A billboard put up by the Northeast Florida Coalition of Reason on Highway 1 near St. Augustine was discovered this morning (Tuesday, April 13) to have suffered major damage, probably sometime during the night.From a UCoR news release:
"We can't say for sure, but it looks like somebody with a truck could have pulled at the billboard structure from behind in an effort to bring it down," said Stephen Peek, coordinator of the Northeast Florida Coalition of Reason, the sponsor of the billboard, in a news release Tuesday. "Then again, perhaps some heavy object flying off a passing train could have struck it in front, although we don't see any such object nearby and the billboard vinyl isn't torn."
"We wanted to first get photo verification of the situation before making our report," said Fred Edwords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason (UCoR), in the news release. "And from the photos, the damage appears significant, too great to be weather related, especially given recent good weather and the good condition of the surrounding trees. On the other hand, the remote location of this billboard adds to the probability of vandalism. But only an on-site investigation by the billboard owner has any chance of solving the mystery."
The owner of the billboard is CBS Outdoor. UCoR notified them of the damage Tuesday morning.
The billboard is one of two put up late in March by the Northeast Florida Coalition of Reason at a total cost of $2300 (funds provided by UCoR). The other is in Orange Park, near Jacksonville.
The message on the billboard is, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone."
If the damage turns out to have been caused by vandalism, it won't be alone in that either. Similar godless billboards have suffered vandalism in a number of other places -with three of the most recent incidents occuring just in Sacramento CA alone.
"But these are only rare instances during a national campaign that has spanned 26 cities in 14 months," said UCoR director Edwords.
Related stories:
Photo Credit:
1) Damaged Florida billboard (source: Northeast Florida Coalition of Reason)
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Comments
Act of GOD? as the devil would encourage that sign.
But in other news, I refuse to buy anything from anyone that donates to a group like this. They have the freedom of speech and the Constitution says that is a GOD given right.
Hello warpsix. Just out of curiousity, can you find for me where in the Constitution it says that anything is a GOD given right?
This Stinks of George Soros , smells like something he would fund. warpsix, Gorge Soros is today's devil and obama is his son
I stand corrected Hugh but this is in the Declaration of Independence and if you think for a minute that the Founders we anything other then God fearing patriots you will be proven wrong, our history has been corrupted but the truth is out there i would recommend the 5000year leap as a start
The first sentence of the Declaration asserts as a matter of Natural law the ability of a people to assume political independence, and acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Oh please Hugh we know you public school babies get your rights from Darwin.
"The gentlemen do protest too much, methinks."
I begin to suspect that these "Councils of Reason" are deliberately damaging their own billboards in order to make a false claim of sympathy.
Are you prepared to investigate the possibility that someone is carrying out false-flag operations? It is not as if the Councils of Reason actually own the physical billboards.
warpsix,
The founding fathers were of the Enlightenment era. In particular, they were atheists, agnostics, deists, and disaffected Christians who wanted the government to have no part in religion whatsoever. They wanted the laws to be based on logic, reason, and the facts that are actually occurring in reality. They were repulsed by the use of scripture and other texts as the basis for everything, but acknowledged the supreme being as having a hand in their rights, much as the Freemasons do to this day. However, the fathers that believed in a god were not believers of the religious dogma you have been fed in this day and age. In addition, the appeal to Natural Law was common place at the time and was considered secular. So, spurious bait-and-switch arguments that say they were god-fearing, in the modern sense, are pathetic and show a total disregard not only for basic civility of discourse, but also every right those same founding fathers fought and died to give you.
Oh, one more thing to note about the appeal to Nature's God: They are talking about the deist version of god. In other words, the sum total of all reality. Not the god defined in any holy book, as defined therein, but the God that they conceded likely existed. In that day, it was rare for people of reason to not believe in at least the deists' god. Darwin and Einstein changed that with Evolution and Relativity (which implies the Big Bang Theory). Since today we can measure reality more accurately than our founding fathers could, today's reasoning man is more free to reject supernatural claims to how things are, were, and will be. Also, it is funny that you have not appealed directly to the other original sources to back up your conjecture as to the meaning of the passing mention of God. To back up my claim, I point you to the treaty with Tripoli. It was started under Washington and signed by Adams. It says this nation is secular, and these were the most god-fearing men then.
