Some new billboards Colorado from an atheist group again take aim at churches across America with the message “Go ahead and skip church!”
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A new billboard on Interstate 40 between Greensboro and Winston-Salem is raising some eyebrows.
Nick Fish, the national program director for American Atheist, said this is the fifth or sixth year the organization has been doing the billboards as part of a campaign to encourage closeted atheists to come out and celebrate.
A follow up to last year’s atheist holiday billboard, a little girl telling Santa Claus all she wants for Christmas is to skip church, this year’s billboard shows Santa giving her permission, as long as she’s a good person. Just be good for goodness sake. The ad ends with “Happy Holidays!” instead of Merry Christmas.
The billboards are paid for by the American Atheists organization. David Silverman, president of American Atheists – the agency that bought the billboards – tells KRDO that the billboards aren’t necessarily meant to offend Christians. Some people have reached out to say it’s an attack on Christianity, while others have thanked the organization for spreading its message in predominately religious areas.
“Religious folks put up billboards all the time that say things like, “Jesus is the way, ‘ or ‘Join our church” and nobody looks at that and says, ‘Oh that’s very controversial, ‘” said Fish.
“I think it’s a little offensive”.
“I think their intentions are good, but maybe they could have worded it differently.”
“People celebrate the birth of Christ and that’s perfectly fine”. Although still by far the nation’s largest religious group, the percentage of adults who identify as Christian went down from 78.4 percent in 2007 to 70.6 percent in 2014. “We’re everywhere. And we don’t need church or gods to tell us how to be good people”.
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The billboards will run through the month of December. One is near Stratmoor Hills, and the other is near Exit 128 in Fountain.
