An atheist billboard in Fort Lauderdale, FL has believers irritated:
The billboard at Sunrise Boulevard and Northwest 27th Avenue — which read, “being a good person doesn’t require God” — “should be in no part of the community,” activist Essie “Big Mama” Reed said. Soon after it went up, Reed picketed against the sign for about a week with students from Team of Life, a neighborhood camp she runs for underprivileged children.
Big Mama doesn’t think it’s possible to be a good person without God? It’s hard for me to even imagine thinking that way anymore. What a sad way to view the world — it would be like us insisting people can’t be good unless they’re atheists.
Pastor James Ray of Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church, one of several houses of worship in the vicinity, said congregants complained about the 10-by-40-foot billboard.
“Everybody has their freedom of speech, but most of us know this universe is not here by a bang,” Ray said.
Sure Ray, whatever you say. I love the ending to the story:
“We could have made that billboard with kittens and hugging puppies, but as long as it says `atheist,’ they’ll protest,” he said, adding that the new sign will be slightly revised. On the first one, he said, “We accidentally capitalized ‘God.’ ”
It’s a constant struggle for me whether I want to capitalize words like “god,” “him,” and the bible. Sometimes I have to catch myself and change those back to lower case. It’s only proper I pay my respects to them; that is to say none at all.
I tend to capitalize God when I’m talking about the Judeo-Christian god. Much like I would capitalize Zeus or Odin or Allah or Yahweh or any other proper name. The word has become the proper name for the Judeo-Christian deity, so I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Likewise I capitalize The Bible in the same way I capitalize The Odyssey or The Eddas or The Koran or The Joy of Cooking. It is the name of a book after all, so it should follow the rules for proper names as well.
I don’t tend to capitalize “him” in reference to God though, since that’s not a typical English usage for a pronoun.
I don’t usually capitalize the pronoun either, even though I’m in the biz. Goes against my sense of English grammer.
In England, and probably in all nations that have a monarchy, rules of grammar require capitalization of pronouns when they refer to the King or Queen.
I don’t know how this fits here, but it seems to.
Oh, and when referring to the King and Queen, you use the plural pronoun only. So the Queen would not say: “I need to ….” She would say: “We need to…
I quit capitalizing god a while back and would avoid capitalizing Jesus if it wasn’t a common name used. I see capitalizing it as saying there is some being called god out there.
I usually capitalise Harry Potter’s name.
Harry Potter is an actual name though which quite a few people have (I remember a while back this kid called Harry Potter got a little bit on TV because of his name)
With god, a god is a being and you don’t usually capitalise human either.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s simple grammar.
“God”, in reference to the Abrahamic deity, is a proper name, and should therefore be capitalized. The word “god”, used in a context other than as a name, doesn’t need to be capitalized (unless, of course, it begins a sentence).
Likewise for “the Bible” vs. “a bible”. The collection of Christian scripture is “the Bible”. An authoritative text can be called “a bible”. Again, it comes down to ‘proper name vs. generic noun’.
Capitalizing ‘him’ is silly, no matter what.
(And it’s not really about respect. I still capitalize “Ted Haggard” or “Jerry Falwell” even though I have absolutely zero respect for either of them, and quite a few others. It’s just a matter of proper grammar.)
I have to throw in and agree. The capitalization is more about grammar and readability than it is respect, really. Notably, the “him” bit would be an example of intracultural jargon. I am not Christian, nor is my context Christian when speaking about their culture or religion; therefore I do not employ a great deal of their jargon including the weird grammar.
Why yes, it is about proper grammar. Which all those things don’t deserve.
I get not deserving respect. But not deserving grammar? What horrible lexical crime would have to be committed to warrant that?
Nope, did you turn all prescriptivist on us?
No, not prescriptivist by a long shot. I was just wondering about the arbitrary nature of applying the grammatical convention. It was like “I don’t like them, so I don’t think I’ll capitalize the stuff that’s important to them.” Well, more power to ya, but that sounds pretty silly from over here.
Proper nouns are always capitalized. A word like queen might usually be lowercase, but it’s Queen if you’re referring to a particular person. Yahweh is one of many gods but is frequently just plain God; I think he is the only god so called (although “Allah” is Arabic for “God”).
Those people will object to any kind of message which implies that God is not required for this or that, because they immediately perceive it as an effrontery to God. They’re defending their faith on auto-pilot.
Amazing how these people scream with panic at the very sight of the word “atheist” and yet we’re supposed to live quite happily with the products of their dangerous delusions all around us, otherwise we’re “intolerant” or “failing to show due respect” to their crazy ramblings.
That just illustrates how insecure they are about their faith.
Big Mama doesn’t think it’s possible to be a good person without God?
Nah. She just doesn’t want the news to get out. Insecure indeed.
It pains me to say so, but I think you’re right, Bender
Ohnoes, people believe different things! Oh the humanity…!
So much for a strong “faith”.
I drove through Florida recently (all the way down to Tampa) and the whole way down –like once every mile — were these giant anti-abortion signs with fetuses on them and stuff, very propaganda-ish. It seems to me that many Florida christians are only concerned with getting their own message out (very loudly) while feeling it is alright to quell someone else’s honest opinion.
I know those signs well, Ana, living in the Tampa Bay area as I do. Used to be you’d only see them on I-75 well north of Tampa, with a noticeable gap coming around Gainesville. But they’ve spread far and wide over the last several years. Depressing.
It only gets worse the further you get from a major city. Lakeland doesn’t count as a major city. It’s full of fundies. (I live in Bartow. It’s even worse. We have one ‘bookstore’, and it’s a head shop for religious paraphernalia.)
so what if there are abortion signs or atheist signs or signs for McDonald’s. it’s just ink on paper. who cares. Why should ink on paper be “depressing” to you? Think about it – it’s ink – on paper – on some metal frame. That’s it.
Disturbing imagery.
So are most books. Doesn’t mean the content represented by the ink in the paper in the metal frame isn’t disturbing.
I would like to see a group of atheist protest a religious billboard. I know it isn’t going to happen but guess we could try and get some other religious group to protest xhristian billboards. LOL
I don’t know many atheists who would protest the freedom of speech. We try not to talk out of both sides of our face at the same time.
Actually in the Netherlands they did protest, because some guy painted “Jezus saves” on his rooftop for everyone to see.
There was also a massive protest because in the Netherlands the creationists wanted to send thousands of leafelets telling that evolution is wrong, so they were planning to send all these leafelets back to them. I have no idea if tjose leafelets were actually sent, but I did discover that they were also trying in Belgium. Many Belgiums alread protested against this plan.
Here in Belgium, if you clame that evolution is wrong and that Jezus saves, they just launch at you in the face and then call the shrink to lock you up.
Creationisst are trying to cross the ocean, please keep them there!
Maybe more Belgians need to cross the Ocean to show us how it’s done. Tell them to bring some real beer with them.
I actually have picketed a church at Easter.
Why?
Because I thought it was funny.
If I picketed a Church in this state at Easter, my next stop would be an emergency room.
Like I said. It wasn’t in the US. I still find it hysterical.
I really struggle with this. I consider my self an agnostic, but not really for the reasons stated here. I think it is important to realise how individual interpretation, human perception, and a finite understanding of existence can make the theist / athiest dichotomy moot. As a biologist and a relatively normal person I feel I have a world view that gets me through the day: I accept gravity, I doubt I’ll ever come to like aubergine, I’m undecided about the existence of aliens. As this article says, god (the omniscient, the omnipotent, the omnitemporal, etc.) is in no way a part of my life as an agnostic. However, if pressed, I will not assert a true conviction or acceptance of anything! To reference Bertrand Russel, there may well be a giant teapot orbiting the earth, but while this is incredibly unlikely (obviously an understatement) the principle remains that it is not impossible, so why waste our time plumbing the depths of philosophical neurosis when we can get out there and solve the mysteries of existence rather than engaging in futile speculation.
L
Sounds like you are an agnostic atheist. Agnostic = I don’t know, atheist = I’m not going to behave as if it is true. One is about knowledge, the other belief.
I’m not sure about that, maybe on some levels, but I couldn’t claim to be an athiest because I see some theistic arguments as being rooted in the realms of possibility. For example, if you consider god as the totality of existance, which is a plausable leap given my previous definition of god, then leading your life as if you are part of said god doesn’t sound that irrational. So from a knowledge standpoint what cannot be ruled out has to be considered.
I do and always will take issue with the biblical god(head), which is a work of fiction, and although can still be considered a theory of god, it has the primary aim as an ontology to govern the moral lives of people who lived hundreds of years ago. It aludes to the deeper metaphysical question of a supreme entity but only in a very non-specific way (the mystery and awe factor!).
True agnosticism, as opposed to simply being undecided or doubting, represents the recognition of the god question as a non-question. We are here, lets learn the mechanisms of how. “Why are we here?” here is unanswerable.
Well, if you redefine God as the Laws of Physics, then I’m some sort of fundamentalist believer…
Yeah, it’s all semantics.
Any other interpretation of god is, to my mind, unhealthy for society in the long term. There is a lot of room for maneuver within the ‘universe as god’ idea. The universe could very well be a sentient being, it could be a simulation within another universe, there are endless possibilities. But roping the idea of god to a limited set of human experiences and a book is misguided to say the least.
