Signs on the highway

As I travel through the country, I see a lot of billboards advertising
everything. I see ads for television shows and fast food restaurants.
There are signs extolling the virtues of this soft drink, or that beer.
All of this advertising is a common and expected part of the landscape
in 21st century America. However, about every 50 or so miles, I see a
billboard with a religious message.

Of course, thanks to the freedoms guaranteed by the first amendment to the
US constitution, the people placing the billboards have every right to
put their messages up there. I am not saying they should be removed. I
sometimes find them entertaining. I chuckle to myself about the sheer
arrogance that these protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists are
displaying. Once in a while, the sign has a Catholic slant, but by
and large, they display a fundamentalist protestant worldview. They are
attempts at proseletyzing, which is the mandate that these types of
Christians follow. The arrogance comes in when you realize that the
messages on the billboards begin by assuming that the viewer already
believes in the Abrahamic god, and they just need to be told how to find
Jesus. These people forget that 3 in 10 Americans do NOT believe in
their god. Do they really think that all it takes to convince an atheist
or a pagan or a hindu to convert is to say "Jesus Loves You"? I don't
think so.

One variant of the message is the "God Bless America" type of message.
The arrogance shown by these billboards is the assumption that in
order to be a good citizen of the US, one must believe in god. It tends
to relegate any non-christian into second class status. They truly
seem to think that it is not possible to be a good American without a
belief in the Abrahamic deity. They forget that the "In God We Trust"
motto has only been there since the 1950s. The motto that has been there
since the founding of the country is "E Pluribus Unum", or, from many,
one. The pledge of allegiance was written by a baptist minister and did
NOT include the phrase "under god", because he recognized that his
freedom to worship as he believed applied to all people, including those
who had no religious beliefs.

The other variant I frequently see is the anti-abortion billboard. The
arrogance there is the insistence that the bible is absolutely against
abortion. News flash for the fundamentalists: the bible does not mention
abortion. The closest thing it gets is in the old testament where it
speaks of the penalty to be paid when a man assaults a pregnant woman.
The punishment if the woman dies is death by stoning. The punishment
if it only causes a miscarriage is a fine paid to the woman's husband.
Kill a pregnant woman: capital murder. Kill an unborn baby: property
damage. A lot of these billboards provide a toll free number for a young
pregnant woman to call for help. How much help is being provided? You
can bet that the only help will be a free pregnancy test and pressure
to keep the baby or give it up for adoption. None of them would give
real medical and financial assistance to these young women who need it.
None of them would mention abortion except to pressure the young woman
to avoid that at all costs. Nothing would be done to ensure that the
woman makes the right decision for all concerned, and nothing would be
done to help the woman deal with the consequences of her decision.

I feel there is a need to advertise reason. More needs to be done to
show people that there is a better way, that they can think for
themselves. They do not have to rely on an imaginary being to tell them
how to live their lives. They can take responsibility for themselves.