This is a press release from Atheists United in Los Angeles:Last year, the Grinch stole Solstice; this year, he got violent.
The end of December marks the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the time when the sun is lowest on the horizon, and long before Christianity, civilizations have marked this time with fire, feast, and evergreen decoration. Every December, there are holiday displays at Pacific Park in Santa Monica . Almost all are New Testament dioramas sponsored by churches in honor of the birth and childhood of Jesus.
In honor of the Solstice, after the many elaborate religious exhibits, atheists have put up modest displays. Last year, Atheists United, Southern California ’s largest freethought group, erected a simple sign wishing onlookers “Reason’s Greetings,” but it was soon stolen. This year, they put up a more playful image, a gnome with the face of Charles Darwin and the same message. On the 22nd, a member visited the site and found “Charlie’s” face had been bashed in.
Artist Joel Pelletier noted, “While I was repairing Charlie, a number of people stopped to express their support and their concern that someone would attack freedom of speech in this way. This gives me a lot of confidence that most people, whatever their own beliefs, care about everyone’s right to free expression and reciprocate our good wishes toward them.”
In response to the observation that atheist symbols are often vandalized, Atheists United President Bobbie Kirkhart noted, “Few religious people would go to such extremes to suppress alternate views, but there are always some people so insecure in their own beliefs that they cannot tolerate anyone who believes differently.”
Pacific Park, where the display is located, is a lovely place to visit. It's a long, thin strip of trees and greenery on a clifftop overlooking the Santa Monica Pier and the Pacific Ocean. Santa Monica has a reputation for being a pretty laidback place and the park, with its casual strollers and families enjoying that breath-taking view, is probably just about the most laidback part of it. That's why it's hard to understand why anyone there would vandalize the display. After all, it's a gnome for chrissake! And the message on it was about as innocuous as it could be:
"Reasons Greetings from Atheists United"
I spoke with AU Communications Director Brian Parra about it by phone. AU is satisfied just with repairing the display and, as far as Brian knows, no police report was filed. The city of Santa Monica itself has never had a problem with AU's displays in the park.
Incidently, Brian informed me that Charlie the Gnome has his own facebook page. If you visit him there you'll see "messages" from Charlie and loads of pictures, including some showing how he was made (and what he is holding behind his back).
Photo Credits:
1) The vandalized gnome
2) Charlie after repairs (both photos from AU)
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Comments
Indeed, a police report was filed. Imagine the reaction if a religious display had been vandalized. We atheists, however, are so accustomed to abuse that we don't report hate crimes against us, and the statistics are skewed to indicate they are rare, when indeed they are common. I urge every atheist who has had an evolve fish stolen, a sign damaged, or a personal assault to report the crime.
We need to keep a sense of perspective, of course, but I can no longer justify letting the religionists get by with the assertion that their beliefs, their symbols, or their traditions are more important than ours.
Thanks for the update, Bobbie. To keep your comment relevant, I'm not going to correct the story text but it has been noted in case there are any follow-up stories.
For those who don't know Bobbie, she's the current president of Atheists United. She was also featured with an interview in the Los Angeles Times about two weeks ago. You can find a story about it in my December 12th article, "Los Angeles atheist leader interviewed by the L.A. Times".
I'm an Atheist I think its immature and petty to use Darwin as a focal point. We as Atheists do not idolize anybody or anything. Putting Darwin up as a focus gives the wrong idea. Darwin did not 'invent' evolution. Someone else would have put it all together if Darwin did not. Why put so much focus on the one man. The only reason it is done is just to snub the focus on God/Jesus. That is not a good reason to give Atheists a bad reputation as a "Me Too" group.
as an atheist, its too simple to equate Darwin/evolution as an atheist platform. Evolution has NOTHING to do with Atheism.
This new popular culture of Atheism is very immature, and too simplistic....but too complicated for christians too understand without screwing it all up.
oh well.. what can you do?
I'm not an atheist, but I do believe in everyone's right to put on displays and such. It's a shame that there are people in the world who can not accept and respect each other's differences.
"Why put so much focus on the one man."
Because that is how they are? They put a huge amount of focus on Jesus, so...maybe they think we do the same thing for our "religion?"
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