The billboard American Atheists have put up in Salt Lake City is…nice. Not very aggressive at all. I don’t know about this — I rather like them being a bit in-your-face.
Of course, even with a gentle sign, the Salt Lake Tribune seems a little weirded out. First they express mild surprise that atheists are normal people, they report on the mother of one of the people in the picture who is not very happy, because what he and these atheist groups espouse can be “hurtful stuff,”
and they just have to try and shoehorn atheism into a familiar pattern.
University of Utah professor of religious studies Colleen McDannell says it’s a quintessential human attribute, evidenced throughout our nation’s history, to want to be a part of something.
"It doesn’t do in America just to be an individual nonbeliever," she says. "We’re a country of joiners."
In other words, organized nonreligion. American Atheists President David Silverman explained in a news release, "Our message is this: If you don’t believe anymore, don’t continue to base your identity in Mormonism. You’re so much more than an ‘ex-Mormon’; you’re an atheist."
Oh, well. I’m tempted to do a fierce atheist talk at the convention, but I was planning to do something sciencey instead.
It’s got the word “Mormon” with an “x” over it, that’s “aggressive” enough given the location.
And I’ve seen their more “aggressive” billboards, this one’s an improvement. I sure wish they could pick up another fonts CD though.
Not to worry. The LSD still considers them to be Mormons. Just not tithe-paying Mormons. So they still count them.
Please, go ahead and do something sciencey, something that might help all those doubting Mormons to explore their own doubt. Notice that the sign doesn’t say “come and join American Atheists in our doubt.” If you want to be part of something bigger than yourself, there’s a whole universe out there for you to identify with. Tell them something about it.
In other words, humans are social animals.
Next time on Discovery Channel: Water, did you know it is wet?
I thought we were a nation of rugged individualists. I’m so confused.
Just don’t call us “loners”. “Loner” is apparently synonymous with “lone gunman” in the minds of TV reporters.
I thought the Salt Lake Trib web page was great, they even included an unedited page from Monnett’s facebook. Way better than I would have expected, although SL had a liberal mayor for a while.(dunno about now)
I think Silverman’s methods are effective, good cop, bad cop gets confessions and isn’t that what we want? Believers to confess to themselves their doubts?
Cross-posted from the Vikings Football thread (Chris Kluwe is also scheduled to speak at the convention, so that is the connection between the billboard thread and the football thread):
From the comments below the Salt Lake Tribune article describing the Atheist Convention billboard:
A lot of people in Salt Lake City still missing the point. They really need an Atheist Convention to open their eyes.
“I rather like them being a bit in-your-face.”
Turns out there’s more than one persuasive strategy than constantly being a dick.
Do I detect a hint of dismay coming from our benign Overlord over the “shoehorning” of atheists into the “familiar pattern” of “organized nonreligion?” If so, this will concern his many minions, the Hoard who regularly hang out on one of the most popular atheist blogs in the world — reading, learning, commenting, arguing against, agreeing with, and supporting each other. How dare the media distort the situation. Not all atheists are “joiners.”
I mean, for example — there’s us!
More comments from readers of the Salt Lake Tribune article:
Ah, this sentiment always amuses. Here in ND, religious billboards are a dime a dozen. I also recall many religious billboards in SLC when I lived there.
Here are some earlier American Atheist billboard proposals for the National Convention in Salt Lake City.
Everyplace that isn’t a church…. is where you practice atheism. They don’t like to be reminded of how small their control over society has been getting.
This is one of the most common complaints — or questions — I’ve heard from religious/spiritual friends regarding my atheist conventions. They seem to be genuinely puzzled. “But what do you do? What sorts of things would there be to talk about?”
I usually bring up the talks on science, philosophy, ethics, or other topics which could well have been given in some other convention and are thus acceptably “normal” and “positive” and thus understandable. But I’m rethinking the value of my doing this, partly because it feeds into the sense of religious privilege. It’s a bit too accomodationist, perhaps.
The working assumption behind the question is that truth can’t be the point. Arguing against something you don’t believe is without substance if the belief in any way helps other people. The proper attitude for the nonbeliever is apathy towards what others believe. Therefore, if the main focus of the convention is “attacking” supernatural beliefs and organizations, then it’s focused on hate. Faith is personal, special, and something to be respected.
