I said that I had gotten bored with making fun of the bogus ‘war on Christmas’. How many jokes and snide remarks can you keep making year after year? But I see that American Atheists has not lost its zest for the fray and is not letting the season go by without using it as another way to increase the visibility of atheists in the US and they have unveiled yet another new billboard campaign.
I like the new billboard. I think gets at the heart of the appeal of nonbelief, and that is that going to church and other religious ceremonies is a waste of time. It also has a quirky paradoxical appeal in a child thinking that Santa Claus is more plausible than belief in a god.
AA is planning to place the billboards mostly in the South and you can be sure that it will be fought over with much vigor by the most persecuted group in America, Christians. You can expect aggrieved Christians to rise to the bait and make a fuss and demand that the billboards come down.
The billboard will appear in Memphis, Nashville, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Fort Smith, Ark. — right in the middle of a handful of red states. The campaign, according to an American Atheists news release, is “aimed at in-the-closet atheists who are pressured to observe religious traditions during the holidays” and who might want to attend the group’s Memphis conference next year. Running from Dec. 1 through Dec. 24, the campaign will also give the group a lot of press coverage (like this article) in the lead-up to Christmas.
…But American Atheists said it is bringing the campaign to the South not because of the quantity of atheists there, but because “discrimination and mistrust of atheists is especially pronounced” in the region.
So let the festivities begin!
Indeed it does have the paradoxical appeal. When I saw this in my email yesterday, I started imagining theists noticing that and getting confused by it, not getting, as you and I agree on, that the message is “Santa Claus is more plausible than belief in a god.” I wonder how true that will be.
Clever American Atheists advertising campaign. 🙂
I actually kind of like Christmas (or rather the not explicitly Christian traditions associated with it like trees, decorations and gift giving) but with all the “War on Christmas” crap becoming increasingly worse each year I wonder if I’ll soon feel obligated to boycott everything to do with it.
If wingnuts and bigots are the official defenders of Christmas, then are all my pretty ornaments and candy an unintentional show of loyalty to them? I already try to get cards that don’t use the actual name.
Ed,
I don’t bother with worrying about all that stuff. I avoid cards that have any religious overtones and don’t exchange presents and of course don’t go to church but enjoy the other aspects of it, like getting together with friends and even attending good choral carol services. Christmas is too much fun to leave to the Christians!
Yea, everything good about it could go with any belief system. I like how it brightens up the winter and brings people together. The main thing that bothers me are the songs on the radio and over loudspeakers. Not because of the religious content or because I dislike them all, but the degree of repetition. You hear the same songs ten times a day.
I picked up some cards that show a very pissed off Mary telling her son, who is standing near an open door while a winter storm visibly rages outside, “Jesus Christ! Shut the door! Where were you born? In a barn?” The interior text is “Season’s Greetings”.
Let the fun begin!
We should start a betting pool on how long the posters last before being defaced.
I’ll say 24 hours in most locations.