Atheist Group Pays For Billboards That Read: 'God Is An Imaginary Friend' (PHOTO)

On Monday, the Boulder Atheists along with the Colorado Coalition of Reason (COCORE), will be putting up three new billboards in Denver and Colorado Springs that are sure to get the attention of believers and non-believers alike. The billboards will read: "God Is An Imaginary Friend - Choose Reality, It Will Be Better For All Of Us."

The Daily Camera reports that billboards will be located on Colfax Ave. and S. Federal Blvd. in Denver as well as along I-25 near Elkton Spring Road in Colorado Springs.

According to the group's website, they put up the billboards to spark debate, encourage community gathering and thought:

One of the reasons we put the billboard up is that we are concerned when religious people feel they have not only the right, but the obligation, to force their religious views on others. Examples are proselytizing in the military, educational systems, and government. Another example is the attacks by religious people on gays, lesbians, and abortion providers.

If you agree with the sentiments of the sign and live in Colorado, there is probably a secular organization near you. You will be surprised how much we do, both as activists and in the social arena. Most of the COCORE groups have monthly meetings, book discussions, lunches, and social activities. The Atheist Alliance of America will be having their national convention in Denver in 2012.

If you disagree with the sentiments of the sign, please don't be offended. We are more interested in opening a dialogue than upsetting you. We don't ask you to stop believing in your version of a super-natural being. We do ask that you consider not forcing your religious views on others.

Groff Schroeder, member of COCORE and president of Freethinkers of Colorado Springs, told KRDO that the group's hope is that the billboards "will encourage communication between believers and non-believers and everyone in general."

This is not the first time COCORE, an umbrella organization for secular, Colorado-based groups -- of which Boulder Atheists is a member, has put up billboards like this. 7News reports that in 2008 the group paid for billboards that asked, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." and then in 2010, the group also paid for billboards protesting the Denver City County Building nativity scene.

LOOK -- the text of the Boulder Atheist billboard:

Related on HuffPost:

WATCH Rev. Al Sharpton and atheist Christopher Hitchens in their famous debate on faith:

Comments

[ikaraca]

11:57 AM on 03/01/2012

Religion has been about stories, riddles, wife's tails, poems, verses, I say so's, old and new books, known and unknown authors, promises, legends, you musts, rumors, prophecies and such.

I have been told that "god" was so powerful that "it" could do whatever "it" wanted to do.

Having said that, why doesn't "god" make us all believe "it" by showing us something that we can't refuse instead of givings us bunch of riddles to solve? Wars has happened for "it". Would have been much easier if "it" came on clean and straight.

I am an atheist until this happens!

[William1950]

11:41 PM on 02/05/2012

if one believes, then one knows, right? and so believing and knowing make it true to their own reality.. who cares what others think? and conversely if one knows, and does not believe, then in their reality they are right... we should all believe in being good to one another.

[Bob Metcalfe]

07:59 PM on 03/09/2012

One can believe in all sorts of things and it doesn't make them correct or right. This is just New Age waffle.

[djwray]

07:16 PM on 02/01/2012

Warning: Richard Dawkins will be blaming religion for the recent soccer riot in Egypt

D J Wray
Complex Evolution - A Complete Theory Of Human Consciousness

[andrewclunn]

02:37 AM on 01/26/2012

I'm an atheist, but I can bet you that a lot of my fellow atheists here would be singing a different tune if somebody just posted a billboard listing the average IQ scores of various racial groups. Everybody is for freedom of speech up until they find it offensive. I've met too many other atheists to think that half of them really mean it when they say they stand by freedom of speech.

[yayamunza]

06:56 PM on 01/25/2012

Type in "Religious Billboard" on Google Image surf.


My favorite is the one that says:
Attention: Lunatic Atheists & their Lawyers
Anti-God is Anti-American
Anti-American is Treason
Traitors lead to Civil War.

[Bob Metcalfe]

08:01 PM on 03/09/2012

Link.
http://www.maniacworld.com/attention-lunatic-atheists.html

[rogerseh]

10:48 AM on 01/25/2012

Religion and god(s) are helpful for a very many people who must cope during their short time on Earth with poor health, uncaring or evil people, lack of food, inadequate shelter, and fear from many sources, including bigotry. The absence of well-founded evidence of the supernatural aspects of religion might lead people to skepticism --- if their fears and their communities allowed it. Atheist groups rightly raise awareness of alternative ways to look at the human experience. These billboards should give rise to open consideration of non-belief. God is not an essential for many people, and religion is too often a source of bigotry and pain for both believers & non-believers. Far better for all to adopt the Golden Rule without regard to religious views and to engage in reasoned discussion of the human condition and the role of belief.

