HUNTSVILLE, AL -- Alert to mission-supporting, God-fearing, neighbor-helping Christians: You are not the target of the billboard about to go up across from Joe Davis Stadium.

But you're probably not going to like it.

The American Atheists have rented the billboard visible from the northbound lanes of Memorial Parkway for the second in a national series of "You Know" messages meant to attract attention, stir conversation, and encourage "closeted" atheists to be more open about their unbelief.

The sign will be in place, depending upon weather, this weekend, said Blair Scott of Huntsville, who is national communication's director for the organization devoted to protecting the civil rights of non-believers.

"We know we're going to make a lot of people mad - we understand that," Scott said. "But our target is not the Christians, but all the atheists and agnostics still in the closet who are still pretending, still playing the game, still putting up a facade."

The first billboard in the "You know" series, posted in New Jersey along one of the major arteries into New York City, featured a Christian Nativity scene with the logo, "You know it's a myth."

Reaction to that billboard included a highly publicized official rebuttal from the Catholic League, which rented an adjacent board for their own message. The controversy meant that the message received national attention, Scott said.

"Thanks to the Catholic League, our message reached hundreds of people," Scott said. "We received e-mails from people saying, 'Thank you. I thought I was the only one.' We sent the League a thank-you letter."

Huntsville's sign will feature a red background with silhouettes of buildings at one side. The buildings are topped with the emblems of five of the world's major religions: A Christian cross, a Jewish star of David, a Muslim crescent, a Shinto temple and a Hindu trident of Shiva.

White letters blazing across the top will proclaim, "You KNOW they're all SCAMS."

The "scams" include telling people how to live and taking their money "all in exchange for an afterlife that does not exist," according to Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists.

Other scams include individual congregations or entire denominations that propogate more terrestrial sorts of fraud. For instance, Blair Scott says, he finds it hard to believe that anyone still attends the Catholic church after the manifold evidence of ways the church hierarchy protected known child molesters, has uncovered embezzling at high levels, and continues to ban condom use even though that could help save lives in AIDS-riddled Africa.

"All this, and people are still going to Mass," Scott said. "It boggles my mind. It's like after Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker got busted, people still sent them money!"

The sign here in Huntsville will also give the dates of the Southeast Regional Atheist Meet, which will be held at the Holiday Inn downtown Jan. 29 and 30. It is the first such regional meeting for the 10 states in the organization's Southeast U.S. region since the 1970s, Scott said. The meeting is open to non-members who register.



Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists and originator of the campaign, will be among speakers for that meeting. Also speaking will be Sean Faircloth, the executive director of the Secular Coalition of America.

Faircloth will give an update on the formation of a chapter of the Secular Coalition in Alabama, Scott said. That organization lobbies for laws that protect the separation of church and state and protects the interests of atheists, humanists, agnostics and free thinkers. It also distributes congressional scorecards for voters to follow legislators' patterns.