Orange County Atheists' Billboard Crusade

Screenshot (Orange County Register)

If you're driving down the Costa Mesa Freeway in Santa Ana, you might be able to catch a glimpse of the latest conquest by the Backyard Skeptics, a group of outspoken atheists in Orange Country.

The group is on a crusade, of sorts, to promote their godless beliefs through billboards and bus stop ads, according to the Orange County Register.

"We don't have a voice," said Bruce Gleason, head of the Backyard Skeptics told the paper. "This is our voice."

Their latest billboard just off the 55 quotes "lifelong atheist" Dr. Natalie Khazaal along with her quote: "Atheism is philanthropy without mythology, peace without superstition."

In May, the group unveiled a billboard on Beach Boulevard in Westminster (a city founded as a Presbyterian temperance colony) on Beach Boulevard that said, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." In Mission Viejo, the group has put up bus stop ads, according to the local Patch site. Gleason has plans to put up two more billboards in September.

The group expects controversy (the mayor of Westminster said the city's billboard made her stomach turn), but so far their billboards have outlasted similar billboards in Rancho Cucamonga that only lasted a few days.

Gleason said there might be more Orange County residents accepting of atheist views than you might expect, in a Daily Pilot op-ed:

There are more atheist groups in conservative Orange County than in Los Angeles. There are more than 15% of Americans who do not believe in a god. That's 54 million people, a larger minority than African Americans, gays and Jews put together.

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By Emma G. Gallegos in News on August 19, 2011 12:35 PM

Comments [rss]

icowrich

My only problem with this billboard is the false definition. Atheism is philanthropy? Atheism is peace? Whatever you think about atheism, that is not its definition. Atheism is the practice of not believing in a god. You can be an atheist and a misanthrope.

Jerry Friedman

Richard, Natalie didn't seek to define atheism. Anyone can do that with etymology. She gave her personal opinion. Comparing theists and atheists worldwide, she has a point.

chession07

You do not have superior intellect because you do not believe in God. God is real and one day every knee will bow and every tounge will confess He is Lord. I hope and pray you've all made the right desition to follow Him before it's too late.

chession07

You do not have superior intellect because you do not believe in God. God is real and one day every knee will bow and every tounge will confess He is Lord. I hope and pray you've all made the right desition to follow Him before it's too late.

Bible Belt Atheist

Let's hope atheists remember Margie's turning stomach next election.

Pablito

"the mayor of Westminster said the city's billboard made her stomach turn"

This ignorant, hypocritical statement makes *my* stomach turn. Enjoy your fairy tales, your honor.

Tanin

Imagine the outrage if mayor Margie L. Rice had said that about a Jewish billboard.

Rose Collum

I don't believe in a supernatural being who watches over our daily lives, any more than I believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or Fairies.

I DO believe that there is energy in the universe that we are not able to comprehend (yet) and therefore we have to create something to explain it. Doesn't make it right, and yet people have thought this way for centuries. It's time to grow up...