Church-state separation issues are okay, I guess. But if the speakers spend time on dismantling arguments for the existence of God and encouraging atheists to spread them, then this is negative information, negative thinking, and negative value.
My own friends extend this to skeptic groups as well, of course. The paranormal and alt med and the like apparently fall into the same privileged class of “things you ought to allow other people to believe in if they want.”
I think religion and spirituality play a trick on their adherents. The truth about God is THE most important fact there is and belief in this is THE most important choice an individual can make. But, at the same time, the entire subject is supposed to be minimalized into being like a hobby, a lifestyle, a preference, or a taste. Just as you would not hold a convention about how stupid it is to like to knit or wear wool sweaters, you would not hold a convention against religion. Right?
Because why would you care? What is there to talk about??
We need to encourage our culture to delve into the distinction. We also need to disabuse people of the sense that religion and spirituality are unmitigated positives. On the contrary, where they are positive, they always overlap with humanism. We wouldn’t consider them positives if they didn’t.
For me, organized atheism is a political movement. It’s not like I actually want to spend my time fighting against medieval mindsets — what I want is for them to go away, so I can get back to far more interesting things, like science, engineering, the arts… that’s how I’d prefer to spend my time. But the religious won’t leave me alone. They won’t stop voting for stupid, destructive, oppressive policies, all in the name of religion. So I can’t just ignore them.
I’m really not a joiner. It’s more like… “Join, or die”.
I think the message on the board is super clever.
For those not in Utah or around Mormons:
Every six months the Mormons get together for “General Conference” in which the Mormon-Pope (called Prophet or President depending upon which duty he is fulfilling) and the Apostles speak.
Following the October 2013 General Conference, my very Mormon family quoted (to me) many times the new rally cry of “doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.”
This billboard seems to be playing right off of it, and I think Mr. Silverman is clever for doing so.
Do you think that PZ expressing his personal preference is a demand that everyone else comply with his views? If not, what was the point of your comment?
Of course there’s more than one strategy. As it happens, many of us think that multiple strategies are a good thing. I even seem to recall PZ saying as much on some occasions. So, who do you think you’re disagreeing with?
sapperdon:
Hahahaha, ah, that makes the billboard even better. Wonderful.
Well what if I start doubting my doubt doubts? What then?
I like this billboard.
(Apart from the font – but even that isn’t outright horrible.)
And so, the Seed of Doubt was planted.
Seconded.
@8:
Ah yes, bc that’s the only strategy PZ has ever advocated. You must be new.
Billboards that do not genuflect to christianity still mortifies some people. Even here in one of the most secular areas of North America we have our kooks having conniptions over a fairly innocuous message. What the kooks fail to realize is that they are “useful idiots” in the quest for rational thought.
Thank you kook for bringing this to my attention. The billboard is about 2 miles from where I live but not on my regular route.
I doubted doubting my doubts.
IT’S DOUBTS ALL THE WAY DOWN!!!
Louis
I doubt that you doubted doubting your doubts. But, if I write it, it is of doubtful use, so . . .
@ 15. Nemo
Indeed, well put.
I must build a redoubt around my doubt.
Louis @23 for the win.
With mormonism, it really is doubts all the way down. Their apologists keep trying to address doubts as they pop up, but no sooner have they inadequately addressed one, and another pops up. And every discussion leads directly back to historical sources that damn their founding con artist. By now, the apologists are in a very deep hole … and still digging.
Polyandry leads to Joseph Smith.
Polygamy leads to Joseph Smith.
Racism leads to Joe.
Plagiarism leads to Joe.
We’ve even got Joe nailed for voter suppression, illegal banking practices, and willful destruction of the property of non-mormons.
There’s not much that Joe the Con Artist missed when it came to scamming people. If you doubt that Joe saw God in a grove of trees, please do explore that issue. You will find four or five other versions of the same event, all written by Joseph Smith. Seems that Joe doubted his own recollection, doubted his own myth making. Yes, it is doubts all the way down.
