Controversial Billboard: All Religions Are Fairy Tales

[Lennon]

http://www.wftv.com/news/15735444/detail.html

It looked harmless enough, but the words on a billboard un-nerved so many people that a popular restaurant nearby actually lost business.

The billboard was on Colonial Drive near the Old Cheney Highway. Although the popular Straub's Seafood restaurant often advertises on it, this wasn't their billboard. The sign was taken down after Channel 9 started asking questions.

The billboard came down around 4:00 Friday afternoon and nearby business owners are relieved. Straub's restaurant can replace the sign with the night's specials.

At first glance the sign looked like a children's cartoon, but the message next to the fairy princess stirred emotions.

"When you condemn all religions and say they are a fairytale that is wrong," said Rich Stormes, a nearby business owner.

[selador]

1. i am glad to see

that orange county (per the article) does not regulate bill board content such that If the org actually paid for the billboard, that they could have had that message.

people should be free to criticize ANY and all religions.

"jesus wears pink sox" "mohammed likes to schtup baby penguins" "buddha eats baby brains" "moses refuses to shower and smells of elderberries" etc.

any of those should be fair game statements to make.

[dawniedarling]

2. God is not very busy on the moon...

... or Mars, or Pluto.
The nebulae from which stars are born
are set on 'automatic'.
The Weather doesn't give a fig for religion nor do earthquakes.
God seems to hover, only, a few feet above planet earth.

[jimshoes]

3. Most folk aren't ready to deal with

that if it proved to be true. Some would never be convinced. That is the power of religion.

[selador]

4. it's a practical impossibility

pretty difficult to PROVE god doesn't exist.

and spare me the flying spaghetti monster arguments. my point is that the billboard expresses an opinion, so it doesn't MATTER if the opinion is true or false. it's an opinion.

[Johnny Noshoes]

5. Gee...

I hate to say it but it is just as difficult to PROVE that god does exist. Just sayin. Why does this particular opinion bother folks so much? If a person's faith is so easily shaken or bothered it must not have been all that strong in the first place.

"To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world, is just as base as to use force." Hypatia (c. 370-415 CE)

[selador]

6. of course

I" hate to say it but it is just as difficult to PROVE that god does exist."

of course. nobody has done it yet. not even descartes.

" Just sayin. Why does this particular opinion bother folks so much?"

people don't like having their faith questioned by others. that holds true of NONreligious "faiths" as well i have noticed.

" If a person's faith is so easily shaken or bothered it must not have been all that strong in the first place."

i generally agree. but again, i've seen the same from people when it comes to political opinions. why should religion be any different. when people hold dogmas near to their heart and have invested time, psychic energy, money, etc. in their cause or belief, it pains them to have that questioned.

you see that in ALL ideologues of ALL political (let alone religious ) stripes. how many times do we see speakers on campuses shouted down by opponents?

same thing.

[Johnny Noshoes]

7. You're right of course.

Sometimes I think if you live long enough you soemtimes learn to take it all in stride. Some folks never get to that point and don't like to have the world upended. Their truth is THE TRUTH and that's all they need to know. I won't push them because there is no point in needlessly pissing people off if what they believe, either politically or religiously, doesn't threaten anyone and it almost always never really poses any threat. Unless of course its someone in a position of some power and then we all need to keep a watchful eye on the situation.

[selador]

8. i agree

i enter any discussion of any topic, especially an ontological one, with the understanding that i MIGHT be wrong (cue: dennis miller reference).

[Feron]

16. In a similar vein,

here's a funny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glRAN_8CkvQ">Youtube video about God's existence.

Personally I wouldn't let a religious billboard ruin a good meal.

[Deep13]

33. That is really not true.

If god were real his fingerprints would be everywhere, but they just are not.

[Pale Blue Dot]

9. God, once again, is apparently so WEAK,

that a mere Billboard could slay him. Thank goodness that people of conscience saved God!

[and-justice-for-all]

10. All religions ARE fairy tales...

because they are all void of facts. Religion has as much clout as Pinocchio or The Wizard Of oz.

[kwassa]

12. What world do you live in? Religion has plenty of clout.

All around the world, as well as here in the U.S.

[and-justice-for-all]

17. Religion has NOTHING...

and I live in the world of REALITY.

[kwassa]

18. so, all the religious fundamentalist influence in the Bush years was a fairy tale?

your claim that religion has no clout is obviously false. Various religious denominations and organizations around the world have huge clout, of course.

And, I bet your notion of reality and mine are different.

[and-justice-for-all]

20. Excuss me...

I am not talking about 'the delusional', I am talking about the 'religion' itself which has no bases in reality AT ALL.

As for the Fundi clowns, not only are the dumb enough to fall for the fraud known as religion, but even dipshit W suckered their asses..HA!

Religion, is a fucking fairytale.

Apparently you and I are not talking about the same thing. Yes, the wack-jobs are done considerable amount of damage to this country and the world, I understand this. It is also true that 'religion' itself is in fact not based in reality, it has more in common with The Wizard Of Oz then it does anything else.

[Az]

11. So what does it mean when someone condemns others that do not believe as they do?

This seems to be a rather daily thing found on billboards and the television.

Me thinks the problem wasn't so much that the billboard in question was specifically wrong but rather that it did not agree with the local dominant religion. I wonder how much of a fuss would have been made if the billboard castigated pagans or some other sufficiently weak minority?

[Meshuga]

13. It all depends what the castigation is

Saying that "religion is fairy tale" is not castigation of a group of people but making a statement about a belief. But if the sign castigates a group of people I would understand the offended party (whether they are pagans, Christians, atheists, or whoever).

[TCJ70]

14. Well, we get to put our billboards up every once in awhile...

...let other people put theirs up, too.

