WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGE TRIGGER ALERT! OMFG! How Dare They!

[Warren Stupidity]

A PROVOCATIVE billboard that is likely to ruffle the feathers of religious Australians has been erected on one of our busiest motorways.
A group of nonbelievers, Sydney Atheists, put up the giant sign on Sydney’s M4 motorway on Wednesday. It reads: “Have you escaped religion? We have!”
The organisation’s president, Steve Marton, told news.com.au the billboard wasn’t designed to offend, but to provoke thought.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/have-you-escaped-religion-we-have-the-billboard-that-will-make-christians-cross/story-fniym3t1-1227210471125

[onager]

1. Which will trigger the usual response...

ETA - originally posted the Jane Froman clip of this song, but the copyright owner disabled playback everywhere except YouTube. That's OK, the Como version is even hokier.

[JDDavis]

3. Holy Como, batman!

That video is offensive to me.

[olddots]

17. Perry made me an atheist when I was 7 years old

That kind of dreck works against their dumbth .

[Gelliebeans]

2. K & R

[trotsky]

5. Nope, just fine. Just fine believin' folk expressing their deeply-held beliefs.

But atheists? Just admitting we exist is being "in your face." Let alone using words like "escape" when talking about our former beliefs. Oh, how terrible! EXACTLY THE SAME as rabid fundamentalists who kill people.

[Arugula Latte]

6. The atheist one is MILITANT, I tell you!

But the Jesus one is just spreading the Good News -- a magical 2,000-year-old zombie from Judea shall be along shortly.

[RoccoR5955]

14. The same magic that

launched the good news of the CRUSADES!
Give me a break already.

[onager]

7. Don't forget our arrogance...

As in putting up billboards that claim we have "the answer."

Oh, that wasn't us. Never mind.

I have to admit, the "Jesus is the answer" line always irks me. Thoughtless, Bumper-Sticker Xianity at its finest.

And being one of them arrogant atheists, I'm always tempted to respond: "Jesus is the answer? Only if you asked a really dumb question."

[Curmudgeoness]

8. Men of Integrity?

[nichomachus]

12. Right, because if you're not a Christer, you have no integrity.

I was visiting friends in Florida and one day the guy I was staying with wanted to buy some weed. So we went to his dealer's house. On the way, he told me how the dealer (a college classmate of his) and his wife were into swingers' group and went to these wild sex parties. When we got there, the wife gave us the bag of weed. She said the husband wasn't there because he was at his Promise Keepers' meeting.

[Curmudgeoness]

13. .........

[Arugula Latte]

16. Maybe he promised Jesus that he'd keep swinging.

[onager]

22. Promise Keepers great for strip club business...

2012 article from the NY TIMES, about Tampa gearing up for the GOP convention:

Strip Clubs in Tampa Are Ready to Cash In on G.O.P. Convention

...As Tampa gears up for the Republican National Convention, the biggest party it has ever held, the city and its businesses are primping and polishing for the August arrival of tens of thousands of visitors. Like it or not — mostly not, for city officials — Tampa’s well-known strip clubs have joined the welcome wagon...

Angelina Spencer, the executive director of the Association of Club Executives, which serves as a trade association for strip clubs, said an informal survey of convention business in New York and Denver had determined that Republicans dropped more money at clubs, by far.

“Hands down, it was Republicans,” she said. “The average was $150 for Republicans and $50 for Democrats.”

As further evidence of the clubs’ nonpartisan appeal, Don Kleinhans, the owner of the 2001 Odyssey, said when the Promise Keepers, a male evangelical group, came to town years ago, business was rollicking.

“We had phenomenal numbers all weekend, and they walked in wearing badges and name tags and weren’t shy at all,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/us/strip-clubs-in-tampa-are-ready-to-cash-in-on-gop-convention.html?_r=0

[Manifestor_of_Light]

25. I was in a Promise Keepers guy's office once.

He had on a polo shirt with "Promise Keepers" embroidered on it.

He also had a VHS player and TV in his office and one of the tapes sitting under the TV had the title "BLACK WHITE ANAL".

Needless to say, I was not impressed.

[nichomachus]

11. Must have been a really stupid question n/t

[AlbertCat]

24. What's the question?

[Lordquinton]

26. For that you have to got to church

they've got a good racket going.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. Ruffle feathers?

What happened to tolerance? Acceptance? Oh, that's right, it only goes one way.....atheists have to tolerate theists, not the other way around. Because privilege.

[Panich52]

20. We are spreading the non-Word. Just google "atheist billboard"

But the hate continues... Atheists are the minority w/ longest history of discrimination.

[Curmudgeoness]

23. OMG! A couple of atheist billboards!

For shame. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Wait till we start knocking on doors!

[skepticscott]

15. Sadly, even many atheists

are so consumed with self-loathing and the all-consuming need to defend religion and its adherents no matter what, that this sort of thing brings on an orgy of scolding directed towards "aggressive" atheists who are "hurting the cause" (as if subservient deference ever helped anything for atheists) and offending "people of faith". And of course, the obligatory self-flaggelation for not quite being able to believe themselves.

[Lordquinton]

18. I want to ask them what would be an acceptable billboard

to them. Not that it really matters, I just want to know how far they've really thought it through, or if they just want people to shut up.

[skepticscott]

19. The faitheists over in Religion and Interfaith

just want there to be a god. They want...they NEED to believe AND to have that belief be something that their smarter and more enlightened friends can't snicker about.

[JNelson6563]

21. This is oppression!1!!