| | |  Editorials | Issues | November 2009 
Billboard Aims to Raise Profile of Nonbelievers
 John Wilkens - San Diego Union-Tribune
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November 19, 2009
| | The San Diego Coalition of Reason paid for a billboard as part of a nationwide campaign to raise awareness about people who don't believe in God. (Eduardo Contreras/UT) | |
Nontheists looking to raise their profile.
Convinced that others share their views but may be afraid to admit it, a group of San Diegans who don’t believe in God paid for a head-turning billboard that went up last week along Interstate 8 in La Mesa, California.
“Don’t Believe in God?” the billboard asks atop a background of blue sky and white clouds. “You are not alone.”
It’s part of a national campaign launched in January to raise the profile of nontheists, a small but growing segment of American society.
“We hope the message will get everyone thinking,” said Debbie Allen Skomer, coordinator of the San Diego Coalition of Reason, an umbrella organization for nine groups of nonbelievers. “Some people will have a negative reaction to the sign and others will be inspired to check us out.”
The sign, which will be up for four weeks, is visible to westbound traffic between Fletcher Parkway and 70th Street. Skomer said the location was chosen over others near the merger of interstates 5 and 805 and along Highway 163 based on availability and cost. The group paid $6,200 to have the sign made and rent the space.
Fred Edwords, national director for the United Coalition of Reason, said similar campaigns in about a dozen other cities, including Boston, Chicago and New York, have led to increased membership in groups of humanists, atheists and agnostics.
“A lot of people who don’t believe in God tend to feel isolated,” he said. “If you don’t speak up, everybody assumes you hold traditional beliefs. If you do speak up, you’re dismissed as negative. This lets them know they can find a home.”
Bob Siegel, a member of Skyline Church in La Mesa and a self-described “Christian apologist,” said he doesn’t find the billboard offensive.
“But I do see a double standard from the atheists,” he said. “They can put up a sign like that, but during Christmas, if a manger goes on public land, they act like their civil liberties are being taken away.”
Siegel added: “It’s not unreasonable to believe in God, and it’s a myth that people who do are guided by blind faith. There are many good reasons to believe.”
Several recent polls have found that roughly 90 percent of Americans believe in God. The American Religious Identification Survey, which has tracked spiritual attitudes since 1990, puts the number of those who don’t believe, don’t know or aren’t sure at 12 percent.
The figure has been increasing, said Barry Kosmin, a professor of public policy at Trinity College in Connecticut and a principal investigator for the survey. The number of American adults who don’t identify with any particular religious group rose from 14 million in 1990 to 34 million last year.
“It’s not an earth-shattering movement, but ... the trend is toward more skepticism,” Kosmin said.
Doubt has been fueled in part by pedophile-priest cases in the Roman Catholic Church and various political, financial and sex-related scandals involving evangelical Christian preachers, he said.
“That’s created a backlash, and it’s given (the nontheists) the feeling that they’ll get a favorable response from people increasingly open to the possibility they might be right,” Kosmin said. |
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