Non-belief does not imply a belief that 'there is no god'. The latter is an atheist belief. It's too bad that this distinction is not universally made. The phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" applies to this god existence question. For myself there is an absence of Relevance that leads to my frustration with the arguments over existence. The bigotry and suffering which arise from belief (and largely from religions organized around belief & fear) are tragic. Man should confine himself to the practice of the Golden Rule and be done with all of the supernatural and superstitious. We owe it to ourselves!

[Sadie McFarlane]

10:38 AM on 01/25/2012

How utterly unsurprising that theists are offended at a billboard proclaiming a different belief than theirs, when atheists constantly have to suffer under a bombardment of assertions of Christianity - including that we are going to "Hell" (an utterly idiotic and self-serving premise). It reminds me a great deal of rich white guy anger, and it's pretty pathetic and sad (especially coming from a position of societal dominance. Grow up, theists! Believe what you want, but take other beliefs in stride, please.

[Heidi M]

11:20 AM on 01/25/2012

I wouldn't say we are offended at you having a billboard proclaiming a different belief than ours, mormons have a different belief than me but their signs don't call my God imaginary and say I am unreasonable, those billboards are just mean. If you truly wanted to attract other atheists why not use a sigh that says "Don't believe in God, we don't either, lets talk...cocoer.org" but instead you proclaim that our God in imaginary and we are unreasonable. Seems to me you are trying to attract atheists that have a common goal of christian bashing. Good luck with that.

[shoobug]

02:43 PM on 01/25/2012

It's typical, with your being a self-proclaimed Christian, that you would take offense and believe that these billboards are engaging in "Christian bashing." Shame on you. Just because they think your God is imaginary, you take offense. No wonder the world is in the state it is. Christians (and I'm not saying that you personally do this) continue to go around forcing their religion on everyone else. I don't care that you are a Christian, just don't go around trying to convert everyone else. We all have our own beliefs and we should respect that. Stop being so defensive every time someone claims there is some other form of religion or a god, there is religion, a God or not. When you stop crying "Christian bashing" everytime some other person has different views than yourself, maybe you will start listening to what they have to say. Maybe something important and you are missing it.

[Bob Metcalfe]

08:03 PM on 03/09/2012

No but christians often call Mormonism a cult. The only difference being IMO about 1800 odd years.

[bobbeecher]

12:11 AM on 01/25/2012

Religion is largely on the decline, as reported in several surveys of church attendance and attitudes toward religion. Perhaps the biggest reason for this is available amount of information on the internet. People have stopped simply accepting the teachings of their parents' churches and begun learning for themselves what has always been true.

All gods are imaginary.

They always have been. Consider why we no longer worship Zeus, Poseidon, or Apollo. These and many other thousands of godly figures have been relegated to the dustbin of mythology. You can read any number of papers on how religion began as a need to put an answer to the many questions we had about our world. Why does the rain fall? What causes thunder? What causes the tides to come in and go out. Well, today we CAN explain that and many other questions about our universe. Do we have all the answers? Of course not, but we've solved so many of the mysteries that baffled early Man. However, just because we haven't solved a problem with science is no reason to fill in the blank with "God Did It." We can leave the answer blank for now while we continue to discover the answer.

So, then, why does religion persist? Because those who wish it to persist wish it so. Religion has basically two purposes:

1.) Control society; and
2.) Make money.

[The Original Iggy]

11:44 AM on 01/25/2012

Your 2 points hit the nail on the head. The control of society is what the billboard is trying to invoke a dialog about. The fact that some religeous groups are trying to put into place their religeous beliefs into our laws is what the debate is about. I am Agnositic, I don't know, however I live my life on a set of principles that are universal to most of us on this planet. If I am wrong, I have no regrets or worries, I've lived my life as clean and fair as possible. (I am human and not perfect of course)

Most of us (religeous or not) believe that treating people with respect is good, not hurting others is good, what I find most interesting about religeon is the leaders pervertion of the messages to justify violence, oppression or control. Face it, Religeon is and always has been a way to control the masses, to keep the money and power in their control. Their interpertation will change to suit their needs in keeping that control. What religeons fear is the message being sent that their followers have been bamboozled for centuries! That is a threat to their power & control. Muslim, Christian, Morman, it doesn't matter, that is what they fear the most, loss of power and control.

[bobbeecher]

03:30 PM on 01/25/2012

Right you are!

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
-- John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

I think, in America, the conservative christians are fearing their loss of control. In a recent video, magician Penn Jillette talked about how people, who would at one time self-identify as Baptists, Presbyterians, and Catholics, are now banding together under the umbrella as "Christians." Sure, when you add them all up, there's a lot of them. But, if any politician tried to run for office as an Episcopalian today, he/she would have a rough time doing so. But...as a CHRISTIAN...well, now. That's another thing altogether.

