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Billboard counters mayor calling U.S. "a Christian nation," and dismissing state/church violations because the critics are" atheists, antagonists and a minority."
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has been tangling with Whitehall Mayor John Wolfe over the city's unlawful Christian display every December, is fighting back with a billboard!
The City of Whitehall refused to adopt a proclamation for Darwin Day, Feb. 12, in honor of the historic bicentennial celebration of Charles Darwin's birth. So the national state/church watchdog has posted a billboard in Whitehall reading "Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief."
Bearing Darwin's iconic image, the billboard message will be up at East Main and Fountain Lane in Whitehall, a suburb of Columbus, by Feb. 11.
The Foundation, the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics), has 13,600 members nationwide, and 300 members in Ohio. On behalf of its Ohio members, the Foundation has complained about nativity scenes at Malabar State Farm and Shawnee State Park, as well as city-sponsored endorsements of Christianity every December, including a violation in Whitehall. Read FFRF letter of complaint.
"We were so shocked and offended at the statement by Whitehall Mayor John Wolfe to CBNS-TV Channel 10 saying, "We are a Christian nation," and dismissing a constitutional violation because: 'They're atheists, they're antagonists and they're a minority,' " said Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.
"Can you imagine him dismissing charges of racial discrimination by the city because, 'They're blacks, they're antagonists and they're a minority'? Or, 'They're Jews, they're antagonists, and they're a minority'? The mayor's intolerant remarks prove the harm of uniting religion and government, which invariably invites persecution of dissenters."
"The Darwin billboard in part recognizes the enduring and scientific accomplishments of a brilliant man," notes David Russell, an area state/church separation activist who first complained about Whitehall's nativity display.
"Darwin not only researched extensively how life evolved through succession, but his work helped shape the modern interpretation of evolutionary theory. He almost single-handedly took the world from blind faith of unproven dogma to an enduring theory that has withstood 150 years of scrutiny.
"The placement of the billboard in Whitehall is especially appropriate since some members of Whitehall city government seem intent on mixing religion and government. The large Christian-only display on the steps of city hall each December serves to remind us that we must be ever-vigilant of the unfortunate mixing of religion and government. Neither is served when religion is given special treatment," Russell added.
The Foundation would like to hear from any resident of Whitehall, or anyone who regularly does business at Whitehall City Hall, who is offended by the annual display of a nativity scene by the entrance of city hall, and wishes to pursue a legal remedy. Such individuals may contact the Foundation at info@ffrf.org.
The Foundation also placed billboards "praising Darwin" this month in Dayton, Tenn., and Dover, Penn., sites of the historic classroom battles over the teaching of evolution, as well as in Madison, Wis., the Foundation's headquarters. This week it has just placed a "Praise Darwin" billboard in Grand Junction, Colo., where local officials also refused to declare a day to honor Darwin.
"Charles Darwin gets such a bad rap in America, and we want to counter that. It's an intellectual stain on our nation that more than half of all Americans reject evolution," said Gaylor. "The Darwin bicentennial is a chance to move our nation forward, to return to the Enlightenment, and give credit where it is due."
The year 2009 also marks the 150th anniversary of the release of Origin of Species, Darwin's seminal work on evolution.
"The double anniversaries of these historic dates make 2009 a blockbuster year for promoting reason and science," adds Foundation co-president Dan Barker, author of Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists.
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.
This press release was issued by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).
Comments
Greetings all,
Here's a major creationism/ID contradiction that many atheists as well as church goers have missed by not connecting the dots:
The creationism/ID lobby seeks to establish their sectarian interpretation of faith over physical evidence by promoting as science an astonishing religious error which actually contradicts the Bible!.
This teaching claims that evolution by natural processes, including what both creationists and ID’ers continually label “blind chance” (random occurrence), could only be “accidental”, and therefore godless. In this they agree with the atheist position.
Why this current marriage of convenience, agreeing with atheism against the Bible, in order to promote a religious agenda? Might it be because this heretical tactic permits them to deny the possibility of guided evolution through chance which would mean leaving science to simply do its job?
This startling and contradictory machination is carefully explained here:
Intelligent Design Rules Out God’s Sovereignty Over Chance
(Links not permitted so Google title if curious)
“What proponents of so-called intelligent design have cynically omitted in their polemic is that according to Biblical tradition, chance has always been considered God's choice as well.”
greetings all,
look at the heading to this write and explain to me how a dead billboard can praise a dead person.
Let everthing that has breath
"PRAISE THE LORD"
Glenn, that's nowhere near as strange as your reverence for a dead book that praises an undead hypothetical rabbi. =)
hi Johann, if you are refering to the Bible and The Risen CHRIST nothing strange, Taste and see bro taste and see
Christians show short-sightedness and faulty logic when they argue the "majority" versus "minority" rationale. Many of them seem to think that because a "majority" of the USA is Christian, thus they should have special rights to use their particular religions to dictate secular/worldly/government polices that thrust of their religious views/dogma upon the "minority" (nonbelievers, or believers in religions other than Christianity). Don't these Christians realize that the "majority" of the entire world is NOT Christian?!? And the "majority" of the USA does NOT belong to any single branch of Christianity (Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Lutherans, etc.). By their logic, Christianity worldwide should be suppressed because it is not believed by the majority of humans.
The majority can be wrong. At the time, the "majority" believed that the world was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. The "majority" of Southerners once believed that slavery was good (which the Bible does endorse).
Meanwhile, a crucial role of government is to protect the MINORITY from the whims of the majority or the group in power. Otherwise we would still have black slaves and women would not have the right to vote.
One could say it's radical to state that this is a Christian nation. Of course, it was founded by Christians. And when the Bill of Rights was ratified about half of our states had official state religions (all Christian). And the Supreme Court of the United States said in two different decisions that America was a Christian nation. And so did President Wilson. And House Resolution 888 (2007) said, "Whereas the United States Supreme Court has declared throughout the course of our Nation's history that the United States is `a Christian country', `a Christian nation', `a Christian people', `a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being', and that `we cannot read into the Bill of Rights a philosophy of hostility to religion';"
None of this meant that anyone had to worship in a Christian church or even believe in God (although there have been court cases in our history where witnesses were not allowed to testify because they were not believers). But our country is not permitted to establish an official national religion, and has never tried to do so since the Constitution was ratified.
The First Amendment's religion clauses do not guarantee you will not have to see or hear about religion. Nor do the First Amendment's speech clauses mean you will never have to hear speech that you don't agree with.
More here: churchvstate.blogspot.com/search?q=christian+nation
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