More cancer from the New American Dark Age. Any religious billboard or church marquee or newspaper ad or bumper sticker is angrily defended as an exercise in religious freedom and First Amendment prerogative; this is just speakin' free for Jebus, as the abandoner-of-Alaska's-gubernatorial-post-for-no-honorable-reason might say. (On my drive to and from KY--especially in the backwater of IN--there are several "HELL IS REAL" and "JEBUS IS REAL" billboards--as though the dude who went to the trouble to put them up would know; but hey, they're a nice complement to the official "In god we trust" license plates with waving Amurrican flag background.) But the simplest, most innocuous statement of an alternate way of thinking is deemed intolerable, free speech be damned! And not just by the truck-driving wacko who can't bear this idea to be floating in the aether; even the newspaper calls the billboard "controversial." Please.
"Don't believe in God? You're not alone."
Sorry, Bubbles, but this is just a simple statement of fact. Controversial might be: "Christianity: Stackin' Up the Bodies Like Cordwood" or maybe "Scientists Confirm: Allah Could Kick Jebus' Ass (But Zoroaster Trumps Them Both)." Or how about: "Leave Your Son Alone With A Priest for REAL Sex Education." THESE would be controversial. That above billboard? Not even close.
But at least there's a weird denihilistic consistency among the fundies. They've suffered similar bouts of intolerance with bus billboard campaigns here in the US and abroad, with people crying that even having to look at the assertion that gods are mythology is "offensive." But the inescapable fact is this: any religious conviction other than what a person believes amounts to the same thing, a denial of MY god-figure. Christians tolerate Jews and Buddhists and Muslims and Shintos and Hindus as simply practicing their First Amendment rights, but the assertion that ALL religions are false (instead of all but one, which is the claim of every religious person on the planet) justifies an enraged response. Well, at least they're not 'misunderestimating' their foes.
I'll happily contribute a few bucks to fix that billboard.
4 comments:
We had Muslim bus ads here a few years ago, and those were pretty controversial too. Essentially, any minority religion/lack thereof is controversial whatever they do.
I do remember there being a flap over recent congressional electees being sworn in with something other than the Bible. So yes, I think you are right; there has always been intolerance of the "other."
Let them deface these signs. It merely illustrates that Christianity is not about the teachings of Jesus. It's not about caring for the poor. It's not about tolerance. It's about dogma. It's about power. It's about fear of rationality.
"Denihilist" -- great neologism. I have to use it sometime.
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