Atheist billboard campaign targets Christianity

A Baptist ethicist labeled billboards by American Atheists claiming religion has no place in presidential politics an unfair attack on people of faith.

A billboard campaign timed with the national presidential nominating convention mocks the religion of both presidential candidates and counters with a message, “Atheism, simply reasonable.”

Billboards placed around Charlotte, N.C., host city for the Sept. 3–6 Democratic National Convention, term Christianity “sheer silliness” that has “no place in politics.” The message displays an image of Jesus on burnt toast labeled “Sadistic God: Useless Savior … Promotes Hate, Calls it ‘Love.’”

The group founded by Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a noted atheist activist in the 1960s, wanted to place billboards for the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., but says no business would rent them the space. That ad showed a white man mocking a Mormon ritual by wearing white underwear saying, “God Is A Space Alien. Baptizes Dead People. Big Money, Big Bigotry.”

Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville, says the billboard campaign crosses a line. “Unable to make a compelling case for atheism, atheists launch hateful billboards mocking faith,” Parham tweeted.

“Imagine the outrage in the media had a group said bigoted and hateful things about gays, or women, or Hispanics or African-Americans,” Parham added in an EthicsDaily.com commentary Aug. 21. “The sponsoring group would have been labeled as a hate group.”

“Religion, on the other hand, is an easy and seemingly acceptable punching bag,” he continued. “Atheists punch away. Some liberals want a secularized public square. Others dismiss traditional morality, finding churches useful only when elections roll around. Secularists find houses of faith irrelevant.”

Parham urged readers to “consider what houses of faith and faith-based organizations do in the public square” and then ask “Who would fill the vacuum if the faith community abandoned social services and muted its moral witness?”  

(ABP)