It’s amazing that anyone would find the Center For Inquiry’s billboard campaign controversial, but it’s already been ejected from Knoxville, Tennessee and it’s the subject of a lot of media attention in other places.

This is the billboard CFI put up in several cities:

“You don’t need God — to hope, to care, to love, to live.”

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, just look at how some of the coverage has been:

… when it comes to discussion, billboards can also bring a whole host of topics parents may or may not be prepared to handle, like sex or religion. But child psychologists say parents shouldn’t shy away from the tough stuff. “If the child is old enough to ask and formulate the question, I think we as parents should be able to answer the question, the amount of information we provide may depend on the kid`s age,” said Dr. Steven Pastyrnak, of Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital.

Sending your children to Sunday School? Not controversial.

Exposing children to the fact that you don’t need a god to be good? Controversial.

That’s Christian logic for you…

Here’s another one:

Of all the phrases they could’ve used, they took out “You don’t need God…to live”? It sounds downright scary when they phrase it like that…

Not bad coverage and discussion, though, for a completely mild billboard in a religious city.

As long as people complain about something so innocuous, these billboards will continue to go up. They will only stop being effective when people start ignoring them.

But, thanks to churches, that’s not going to happen anytime soon 🙂 They can’t cope with the idea that we exist and we’re increasingly vocal about our atheism.



