The billboard reads, "One Nation Indivisible," which is the phrase preceding the 1954 insertion of the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, reports the Charlotte Observer's Tim Funk. The billboard was erected on Billy Graham Parkway last week. (Graham is, of course, the state's famous evangelical preacher.)
Similar North Carolina ads have gone up in Asheville, Greensboro, Wilmington, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem as a Fourth of July project by the area's atheist association. The group has filed a police report and will replace the billboard.
“It was done by one or two people off on their own who decided their only recourse was vandalism rather than having a conversation,” Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics spokesman William Warren said. “It does show how needed our message is. As atheists, we want to let people know we exist and that there’s a community here.” Warren told the Observer when the sign first went up that its location wasn't intended as a rebuke to the Rev. Graham.
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Good for the Vandals :)
ReplyDeleteyea since these words were not added until 1954 and our nation did just fine without them for almost 200 years, i don't see the issue.
ReplyDeleteAMEN!
ReplyDeleteIts amazing that religious people that are supposed to be the "better" people in the country are the first ones to vandalize something, or to cry foul when there precious fairy tales are put into doubt.
ReplyDeleteIf you have faith in your religion, a little billboard shouldn't be any sort of threat to you and you should just turn the other cheek.
Not to be too cliche here but what would Jesus do. Do you really think that he would be climbing up there with a can of spray paint?
This Nation was founded on Judeo Chritians ethics that are intertwined within our founding documents and Constitution. And as a Nation we have tried to uphold and adhere to these principles which have resulted in our Country's achievements leading the world.
ReplyDeleteThis bill board's message is a reflection of our direspecting and discounting these principles and a continuing erosion of morality in our country.
We are seeing this come to fruition at the highest levels of government. This Nation will not endure such continued erosion, and our greatness will subside and be thrown on the trash heap of history for all time. And those that support such a message without the words Under God only hasten the throw.
Anon 8:49, our Founding Fathers were just as concerned with protecting us FROM religion as protecting our right to worship. Most early settlers to this country came here because of religious persecution by the people and the State of the countries they came from. The Founding Fathers didn't want that here, that's why they protected our right to worship and also insisted on separation of church and state.
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:05PM: You are partially right. However, the concern was over an established State Religion, not an adeherence to Christian precepts and principles.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, you will find in many of their comments, that a failure to elect representatives that understood this, could lead to the republic failing. We currently may be witnessing their prognostication.
The intent by the Founders was not to let a State Religion be established, but never to separate the people from the founding principles.
ReplyDelete7:00, just to correct one minor error in your comment. The pledge was written in 1892 so it's only 118 years old. That makes "Under God" part of the pledge for almost 1/2 it's life.
ReplyDeleteVery religious people have always been haters if you aren't part of their little sky-god fantasy. The Bible origin story is an absurd, cobbled together document that reads like a bad Marvel comic book. Anyone with better than room temperature IQ, and a reasonable level of education knows this.
ReplyDeleteAtheists are typically among the best educated, wealthiest, and most law abiding citizens. The nonsense that we have to put up with from smugly ignorant, loud mouthed holy rollers (especially on Delmarva) is amazing.
Get back to your churches and pray and wail for salvation true believers. Hard working, educated atheists are rolling up their sleeves, solving problems, and making things work in this complex world that mystifies you so.
LOVINNIT!
ReplyDelete8:13
ReplyDeletemy Jesus would...
Why is it so hard for you people to realized that terms Christian and a Patriot American are not mutually exclusive?
ReplyDelete"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.
3:18 You might be(from your own description) well educated, smart, hard working and a problem solver but I can read between the lines and see a bitter, sad and angry person. You should work on that.
ReplyDeleteIf atheists vandalized church signs I bet there would be a huge uproar. Vandalization is not the way to spread the gospel.
ReplyDeleteNumberically? What does that mean?
ReplyDeleteEverything ultimately is derived from a logical sequence of numbers. Have you studied the periodic table of all the elements in the universe? The number of nuetrons vs. electrons vs. protons in each element and the perfect logic of the flow? All of these elements are needed to survive on earth in one fashion or another. The perfect sequence of the layout is not something that was just created during the big bang hypothesis. No way. It is so very divine.
ReplyDelete7:23 - Not all the elements in the Periodic Table are "needed to survive in one fashion or another". Many elements are completely superfluous to the biochemical requirements for carbon based life on earth.
ReplyDeleteToward your larger point, seeking to find meaning in the symmetry of the physical universe is something man has done since he was able to reason. From the cave paintings on the wall at Lescaux to modernity, humans seek to find patterns in the progression of daily existence. One way to attach meaning to our personal ontological existence is to view the universe as a function of a transcendent supernatural force or intelligence that directs our lives and gives them meaning.
Our marvelous human brains are pattern matching machines, and throughout human existence we have constructed our God, Gods, spirits and pantheons across time to provide this context for us. Assuming the physical symmetry of the universe must have a directing supernatural influence is simply something humans are inclined to do. By no means does it make it true
E=5+1+2+1+4=13
ReplyDelete6+2+5=13
1002 I will pray that in the midst of all of your "wealth" that you have the capability to find peace, something that cannot be bought.
ReplyDelete