 states and more than 26 cities since launching its campaign in late 2007. It is now launching a national bus sign campaign.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is a national association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics) that has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate.
Comments
Didn't a few societies try this a while back?
What were their leaders names again...?
Oh yeah, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. ;)
JMS
www.examiner.com/x-8276-Charlotte-Methodist-Examiner
Actually, nobody's "trying" to do anything here, they're just posting a bill-board with a message, one that seems to be making a difference and pulling folks, like me, from superstitious belief systems into the light. James, if you need "faith" to believe something is real, then it was never real to begin with.
Wow way to poison the well. Didn't those characters have other issues besides atheism, oh yes they did. Can I now point to Hitler and Torquemada as leaders of Christian based governments? Way to stay classy JMS!
They replaced one religion with another. Whether you worship a god or a nation,belief not founded in evidence(aka "faith)is something to be avoided. No one should believe anything based on insufficient evidence.
Yes I know Isabella I was the real leader but Torquemada was high ranking in her government.
James-Michael, Not only are you wrong but you're thinking of the wrong Lennon (Lenin) as well.
>:^O
Queen Isabella I of Castile had a lot of wrong-headed ideas, Beam Stalk. She used to boast that she'd only bathed twice in her life; once at birth and once on the day she was married. That's probably why her husband King Ferdinand always had that strained look on his face whenever they were portrayed together.
Hugh, nice pun! :) I realize that the atheists on this board may not appreciate verbal jabs the way you can. I thought the smiley face would ease the tension...I guess not.
I stand by my statement however. The only societies that have attempted to systematically do away with religion just happen to be the societies that killed more of their own people than any others in history.
Let's at least be intellectually honest when attempting to persuade people their beliefs are unfounded, shall we?
C35,
I actually agree with your post completely. Of course I believe there is sufficient evidence for belief in God, whereas many here would disagree. But that is the nature of evidence. What is sufficient for some is insufficient for others.
This is great news! However, there is a looooong way to go there in Alabama. Many of them still haven't gotten word that the North won.
Anyone see the episode of South Park where atheism wins out? The line in the article about inviting believers to "imagine a world free from religious wars, sectarian strife, and superstition" immediately made me think of that. Just curious as to how that bit of satire was received among my nontheistic friends here.
Good news and an uplifting message, now even more than when Lennon wrote it.
It's an unfortunate fact for many that the billboard's suggestion is very difficult; their lives are so bound by religion that it seems impossible to break the chains. Yet it's a happy reality for a large and growing minority: life is clearer and richer outside the restrictions of unfounded belief.
Hopefully the discussion will increase and allow many more to imagine their life free from the fetters of baseless faith. The real world awaits, come and join us!
Ben,
What awaits those who decide to take the leap of faith that this entire thing we know as "existence" is devoid of any ultimate overall purpose or objective and will be meaningless once we breathe our last?
Anything but nihilism on the part of atheism's proponents is delusional at best and dishonest at worst. (Hugh, I know you disagree with this of course! ;)
Everyone is bound by something. I prefer that something to be the only One who I can trust with any boundaries at all. Anything else is hopelessly flawed.
> What awaits those who decide to take the leap of faith that this entire thing we know as "existence" is devoid of any ultimate overall purpose or objective and will be meaningless once we breathe our last?
Who is asking you to do that? Perhaps you're needlessly conflating atheism with nihilism. I'm sure those two do exist in some people, but I am surrounded by atheists and none of them are nihilists.
This is illustrative of the terrible entanglement I referred to. To claim that religion is necessary for purpose, meaning, or richness is simply ignoring the huge number of us who are demonstrable counter-examples.
I have the richness of relationships with the people I meet as I go through life, the comfort of being with those friends and family I'm lucky enough to have around me, the purpose to improve the world before I leave it, the joy of endlessly learning about this astoundingly intricate and vast universe.
I can easily appreciate all that without religion; I hope you d
James-Michael Smith, I agree with you. But these damn atheists always seem to bring up things like how most Nazis were Christians, and how Hitler was Catholic and he often made references to God in his speeches, and how Sweden is mostly atheist and their mainly Swedish secular society seems to be doing better than most religious ones. Then they point out how no one flies planes into buildings in the name of atheism. I just wish they would stop with all this facts stuff and get back to the topic of Faith in the invisible, because that's where we have WAY more experience/expertise than these damn atheists.
The Methodist Troll wrote:
>> "Let's at least be intellectually honest"
Bang. Another bloody irony-meter blown!
Fiesty!
:)
Hitler:Religion::Ted Nugent:PETA
It's funny, but the nations that are more organically atheistic (i.e. not forced atheism, but atheist by choice, such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, etc) are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality. So, sorry JMS, your arguments fail.
JMS, adding a little winky smiley face while insinuating that atheism is equivalent to totalitarianism, does not lessen the accusation. It is similar to people who quote the Bible saying, "a fool says in his heart there is no God" claiming they are not calling atheists fools. You are just trying to ease your own conscious of any hateful remark.
Let me pseudo-quote Talladega Nights:
"With all due respect, and I mean all due respect, your idea is crap, sir."
