After angry Christians complained about atheist bus advertisements, the Fort Worth transit authority has banned all religious advertising. The controversial ads, paid for by Metroplex Atheists, read “Millions of people are good without God.” Many resident Christians were very unhappy with the challenge to their religion.
A concerned group of Christians met with the transportation authority’s president to demand that the policy allowing religious advertising on buses be reversed. They would rather ban all religious advertising than allow the atheists to promote their position. The authority's vote was unanimous to ban all religious advertising, including ads promoting atheism.
Earlier this month the Rev. Kyev Tatum Sr., president of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference, along with about 20 other pastors, called for a boycott of the buses, claiming the ads are a direct attack on their religion during a sacred time in the Christian calendar.
And venturing into the absurd, Conservative Christian businessmen have even gathered the funds to pay for vans to follow the buses with the atheist ads. The vans carry their own message: “I still love you. — God,” with another line that says, “2.1 billion Christians are good with God.”
Terry McDonald, the chairman of Metroplex Atheists, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason, which paid for the atheist ads, said:
“We want to tell people they are not alone. People don’t realize there are other atheists. All you hear around here is, ‘Where do you go to church?’”
The ban will go into effect January first.
For free thinkers, the message is clear: Freedom of religion is fine as long as that religion is Christianity. Many Christians simply can not tolerate an opposing view. Such is the strength of their so called "faith."
Comments
"with about 20 other pastors, called for a boycott of the buses, claiming the ads are a direct attack on their religion"
Arrogant S.O.B.s aren't they? I guess you can be good without Ganesh, righteous without Ra, admirable without Allah, praiseworthy without Poseidon, or virtuous without Vishnu. You just can't be good without THEIR god.
:)
It was good for the goose, but now, not good for the gander.
I can only hope the government will follow this lead, and remove the creche from its venues.
I think its great news. They banned themselves. They ignored the logs in their own eyes.
Let's get a bunch of billboards up and see if we can get them to ban religious billboards too. Then we can start building freedom of thought steeples and erect atheist memorials along the highways and atheist bellringers in front of grocery stores...
I agree. It seems to me in banning all religious ads on buses the secular community pretty much got what we wanted in the first place out of the whole thing.
Hooray! No more religious ads on those buses! What a great result, even if that wasn't the original intention.
Good. The only people getting anything out of that stupid advertising war are the public transportation organizations.
Enough with the inane ads already.
I agree with Nosacredcow on this.
NoSacredCow- Exactly! They shot themselves in the foot.
All this shows us is-
1)They are cry babies
2)They fear their ideas can't survive the marketplace of ideas
3) They get mad at the mere *existence* of atheists. The ad was one of the most tame out there. They clearly just want atheists to shut up and let them pretend not only we don't exist so people don't realize there are other options.
Please tell me, someone is going to continue this and go after the road side billboards.
Huh... well it's a good thing atheism isn't a religion! (JK)
Put adds on milk-cartons of all the wanted pedophile priests:)(;Billboards too!!!!!!!!!!!!Trading cards??????