One last post on this: To defeat the notion that the Founders, every single one of them, was a God-fearing patriot, I point you to the patriotic Thomas Paine. He was an outspoken atheist. His own works point you to that fact. If you want to claim the rose-colored view of the founding of this nation is, in fact, reality, you would do well to first examine whether what you were taught as history was propaganda, or in fact stands up to the original sources of the day. Upon a thorough examination of the other material written by our founders, you will note that your version of history was actually propaganda when held up to said original sources. They include, if you did not already know, The Age of Reason, Common Sense, Poor Richard's Almanac, The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers, The Articles of Confederation, The Rights of Man, The Thomas Jefferson Bible, etcetera. Please note that most of these will offend your current religious perceptions and sense of history.
bellez,
Just to point out before I see you declare me a "public school baby", I went to a Fundamentalist Christian private school for my junior high and high school education and was valedictorian of my class of 27. I went to a Christian private university for my undergraduate education, and got both a Mathematics and a Computer Science major out of the way in 4 years. After that, I went to a public university for my graduate education and am currently hoping to finish up my PhD in Mathematics this August. I was raised fundamentalist, read up on history from the appropriate sources, read the Bible, several times, and concluded, after realizing that Acts 2 implies the Bible should be written in the tongues the Apostles supposedly spoke on Pentecost, that the Bible is a fraud. To clarify, the tongues in Acts 2 were the variety that everyone, no matter their native language, would hear in their native language. Similar writing would have been available to the Apostles.
Terry,
Ration human beings do not damage property they own/rent just to cry foul and win sympathy points with people they fantasize might pour out good feelings if something bad happens to them. That's the purview of fantasy, myth, and the supernatural. Good try, though.
"Ration" should have been "Rational". My lack of an English major shines through again. :/
Just peeved,
I believe you just posted a complete non sequitur. It is not worth further objection than that.
Wow, how did the teabaggers stumble onto this site? Hey, Hurlbut, maybe warpsix and Just peeved are actually rationalists who are trying to make Christians look stupid.
Great stuff, Godless Patriot. I should get you to do a guest column. Just one little correction, though. Thomas Paine was a deist, not an atheist (or even, as Teddy Roosevelt referred to him, "that dirty little atheist"). In part 1 of "The Age of Reason" Paine lays out his creed. The very first line is "I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life." Of course, right after that he goes on to scoff at supernaturalism, most of religion and especially organized religion. What he promotes is the deist idea of the individual's right of conscience and the ability to think for himself.
Paine is one of my favorite founding fathers.
I stand corrected Hugh but this is in the Declaration of Independence and if you think for a minute that the Founders we anything other then God fearing patriots you will be proven wrong, our history has been corrupted but the truth is out there i would recommend the 5000year leap as a start
The first sentence of the Declaration asserts as a matter of Natural law the ability of a people to assume political independence, and acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
I hate to have my favorite name next to or associated with or even come up in a search with a "Godless Patriot". My believes are without question as i am sure yours are at this moment in time. I will leave the Founding fathers soul to their maker and History which is on my side with the exception of your Thomas Paine . Just peeved your right this group stinks of george soros.
warpsix,
You again miss the point: The "God" mentioned in the Declaration of Independence is that of the deists, not of Christianity. Nature's God was not understood as one and the same as the God of Christianity, but rather the Founding Fathers saw God differently than you do. Namely, they held much disdain for religion as it was organized then and disdain for the caricature religion throws onto the figure of God. Rather, they believed each person was entitled to their own personal belief in God, but that no one should codify religious morality into secular law, unless the morals mentioned were universal and not tied to religion for common man to recognize their good. You are much mistaken in your views of history and invite correction each time. Thomas Jefferson, the man who authored the Declaration of Independence, also held religion at arms length. He wrote a version of the Bible which stripped all mention of supernatural acts, but left the morals presented therein alone.
why is there so many interpretations of the original documents it seems there is a contraversy over religion, the right to bear arms and it goes on.
Montreal gal who is searching for answers
Great article Hugh- sad that so many are so insecure in their "personal relationship" that they would do something like this.
It shouldn't be that confusing. The Declaration of Independence was about one thing, our independence from England. It was our Constitution that set down our national laws, and only one reference was made to "our Lord", and that was in the date of the document. That was because it was common form at the time in formal documents to write it as "Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven". Religion was meant to be kept out of the US Government just as the US Government was meant to be kept out of religion.
Well it's good to know that fundies like 'warpsix' are consistent at ignoring evidence which goes against their theological opinions. Hence why he/she didn't even attempt to debate the matter but repeat the same schtick. If I recall, the Founders were accused by some as being "French Secularists" (translation: evil atheists) since they were responsible for the Declaration of the Rights of Man some years prior. That Declaration being in stark contrast to the 'Divine Right of Kings' which had been supported by religion for many centuries, a distinctly UNdemocratic concept. I find it interesting that Jefferson was in France at the time when he penned his letter to the Danbury Baptists clarfying the position of separation of church and state. And as Steve pointed out, the Declaration of Independence was about independance from the English, not about establishing the Constitution.
Oh, and just one more thing. If the founders WANTED America to specifically be a "Christian Nation", they could have simply written it all over the Constitution when they were writing the thing.
They didn't.
Anywhere.
At all.
Nada.
Not one bit.
Not a sausage.
Sorry about that.
Quick, somebody mention the Declaration of Independance again!
I thought it was referring to Zeus anyway?
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