[jjray7]

15. myth

Let's change "All Religions Are Fairy Tales" to "All Religion is Myth". That was essentially the position of Joseph Campbell. He did not mean it in a derogatory way to say that religion was myth in that he found myth to be sacred and possess deep spiritual knowledge for those with the power to unlock its keys. I value myth greatly.

[Az]

19. The problem with the fairy tale appelation

is that it deliberately contains a dismissive notion of the particular religion being child like. Religion clearly is not child like. Far too much power and control of society is tied into it. And far too many adults believe it to dismiss it out of hand as a child's fantasy.

Call them a myth. Call them manufactured. Call them untrue. But religions certainly are not fairy tales. People do not kill each other over fairy tales.

[kwassa]

22. good point, Az.

though I think it is far too subtle for the advocate of this point of view.

of course, judging by this person's responses, anything short of a 2" x 4" upside the head might be too subtle.

[cyborg_jim]

25. Fairy tales are not simple "for children". That is a more modern notion.

[smoogatz]

21. No free speech for atheists in Florida, I guess.

You can put up all the signs you want promoting religion, but put one up that critiques it and people get all wigged out. Not that it surprises me, but still, I've never understood the intolerance of believers for statements of non-belief. The alleged "faith" of believers must be a thin membrane, indeed.

[Lost-in-FL]

28. The fact that it was in Florida

says a lot. This is a historical event for this area.

The area close to where they placed this billboard is often plagued with billboards against homosexuality. I cannot believe someone managed to put a billboard against religion there.

[varkam]

23. It's a freeloading term.

It may be every bit as untrue as Mother Goose, but the term fairy tale carries a built-in connotation of childishness. Simply untrue is perhaps a less inflammatory way of describing them.

[smoogatz]

24. Isn't there something child-like, if not child-ish, about religious belief?

Isn't it basically a form of magical thinking? If so, then the conflation doesn't seem all that far-fetched. People aren't objecting to being compared to children, I don't think: they're objecting to being reminded that religious belief is based in fantasy. Or at least that some of us think so.

[varkam]

26. I'm just saying...

if you want to engage those you disagree with, then referring to their beliefs as fairy tales isn't going to do you any favors.

[smoogatz]

27. Well, maybe the point wasn't to "engage" them.

There's no evangelical component to atheism that I'm aware of.

[varkam]

29. But presumably one doesn't have to be an evangelical to talk religion...

I offer as evidence of this the fact that we're all here partaking in R/T. Holding the ideal (or trying to, anyway) that you should treat the person you're talking to with respect isn't about conversion, but it's really just about being able to have a productive discussion (in my mind, anyway).

[smoogatz]

30. Is respect of the person and respect of that person's beliefs

the same thing? I don't think they necessarily equate, otherwise we'd never be able to argue fruitfully about anything. The problem, in my view, is that theists tend to think that their particular magical-thinking set is the holy of holies, and they're intolerant of any discussion thereof that doesn't occur in hushed and reverent tones. But in a way I agree with you. I'd have preferred a billboard that said "Religion is a comforting delusion."

[varkam]

31. No, but they are tied together.

They are not the same thing, but it is nearly impossible to insult someone's beliefs without insulting them as well (or at least without them feeling insulted as people tend to hold their beliefs in high regard).

[smoogatz]

32. But any critique of religious belief is felt as insult by many believers.

The mere existence of non-belief is seen by many as a potent threat. There's no way to even have the conversation without insulting those who are easily insulted.

[nickpecoraro]

34. Religions rely on Supernatural events.

All religions rely on supernatural events, such as turning water to wine, healing the sick by casting out demons, walking on water, rising from the dead.
Unfortunately, in real life, supernatural events never occur.
Has anyone ever documented a supernatural event really happening?

Supernatural events only happen in fairy tales, fables, scary movies, and Bible stories.

I would be interested if anyone has ever witnessed a real supernatural event.

Nick Pecoraro

[dmallind]

35. What you're asking for though is merely the god of the gaps

God's been getting a lot smaller lately, as he has to fit in smaller and smaller gaps. It used to be gods causing lightning and thunder, but then we understood meteorology. It used to be gods (or demons) who caused madness but then we understood neurology. It of course used to be gods who fashioned animals from clay etc but then we, or at least most of us, understood evolutionary biology.

The point is a whole lot of life we take for granted used to be supernatural, because it was not understood or explainable by the science of the day. We can not of course be arrogant enough to assume that this is all in history. There are events that most people would call supernatural such as "teleportation" that have potential scioentific answers, just none that we know yet. In fact in that specific example I seem to recall some interesting experiments at the particle level even now.

So the god of the gaps is now pushed into the first fleeting picosecond of the big bang, wild speculations about living after deathm and subjective twaddling about "meaning". This does not mean that anything we would currently call supernatural would say anything at all about the truth value of divine existence though. Let's say for example that survival after death in some form is proven. We have countless thousands of anecdotes about messages and visitations already of course, but let's imagine that we definitively prove in the lab that dead person X can and did communicate with living person Y in some manner.

All that proves (and again - wild hypothetical here - I neither accept this now nor expect it to be all that likely in the future) is that there is some component or byproduct of ourselves that can exist with neither brain activity nor blood circulation. Who knows what that might be - perhaps simply some kind of biological radio broadcast. After all MLK is definitively dead, but radio broadcasts of his speeches are still floating in space. Who can say there is no way that biology can do something analogous? If something like that happens, you can be sure that the credulous would assume it is proof of the afterlife and hence proof of their own favorite god, and the logical will simply wonder how it happens. When the latter is naswered, the former will still maintain it is their god's work, but it will move from the "supernatural" column to the "natural" for most of us, just like lightning and epilepsy.