"Ricky, adding 'with all due respect' does not mean you can say what you want."
Also I am not claiming Hitler is a Christian, I am saying he used Christianity to spread his idea. Let us not forget the title of one of Martin Luther's works, "On the Jews and Their Lies".
Atheists remind me of those little pilot fish that latch on to sharks, or those birds who pick & eat insects off water buffaloes. They are so minuscule & irrelevant that more often than not they need to be ignored, but sometimes I gotsta to laugh at these clowns.
Hitler was NOT a Christian.
See this website: www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm
The problem today is GAY MARRIAGE. This caused the destruction of the traditional marriage between Mark and Jenny Sanford.
Seam Chuck is right. Look how few atheists are in this comment section not bothering Christians at all. Only reason Christians are here is to defend traditional marriage.
James-Michael Smith is right. Goat herders said so in a book, and everyone knows that goat herders know more than James-Michael Smith
only sheep need Shepard dear James. a world without religion means one last false piece of crap to fight about. we are not nihilistic. we merely believe we can be morally right without the fear that hell will come and get us or that if we do we get to go to a utopia. Their is a meaning to life and we can act upon it without needing a religion to back us up.
Sign of the end of times
Hitler was a Christian:
“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” –Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
www.tinyurl.com/49kbo
Listen, so what people wish to belive in God this country was formed on the basis of choice not the choice to force your thought or your opinion on a billboard where people are forced to see it, I think its ridiculous, Religion is so much more then wars and ideals of better lives it is an escape from reality it is the belief that one day good people will actully be rewarded and bad people will be punished for being an abomination, i'm saying this nither side atheist, religous what im saying is Religion gives to people in a world where hope is lost, it gives people hope(a reason to live) yes imagine a world where there was no religion a world where the fear of punishment for killing a child in a womb is not punished where people can kill each other and not worry if they burn or are punished yes let's look at a world with no order for you see the smart can understand religion and control it but the ignorant(rednecks) imagine them with that ideal, you have good ideas, got myspace? we chat
When Christians learn to let people be, and believe what is in their hearts without opposing others through coercion and intimidation, the world will be a better place.
Now before you get upset, imagine that I had replaced the word "Christian" with "Muslim". I think this is the root of the statement. It's not saying imagine no faith. The whole point of the song was to imagine the world as a better place, without the strictures and exclusivity that society places on others who are not like us. And yes, minds ARE like parachutes - they work a whole lot better when open. Sometimes that requires people look at an opinion from the other side, no matter how indefensible it may seem.
All of you guys are so funny. Alabama is the state that has billboards of aborted fetus advocating against abortion. What right do "Christians" have to force me to view billboards like this. Personally, when I drive, I am more focus on the road than what is up 20 ft above the road. I am glad this billboard has gone up though. Christians in Alabama are all about pushing their religion onto other people whether they like it or not. I am pagan, not an atheist, and I have been told that I am going to hell by MULTIPLE people around here in Alabama. Great Christians huh? I guess they know what is in my heart. I guess they have the powers of "God" and can make those decisions for him.
sarah the problem is with people today when I say Im a christian people automatcly think RELIGION. WRONG, RELIGON IS MAN MADE CHRISTIANTY IS A REALATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST, AND NO I DON'T PUSH ANYTHING ON ANYONE. IF YOU ARE A PAGEN THEN YOU TOO BELIVE THERE IS NO GOD OR JESUS CHRIST, LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION, WHY DOES THE NAME OF JESUS MAKE YOU AND OTHERS SO MAD?? SCRIPTURE SAYS " EVEN THE DEMONS KNOW THE NAME OF JESUS, AND THEY BOW TO JESUS AND LISTEN TO HIM TOO". WELL SARAH THEY DID TELL YOU THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR GIONG TO HELL. IF YOU REJECT GOD & HIS WORD THEN YOU ARE DAMED TO HELL TO BURN FOR ETURNARTY. WHY DO YOU THINK SO MUCH IS HAPPENING IN THIS WORLD? I LIVE IN NY & ONE OF THESE BILLBOARDS JUST WENT UP ON OUR NYS TRUWAY. I JUST SIT BACK AND LAUGH AT IT. I GET A BIG KICK OUT OF PAGENS & ATHEISTS, YOU GUYS MAKE ME LAUGH & YOUR FUNNY. SO AGAIN WHY DO YOU GET SO MAD AT CHRISTIANS OR THE NAME OF JESUS?? YOU THINK ABOUT THAT ONE. GOD BLESS YOU.
this is one of the funnest sites I have ever come across. my only question to the Athesitst is this?? IF THERE IS NO GOD THEN WHY ARE YOU SO UPSET WITH CHRISTIANS?? YOU ARE TRYING TO GET A MESSAGE ACROSS THAT MAKES NO SENSE. I WILL PRAY FOR YOU AND MAY GOD RICHLY BLESS YOU NOW & FOR EVER, IN JESUS NAME AMEN. O AND THE NAME OF JESUS SHOULD NOT MAKE YOU MAD EILTHER IF THERE IS NO GOD, JUST REMEMBER THAT ONE. YOU GUYS ARE FUNNY!
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