I wonder if, when things get so desperate, Christians will begin banding together with other believers. First, the Mormons....perhaps the Jehovah's Witnesses...why not include the Jews (hey, it's their old testament, right?).... Buddhists and Hindus are believers, too.

I just hope religion dies out quickly--before more people get hurt!

[bobbeecher]

03:20 PM on 01/25/2012

Recognizing the two purposes above, it is easy to see why religion has persisted and grown over the years. Control and money are powerful motivators to Man. It should be no wonder why, therefore, religion has persisted. In America, this relationship is even stronger than in most other countries. There is big money to be made from the gullible masses. There is also influence into government since many from those gullible masses are now politicians and lobbyists. This is why America is disproportionately more religious than other industrialized nations. The cancer is pervasive.

It is odd, when you consider it, that our country was founded as a secular nation. The founding fathers knew all too well the how entrenched the Church of England was in the government they left behind. Conservative theists will protest, citing that god is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and that, therefore, this is a "Nation Under God." Of course, most of our founding fathers were deists, not theists. In fact, many made no secret of their distaste for the christian religion. Although the Declaration of Independence mentions god, the Constitution of the United States does not and this is, of course, where we find the foundation of our laws, beginning with the famous "freedom of religion" amendment and its "establishment clause." From this, we get our "separation of church and state" concept. That's the way our founding fathers wanted it. That's the way I'd like it to stay, thank you.

[The Original Iggy]

03:45 PM on 01/25/2012

& Thank you for a very well thought out and poignant post! :)

[norepublicanleftbehind]

11:45 PM on 01/24/2012

Awesome sign. Please bring the to SF & NY.

[Philimanjaro]

11:32 PM on 01/24/2012

I've always found it a bit ironic that Atheists criticize religious groups for believing in something without proof, while they themselves believe in something without proof.

Since when has the absence of evidence been the evidence of absence?

That being said- I don't really have a problem with anyone putting up whatever they want, so long as they pay for billboard space. No matter how dumb the premise might be.

[jimspy]

12:20 AM on 01/25/2012

What is it that atheists believe in without proof?

I'm an atheist, simply because "I'm not buying." My inability to "buy in" to the theist's sales pitch is a whole lot different than the positive belief that "there is no God." It's just...I'm not buying. That's all.

Why is that concept so hard to understand?

[Philimanjaro]

03:17 AM on 01/25/2012

Rephrase it any way you choose. You're not buying the same way that a theist doesn't buy into the atheist's sales pitch (*that there definitely is no God).

Both theists and atheists operate on premises without evidence. One believes in God without evidence that there is one. The other doesn't believe in God without evidence that there isn't one.

Neither is a definitive fact, because both are strictly philosophical (at least so far).

Perhaps a more appropriate term for you would be the middle-of-the-road philosophy of agnosticism, in which neither theism nor atheism is accepted or rejected. Although, it's hard for me to be sure based on just your comment.

[Robin Edgar]

08:47 AM on 01/25/2012

What part of the Colorado Coalition of Reason's billboard advertisement -

"God Is An Imaginary Friend - Choose Reality, It Will Be Better For All Of Us."

did you fail to understand Jimspy?

*That* billboard slogan is in fact a rather dogmatic public assertion of the ahem. . . positive belief that "there is no God."

Then COCORE has the gall to say - "If you disagree with the sentiments of the sign, please don't be offended. We are more interested in opening a dialogue than upsetting you. We don't ask you to stop believing in your version of a super-natural being. We do ask that you consider not forcing your religious views on others."

Where does the Colorado Coalition of *Reason* come up with the rather unreasonable idea that displaying billboards telling ALL God believing people, and thus the vast majority of Americans. . . that they are not only lacking in reason, but are out of touch with reality (and thus quite delusional) in their belief in an "imaginary friend', is in no way intended to be offensive or "upsetting"?

The 2008 billboards are not offensive to God believing people, but I have *reason* to believe that the Colorado Coalition of Reason will discover that these new billboard advertisements, which quite dogmatically assert that God does not exist and not at all subtly suggest that all theists are out of touch with reality, are offensive and upsetting to a certain number of God believing Americans. . .

[dcott44]

08:07 AM on 01/25/2012

The burden of proof rests with the person making the claim for something, not the person who doesn't make a claim for something. If I came to you and said "I've discovered this amazing form of energy that would power every vehicle in the United States for a fraction of the cost of oil," it is not your job to prove me wrong; rather, it is my job to prove the claims that I am making as true.