Couldn’t you give a talk about how small black cats in foster care need a forever home?
the text is fine and timely with the doubting your doubt slogan from the mormons ‘
What really nails it is the graphic. A smiling family emphasizing it is not the isolated rugged individual vs everyone else full of evil and hate for “normal stuff” it is just humans and normal families.
The image I remember being emphasized when I was a kid by the church was of the atheist as a hostile loaner bent on the destruction of all that was good.
That was a problem when learning about democracy and the founding fathers and the constitution. God was not involved nor was belief ? Even before I heard about how evolution and science worked there was a conflict in views.
so driving past that sign what will stick are atheists and normal family people and doubt!
that is enough.
uncle frogy
@8 eric1rom
Are you ever tempted to try one of the alternate strategies?
nobonobo:
Heh. +1
Reminds me of one of my very favoritest Cuttlefish poems, originally penned for the first big Australian conference. It begins:
I think it is brilliant: it is speaking the language of the Mormons. Especially the family orientation.
The real question is what outreach activities the atheists will conduct during the convention. Presenting opportunities to discuss doubts in private throughout the city would be excellent.
Even better, door-to-door proselytizing by atheists in suits, white shirts and ties would be excellent.
It really is! That’s fundamental to science theory! :-)
This I… doubt; it means [one woman having] many men [as husbands]. Do you mean polygyny, [one man having] many women [as wives]? (Polygamy, “marrying many”, is the cover term for both.)
Antiselytizing? :-)
(Disclaimer: I don’t know anywhere near enough Greek to tell if that makes sense.)
@DM
Several of the women that Joseph Smith married were already married.
And they still look utter shite.
Honestly, has anyone ever introduced Dave to the concept of a “professional graphic designer,” and the wisdom of hiring one for this sort of thing?
@5:
Damn right this is a nation of rugged individualists. All of us are.
Martin Wagner @36
What’s the fun in that? If Dave had professionals design his billboards then what would he do, besides antagonize Bill O’Reilly? Everyone needs a hobby and bad billboard design is David Silverman’s.
David M. @34
I meant polyandry. As others have noted, Joseph Smith married many women who were already married. Sometimes he even sent their husbands on missions to get them out of the picture so he could make a move on the wife. Brigham Young employed some of the same tactics, as you can see from the details below. Other mormon apostles, such as Heber C. Kimball, also married women polyandously.
Joseph Smith was a piker compared to his successor Brigham Young. Smith had only 25 to 28 wives (the number depends on who’s counting). Young had 55 wives and 57 children by 16 of these wives.
More responses to the Salt Lake Tribune article about the billboard:
http://www.i4m.com/think/temples/temple_clothes.htm
Photo of mormon temple garments, including the green apron, here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94625494@N00/3816206493/
I think it’s been done before to comedic effect.
I’ve always sort of preferred the general atheist evangelical technique: We’ll just be over here having a beer and enjoying life. It seems to be slowly working.
Sandy Small@37
(Monty Python) I’m not! (/Monty Python)
I don’t really get the importance of “You’re so much more than an ‘ex-Mormon’; you’re an atheist.” Everyone is “so much more” than an ex member of whatever religion they followed but I doubt their lack of belief in god is the pinnacle of their achievements as a human being. But perhaps this speaks to Mormons in a way I do not understand because I have never been Mormon.
I think the reason they say something like this is because saying you’re an Atheist rather than merely “Fomerly a Mormon” is more powerful. It’s a positive statement, identifying yourself by a trait rather than a lack of a trait. There’s the old anecdote about a parent being aghast at their child, saying that being non-religious is one thing but an Atheist? That’s so much worse. By declaring yourself an Atheist you are (ironically) making a positive statement of believe rather than a negative statement of non-belief. If you say “Atheist” instead of “Ex-[religion]” you are no longer even identifying yourself based on your association with a religion, you are verbally cutting ties.
So yes, the simple fact of calling yourself an Atheist is indeed so much more than merely being an Ex-member of a religion. You’re officially delineating yourself from being in the same category as an agnostic or non-practicing religious person or maybe even someone who calls themself “spiritual”. You’re an Atheist, you’re much more than just an Ex-Mormon.