An unusual holiday message began appearing this week in the nation’s capital on the sides of buses and trains.
“No god? ... No problem!” reads the ad featuring the smiling faces of people wearing Santa Claus hats. “Be good for goodness’ sake.”
Over the next two weeks, 270 of the ads will go up on city buses and trains in the Washington area as part of the holiday kickoff to campaigns sponsored by secular groups in cities around the country and abroad. If last year was any indication, the signs are likely to spark a theological war of words.
“We don’t intend to rain on anyone’s parade, but secular people celebrate the holidays, too, and we’re just trying to reach out to our people,” said Roy Speckhardt, the executive director of the American Humanist Association. “To the degree that we are reaching out to the godly, it’s just to say that you can be good without god, so their atheist neighbor down the street shouldn’t be vilified as though he is immoral.”
Signs similar to those in Washington are being placed on buses and billboards in New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and near the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, and in London; Barcelona, Spain; Genoa, Italy; and Toronto, Montreal and Calgary, Canada, Speckhardt said.
Last year, a similar campaign by the association drew strong reactions.
The head of the Catholic League linked secular humanists to figures like Adolf Hitler and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. In Cincinnati, a billboard that said “Don’t believe in God? You’re Not Alone” had to be moved after the owner of the billboard property said he received threats. In Moscow, Idaho, a sign that said “Good without God. Millions of humanists are” was vandalized twice in three weeks.
“It is the ultimate grinch to suggest there is no God during a holiday where millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ,” said Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, a religious law firm. “It is insensitive and mean.”
After signs went up last year in Washington, religious groups took out their own ads. Pennsylvania Friends in Christ placed an ad reading: “Believe in God. Christ is Christmas for goodness sake.”
City transit officials said they had so far not received any requests from religious groups to post their own signs this year.
In Seattle, this year’s signs say “Millions are good without God.” In Las Vegas, signs to be put up this week say “Reasons Greetings” and “Yes, Virginia ... there is no God.”
The sponsor of the Las Vegas signs, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, created a furor last year with its sign that read, in part: “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS