I saw a blog post tonight on Hemant Mehta's "Friendly Atheist" blog titled "Questioning God is Apparently Hate Speech." Hemant is the author of I Sold My Soul on eBay (a book that describes his visits to a variety of Christian churches. These visits initially occurred as a result of an eBay auction and the media reaction was the Mehta "sold his soul on eBay").
His blog post is related to my recent blog post on recent American Humanist Association bus ads (When Did Expressing Doubt About God Become a "Negative" Attack Message?).
Apparently, the atheist billboard ad is at the top of this blog post is considered offensive "hate speech" but other billboards in Colorado expressing religious views like the one below are OK:
Here's the news coverage from the Rocky Mountain News about this billboard dispute:
The message is but eight words divided into two short sentences set against puffy white clouds on a blue and black background.
One of the men behind the billboard message says his life has been threatened because of it, which seems an odd thing since those doing the threatening all profess to be Christians.
Just eight words:
"Don't believe in God?" the upper left of the billboard reads. "You are not alone," the lower right says.
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The sole purpose of the ads, the group maintains, is what it says: to let other freethinkers, atheists and humanists know there is a group out there for them.
Two of the 11 signs were supposed to go up in Fort Collins and Greeley, the group said. This was so until the moment the media company that owns the two billboards read the message.
The hate mail and nasty, threatening phone messages began almost immediately.
Much of it has been directed at Joel Guttormson, who mostly has been serving as a spokesman for COCORE, as they call it.
Twenty-two and a Metro State junior majoring in theoretical mathematics, Guttormson also is president of the Metro State Atheists, one of the 11 groups that make up COCORE.
"It's been kind of wild, kind of outrageous," he says of days since the billboards went up.
"It has been mostly Christians who've been calling and e-mailing," Joel Guttormson said, "which is strange since the message is not directed at Christians or anyone from any religion.
"You know, if you see an ad for migraine medicine and you don't have a migraine, why would you care?"
Almost all of the feedback, he said, has been from people who say the billboards denigrate Christians. He says he still has no idea how that is possible.
"We are not out to anger people," Joel Guttormson said. "I don't know why people think that. So much of it says we are evil and that we hate everybody.
"Have you seen the billboard? Tell me where any of them mentions evil or hate. Why is everyone so mad?"
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There is some good news out of this -- Joel Guttormson reports:
"The cool thing is we've even had some Christians step up and defend us. They know our message is no more offensive than one that reads:
"Believe in God? You're not alone."
7 comments:
I read your link to Mehta, and I think he (and you) have the "hate speech" idea backward. Nobody is calling the atheist billboard "hate speech" as you report -- except Mehta!
If anything, it is of course the responses from angry Christians that are hateful, not the billboard. You are setting up a strawman by taking it further than that to accuse the angry Christians of something they did not actually say, rather than limiting your remarks to the entirely lamentable things that they did. Falsely accusing others of making false accusations only brings you right down into the mudpit with the rest of the brawlers, and forfeits the advantage you otherwise might have held in moral authority and credibility.
However, I rather suspect there's an even deeper strawman in the dynamic, too. Just as atheists doubt the existence of God, I doubt the integrity of the sponsors when they protest that their billboards were merely intended to reach out to other atheists. How were the locations for the billboards chosen? If I were trying to provide moral support to lonely fellow atheists via billboard, I would think Madison or Chicago or Cambridge would be more target-rich markets for my advertising dollar. Colorado Springs, in contrast, is more or less Ground Zero for the evangelical megachurch phenomenon. I very much suspect the billboards were really placed there precisely in order to provoke the reaction they did, in the cynical and underhanded (but perfectly rational) hope that an angry enough reaction would in turn provoke unflattering media coverage of Christians, perhaps with a little extra viral buzz on the 'net as icing on the cake -- precisely as it has.
If that's the case, the whole thing is a cynical, insincere farce, and Mehta and his ilk are being played -- quite successfully, it seems -- for dupes. Real Humanists, ones who value integrity, inquisitiveness and skepticism, ought not allow themselves to be so gullible.
I'm with you on the first two paragraphs, but in response to the last two it only seems reasonable that telling athiests they are not alone would likely be greeted with the word "Duh" in Madison or Chicago or Cambridge.
I suspect the atheists in Colorado Springs are lonely indeed and the message might mean more to them.
I suspect the atheists in Colorado Springs are lonely indeed and the message might mean more to them.
True enough, if there are any. But which is the more predictable consequence of promoting atheism on a billboard in Colorado Springs: bringing new hope and encouragement to intimidated atheists just trying to live out their fearful lives in inconspicuous, unjust isolation there, or drawing angry vituperation from hordes of knuckle-dragging fundies who wouldn't recognize the Bill of Rights if you hit them in the head with it?
That both are foreseeable doesn't say much to the intent of those who put up the billboard.
While a billboard is a little showier than I like to be, I am hard pressed to think of a way to get the "Atheists aren't alone" message out that wouldn't cheese off the fundies.
CC
Fausto wrote:
-snip-
"If I were trying to provide moral support to lonely fellow atheists via billboard, I would think Madison or Chicago or Cambridge would be more target-rich markets for my advertising dollar. Colorado Springs, in contrast, is more or less Ground Zero for the evangelical megachurch phenomenon. I very much suspect the billboards were really placed there precisely in order to provoke the reaction they did, in the cynical and underhanded (but perfectly rational) hope that an angry enough reaction would in turn provoke unflattering media coverage of Christians, perhaps with a little extra viral buzz on the 'net as icing on the cake -- precisely as it has."
Fausto -- using this logic, one could say that promoting Unitarian Universalism, marriage equality, feminism, comprehensive sexuality education, evolutionary biology, or any of the many things that pisses off religious conservatives in a "red state" community is simply an attempt at "cynical manipulation" by provoking conflict.
I'm still puzzled by the fragile faith of some religious folks.
Apparently the slightest suggestion of doubt is enough to provoke a frenzy of threats of violence.
While the exact words "hate speech" are not used in the news coverage of this story, the reaction from some Christians in Colorado suggests that some Christians viewed it as such (e.g. denigrating Christians, etc).
Here are the words that believers used to describe the billboards from the Rocky Mountain News coverage:
"It has been mostly Christians who've been calling and e-mailing," Joel Guttormson said, "which is strange since the message is not directed at Christians or anyone from any religion.
"You know, if you see an ad for migraine medicine and you don't have a migraine, why would you care?"
Almost all of the feedback, he said, has been from people who say the billboards denigrate Christians. He says he still has no idea how that is possible.
"We are not out to anger people," Joel Guttormson said. "I don't know why people think that. So much of it says we are evil and that we hate everybody.
"Have you seen the billboard? Tell me where any of them mentions evil or hate. Why is everyone so mad?"
Now that you have falsely accused me of falsely accusing others, I eagerly await your apology.
Mehta describes Christians of seeing the billboard as "hate speech". That particular term is not a subjective characterization, but a very specific and highly charged accusation. It refers to a particular, and particularly repugnant, kind of offense. It's a lot stronger than saying that they took it as an indirect insult, which they may well have done, and perhaps even justifiably so. (How many of those other "things that piss off religious conservatives" were placed on a public billboard right under their noses just before one of the two holiest days of their year?)
You approvingly repeated Mehta's accusation, and even highlighted the term in quotes. Yet now you admit that they said no such thing.
Go ahead and criticize narrow-minded bigots and hatemongers, fine, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. Too often we liberals do it the wrong way, and may unwittingly display a bit of our own bigotry in the process. Criticize them for offensive things that they actually do, not for imaginary ones that they actually don't. Otherwise the line between "us" and "them" starts to get pretty blurry.
But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously.
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
--George Orwell, Animal Farm
Fausto -- now you're just being stubbornly obtuse. I guess it's too much for me to expect an apology from you.
The reaction from some Christians to the billboards was that they were perceived as denigrating to Christians. And some Christians perceived them as being hate-filled messages.
And you think it's unreasonable to characterize this reaction from some Christians as an unfair accusation of hate speech?
Perhaps your own dislike of me and my opinions is blinding you here?
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