They’re all sweetness and light and tolerance until you disagree with them, aren’t they? We can’t have the children seeing that there might be more than one viewpoint. It could confuse the little angels, and might even make them think for themselves…
“god” isn’t a proper name of the deity. That would be “Yaweh”. Proper name status doesn’t fly when it’s applied to God, He Him, His, and (in quotations) My. It’s a stupid affectation intended to leand importance to the imaginary entity in print. It has no basis in grammar.
Yahweh, the golden bull, God of Lightning, husband of Asherah…oh, but I’ve said too much!
“Everybody has their freedom of speech, but most of us know this universe is not here by a bang,”
You gotta love those strawmen.
I like how the protests accept that this is a freedom of speech issue, but still want it taken down anyway, because they assume that most people won’t agree with it. But, yeah, I feel for them. There’s a “JESUS” billboard every ten feet out here. I can relate.
Considering we have the son of God as our governor I understand why people don’t like it. ( http://doubtingeventhomas.blogspot.com/2009/08/governor-crist-appeals-to-god-to-stop.html )
Please god spare Florida and send these hurricanes to hit these B****rds in Texas and Luisiana instead. What an example of xtian charity.
“adding that the new sign will be slightly revised. On the first one, he said, “We accidentally capitalized ‘God.”
HAHAHAHA Too funny!
So, they are basically saying that since I’m atheist, I’m inherently evil.
That all atheists are actually evil.
These people are dangerous.
This same thing happened out here in California, in the Inland Empire area near (I believe) Fontana, which we lefty progressives like to call ‘Fontucky’ for obvious reasons. The signage company took the order, took the money, erected the sign, and after a barrage of complaints from the local believers, the sign came down. The company offered some lame excuse for the sign being removed, which of course was complete baloney. The area religious community rejoiced their victory over satan, and once again California proves not to be as open-minded as most people think.
Where I live in Orange County, you can bet it is overrun with churches and god-fearing people… in fact, I live only a few miles away from Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. They are so powerful, they received a county waiver to build a bridge over an ecologically-sensitive riverbed so their congregation could access the prayer facility better. The traffic around that place on Sundays is to avoided at all costs.
While I understand the superficial appeal of referring to Fontana as ‘Fontucky’, being as this (i.e., Kentucky) is the home of the Creation Museum as well as billboards with such charmingly quaint lexical combinations as “HELL is REAL”. However, this is also the home of Edwin Kagin (National Legal Director of American Atheists) who (along with his wife Helen) founded the Secular Humanist Camp Quest and is the former home of NCSE Director Eugenie Scott.
You are not wrong, however. I can t see an atheist billboard being accepted here except for possibly in Louisville. (I d love to see that, though).
10-4, Kristoff… truth be told, when we refer to ‘Fontucky’ it is with a witches brew of derision, affection and just a whiff of envy. The Inland Empire region of SoCal is a real melting pot of humanoids, and also the home of California Speedway, one of my favorite race tracks.
On the other hand, it is also chock-full of pick-up truck drivin, trucker hat-wearin, beer-drinkin, sh*t-kickin, bible-thumpin, Obama-hatin hoons that will stomp you silly in the Wal-Mart parking lot if they don’t like the way you don’t seem to be around from their neck of the woods. I can tell you from personal experience, as a SOCal native, I would rather be in East Los Angeles than Fontana when the sun drops.
You got it, Kristoff:
http://faith.courier-journal.com/2010/08/godless-billboard-unveiled.html
CA – LA – SF = AL
i do know what you mean from what you have said even if i am atheist which i am but even though you feel mad about what the bilboard has said but sometime you have to think what its like when we pass a christian sign that says come to so and so church then at leat you will be good at heart then and this is all from true realality the reason why i am saying this is because atheists are getting tha bad end just because we do not beleive what you do but that still wont defend your rudeness to atheists and further on i am not trying to be rude if it is what you might think when i say how do you know what happendall thos milleniums ago yeah there might be a god or even many gods but there also might not be any but if you know not just go on what a factory made book tells you but actually know how all this started then contact me a ysteve96@yahoo.com
…whoa.
WALL OF TEXT (nothing to see or think here move along) WALL OF TEXT
Yeah… I didn’t QUITE get that Steven.
If you ever want respect for your views from a believer, you need to respect them first (good person/atheist and all). Capitalizing their God word is a small price to pay. Heck, I capitalize Easter Bunny and Santa Clause too!
Is it a bad thing that I don’t give a rat’s ass what supernaturalists think of my worldview?
Cuz I don’t.
You should try spelling it right, too then: it’s Santa Claus, without an ‘e’.
i believe they capitalize the name harry potter….. but that doesnt make him any LESS fictional. so im not sure that it matters whether one capitalizes the name of their fictional deity or not. i only use capital letters anymore to express emotion or emphasize a point.