If one must have proof of non-existence in order to not believe something exists, then we must all start believing in unicorns, invisible hobbits, vampires, zombies, boogiemen, etc. After all, I have no proof that they don't exist, therefore, I should believe in them (according to your logic).

[Philimanjaro]

01:49 PM on 01/25/2012

And that's were the idea of "belief" comes in. It requires no evidence and appeals only to human emotion. Theists can not fulfill their burden of proof, but believe independently without evidence. Atheists cannot dismiss belief as necessarily wrong, because they themselves lack the evidence to do so.

I'm not saying what one should or should not believe in. Its nobody's place to say what someone should believe in. Belief is not based on evidence.

Our advances in science are reaching a point where answers are coming up short, the theories are getting more bizarre, and a bit of imagination and belief is required.

Take the tachyon particle, for instance. Its highly theoretical, is believed to have an "imaginary" mass, and can travel faster than the speed of light. Now, something with imaginary mass that has never been observed and might negate one of our most basic understandings of physics, is generally *believed* to exist. Mainly because it helps answer some other inconsistencies we have in physics, but remains unverified by evidence.

Why is the tachyon particle any more or less reasonable to believe in than an intelligent creator?

[Ryan Hanks]

08:14 PM on 01/24/2012

Billboards themselves don't really sell anything in my opinion. But the fact they put the billboard up really seems to have spurred discussion about the topic.

[adhocal]

09:43 PM on 01/24/2012

which is good...so many people think what that billboard says is true about religions guilting people into believing in some god or religion and when they see that others are not afraid to call the religious wingnuts out, they start to have the courage to speak out as well and call a halt to the silliness around them

[Mark2100]

07:51 PM on 01/24/2012

This is no different from a church advertising itself. I'm sure if Christians disagree with it they will find it in their hearts to forgive. After all, Jesus was a Progressive Liberal.

[BeanBoo]

06:52 PM on 01/24/2012

Gotta admit that I'm kind of disappointed with the Atheists on this one. You don't want religion crammed down your throat but you're going to cram your beliefs down someone else's throat? I'm an Atheist in a family of Christians; we don't have any problems because we accept each other's beliefs...even if we disagree with them. And seriously, do you think a Christian has ever been convinced to become an Atheist thanks to a billboard??? Nope!

[adhocal]

09:30 PM on 01/24/2012

Putting up a billboard is cramming it down someone's throat?....pulleeze... You say its ok to be an atheist but you can't tell anyone what you think? Thinking is not always believing and believing sure as heck is rarely thinking. Your post is just as much of a billboard as those you are putting down.

[anamariachlvst]

11:44 PM on 01/24/2012

Because I know my creator and have a communion with him always, and no I have no religions, religions are made by men to deceive others, religions are the roots of all evil

[BeanBoo]

12:42 PM on 01/25/2012

If anything, my post is a billboard saying can't we stop fighting and all just get along?! Why do we always have to have the fight over which beliefs are real and which aren't? Just drop it and move on.

[norepublicanleftbehind]

11:48 PM on 01/24/2012

No more throat cramming than looking at church signs with the sermon of the week, televangelists on tv or billboards tat just read "Pray". Contrast is good.

[BeanBoo]

12:43 PM on 01/25/2012

OK, so Atheists are going to play the same game little kids do? "My beliefs are the real ones" "no they aren't" "yes they are" "no they aren't" "yes they are"... where does it end?

[The Original Iggy]

05:31 PM on 01/24/2012

First I do not believe in an all powerful being, I can't say I am atheist, more agnostic. However, if the Mormons can advertise (creepy commercials and billboards) that they are "normal" (not that I think they are not) then why not atheists? Where are the outraged christian commentors on the Mormon billboards or commercials? Just sayin'......

[Heidi M]

06:08 PM on 01/24/2012

Nice Atheist billboard: "Don't believe there is a God? You're not alone, come chat at cocore.org"

Atheist billboard bashing believers: see above billboard in news story.

That said I still say freedom of speech is what is important here no matter your views.

[Elizabeth Krych]

05:12 PM on 01/24/2012

quite a great debate, Mr. Hitchens should check out Bertrand Russells good friend G.K. Chesterton. Though they didn't agree on much, I rarely hear an atheist bring up Chesterton in debates, which is to bad because they might have an extra fun time disproving his great thoughts, as I'm sure Bertrand Russell did.

[jimspy]

12:25 AM on 01/25/2012

Mr. Hitchens is currently "checked out" altogether.

[Robin Edgar]

09:20 AM on 01/25/2012

Who knows?

Maybe Christopher Hitchens has already checked-in to one of the various afterlifes that theistic religions speak about.

Or maybe he has been reincarnated as a sweet little pussycat. . . ;-)