Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Godless billboard stirs controversy



Wilmington NC got an interesting billboard that is causing a bit of a stir. In the comments section of that news page I weighed in with the following:

Why Change It?

Because the 1st amendment of the constitution protects us from the government creating a law respecting the establishment of any religion. As an atheist, I think it would be wrong also for the government to declare an acceptance of atheism. Religion is a topic that they government of my great nation should not comment on. Remember why people even came here from Europe, they wanted to worship in their own way. I want you to be able to worship in your own way as I am able to not worship at all. I do not want to take anything away from you, rather, I want to protect YOU as well as me from being told what religion you have to follow in order to be a "Real American".

I don't want to destroy your values or remove your religion from your lives. I want to remove religion from government, it has no business there. I will never tell you to not display your cross to demonstrate your faith, neither you nor I have the right to not be offended.

As far as "In God We Trust" on our money, yes that needs to change also. This is simply not an accurate depiction of our entire demographic. If you want to change it to something like "In God we trust, most of us anyway" it would at least be more accurate, but still IMHO a violation of the first amendment.