Death Threats Over Atheist Billboards

[gzregorz]

"Godless” Billboard Is Moving

The group behind a sign promoting atheism awareness plans to move the billboard today. The owner of the building which features the billboard is receiving death threats, and has asked that the sign be moved.

“Don’t Believe In God? You are not alone.” are the words featured on the billboard on Reading Road at 12th Street, one block south of Liberty Street. It was placed there by Cin CoR, the Cincinnati Coalition of Reason.

The group says the display is part of a coordinated statewide campaign that includes similar billboards announced today in Columbus and Cleveland. It’s aimed at raising awareness about people who don’t believe in a god.

When the billboard went up on Tuesday, the national director of the group, Fred Edwords, said, “The point of our national billboard campaign is to reach out to the millions of humanists, atheists and agnostics living in the United States. Nontheists sometimes don’t realize there’s a community out there for them because they’re inundated with religious messages at every turn. So we hope this will serve as a beacon and let them know they aren’t alone.”

Around 2:00 PM Wednesday, the group was contacted by Lamar Advertising of Cincinnati. Lamar reported that the landowner of the site had been threatened over the billboard’s message and wanted it taken down. Lamar only leases the land the billboard stands on. “We weren’t given the landowner’s name or precise details,” reported Fred Edwords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason. “Nor did we pursue them. It was sufficient to learn that this person had received multiple, significant threats and that Lamar would act quickly to alleviate the problem. Nothing like this has ever happened to us before.”

The new location near the Sixth Street Viaduct, is owned by Lamar Advertising of Cincinnati and therefore isn’t subject to landowner restrictions. The billboard will face east, visible on the left to traffic traveling west out of the city across the viaduct toward the suburbs of Delhi and Price Hill.

Shawn Jeffers, co-coordinator for Cin CoR, sees this controversy as evidence of the billboard’s importance. “Everything that has happened shows just how vital our message is,” Jeffers said. “It proves our point, that bigotry against people who don’t believe in a god is still very real in America. Only when we atheists, agnostics and humanists come together and go public about our views will people have a chance to learn that we too are part of the community and deserve respect... Hopefully this turn of events will cause more and more nontheistic people in Cincinnati to realize how necessary it is to get organized.”

United CoR has launched ten billboard campaigns already this year in places like New York City, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and New Orleans. But the buildings owner apparently received some threatening messages, which prompted the decision to move it.

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 95&start=0

[Darth Rock&Roll]

hmmmn. death threats from Christians?

golly.

Also, since when is an agnostic on par with an atheist? An agnostic believes in god, they don't believe in the need for intercession. And humanists can also have a belief in a god and still practice humanism and still be very secular in their ways.

I think people are confusing the idea of an existence of god and tying it up with all the stuff that a church is. This is an error in my opinion.
Peoples resentment towards the Churches is starting to manifest as a trend towards atheism that isn't grounded in anything more than resentment and that's not even atheism. It's mere contrariness.

[cdobe]

hmmmn. death threats from Christians?

golly.

Also, since when is an agnostic on par with an atheist? An agnostic believes in god, they don't believe in the need for intercession.

Nope, that's a deist. An agnostic believes that you cannot know whether or not god exists.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

well not necessarily.

An agnostic usually states that you cannot define what god is. But at the same time, an agnostic can be a theist as well.

By stating that you cannot know god does not preclude the belief in god and therefore, in my opinion, it is incorrect to lump agnostics in with atheists.
They are really not the same thing.

[Steve James]

Atheists do not believe in a God, hence the name "no God." Agnostics don't know, hence their name. However, there are different forms of not knowing and not believing. It's easiest to just copy from a wiki, so fwiw.

Agnostic atheism, also called atheistic agnosticism, encompasses atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not have belief in the existence of any deity, and agnostic because they do not claim to know that a deity does not exist. The agnostic atheist may be contrasted with the agnostic theist, who does believe that one or more deities exist but does not claim to have knowledge of such.
Individuals who identify as agnostic atheists may justify their position by reference to epistemology, theory of justification or Occam's razor.

[zenshiite]

hmmmn. death threats from Christians?

golly.

Also, since when is an agnostic on par with an atheist? An agnostic believes in god, they don't believe in the need for intercession. And humanists can also have a belief in a god and still practice humanism and still be very secular in their ways.

I think people are confusing the idea of an existence of god and tying it up with all the stuff that a church is. This is an error in my opinion.
Peoples resentment towards the Churches is starting to manifest as a trend towards atheism that isn't grounded in anything more than resentment and that's not even atheism. It's mere contrariness.

I think you're on the money with the contrariness of most so-called "atheists" these days. In fact, I'd say even the most prominent "new" atheist authors that are in vogue tend to suffer from this themselves. Especially those that automatically assume that believing in the existence of God makes one irrational or anti-rational. Particularly when the foundations of Western rationalism rest in the works of men who admit to belief in a divinity.

[The K Prodigy]

It's good to know there are still people out there who would kill another man over his beliefs.

[Bill]

It's good to know there are still people out there who would kill another man over his beliefs.

Amen

[Doc Stier]

[cdobe]

I don't agree with Darth and Wiki If you take that road everybody is an agnostic. What Darth said belongs to the differentiation between deism and theism.

But what do I know...

[The K Prodigy]

Agnosticism is the stance that we can never make a definitive statement on the existence of Deus. Instead of attempting to answer the question, we sit on the fence, because we've come to an understanding that no evidence can be proposed that will prove either side correct. When atheists tell us there is no god, we ask them to prove it. When theists tell us there is a god/multiple gods, we ask them to prove it. When both sides fail to do so, we laugh and carry on. The burden of proof rests on the one making a claim, we make no claims, and need no proof. And remember kids, what you may consider as evidence for your side is completely subjective to you.

[affa]

Atheists do not believe in a God, hence the name "no God."

technically, mightn't they believe in a (No(g-d)) instead?

[Darth Rock&Roll]

I am an agnostic deist then.

I do not believe that I can know what God is or if there is a god. But I choose to believe in God nevertheless with the full understanding that my belief is my choice and has nothing to do with anything else but that.

I don't support churches or the idea of them.
I don't support organized religion or the idea of that either.

Nevertheless, I do believe there is more to my being than what I am able to sense.

So, to not drive myself crazy looking for answers I cannot ever attain, I simply choose to believe and I can now move on with the more mundane day to day tasks of life!

Yay god!

[Muad'dib]

It was placed there by Cin CoR, the Cincinnati Coalition of Reason

Cin Cor = Sin Corp. = The Sinner's Corporation = Sometimes Satan is so fucking obvious. Burn these people at the stake live the devil worshippers they are.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Burn Cincinnati to the fucking ground! It's the devils city.

While we're at it, burn america to the ground because it's just a big satan worshipping cauldron of sin!!!

It has to be destroyed!!!!
[/sarcasm]

lol

p.s please use [/sarcasm] tags when saying such things.