Atheist Billboard Vandalized Again

I’m sure they believe they’re only doing good.

Should’ve signed their ‘work’…”Vandals for Jesus!”

Next tag: Millions are good “despite” god.

Theistic perspective: Since morality comes from God, it is not up to mere humans to decide what is “good” and “bad”. If God said to do it, it is good by definition no matter what it is. Assuming the perpetrator was moved by the Holy Spirit to paint over the “out”, it was a good action by definition.

Feel free to extrapolate this theistic argument to any and all circumstances. Killing doctors, starting pre-emptive war, genocide, persecuting minority groups, etc.

While I agree that vandalism is wrong and that these acts are no exception, why is it that in each case the authors have assumed that the vandalism was perpetrated by “religious individuals”? Have any religious individuals stepped up to take credit (anonymously or otherwise) for these actions?

It seems unlikely to me that religiously devout persons, who, in all likelihood, have little to no experience in vandalism, would suddenly decide to vandalize these billboards. It seems more likely that those who are generally responsible for vandalism (in the areas where these billboards have been vandalized) would see the billboards, remember their nominal “Christian” heritage, and decide that it would be a funny stunt to pull.

Yes, their motive may not be as strong as the truly religious, but their propensity to commit the crime would be much greater.

That being said, I do not deny the possibility that the responsible parties may in fact be the devout. I just think that the scenario I have presented is more plausible.

It’s much scarier if they think they’re doing good. To quote C.S. Lewis (emphasis added):

I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretentions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent.

But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word, it forbids wholesome doubt.

Does this qualify as a hate crime? I mean as I understand the term, it is a crime motivated by and committed specifically because of a dislike of a particular group. Like beating up gay people because you don’t like gay people, (crime against a person) or burning down a church because you think they are an evil church (property crime). It’s a strange beast this hate crime stuff, I’ve never been comfortable with it, but it is on the books and so it is what it is. Book ’em DanO. Seems simple enough to surveil the site and catch the culprit the third go around, (why not the second time is beyond me). I mean screw ’em it’s a property crime, nail their ass to a wall. The best part would be the restitution, making them spend their own money to re-post the message they so adamantly disagree with, perhaps even some punitive damages which could be used for even more billboards. Now that sounds like good times.

This kind of thing makes me so angry! Us Christians shouldn’t sin to make a point.

But please remember:

“Never judge a philosophy by its abuse.” -Augustine

@Lee Shaver

While the first sign that was vandalized may have been done so by punks, this one was almost certainly done someone who was motived by thier religion.

The first one, where the whole sign was just covered in black spray paint could have been done to just any sign that was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

This one says religious person because only one part of the word was covered in blue paint.

This was well planned and well executed, this took time.

Next time I suggest that atheists should chose a slogan whose message can’t be changed by simply removing one word.

If the zealots want to deface freedom of speech, then we might as well make them spend as much as we can on paint!

Good (and bad) are subjective terms. What you consider good I may not. This poses a problem for you when you ask,
“Either the perpetrators know they’re doing a bad deed or they believe what they’re doing is good. Which is scarier?” as it places you in a group alongside the religious that thinks they can objectively tell good from bad.

Perhaps a more intellectually consistent question would be,
“Either the perpetrators believe vandalism in God’s name is acceptable, or they intentionally break their own rules with the idea that the ends justify the means. Which is scarier?”

Is there a difference between ‘someone who believes in God’ and ‘someone who is religious’? Can you believe in God and not being religious? I might be missing some English semantics here.
I’m just asking because I would assume that someone ‘who believes in God’ did that to the billboard, and ANYONE can believe in God (since it doesn’t take much to it). So, if that vandalism wasn’t necessarily perpetrated by ‘religious people’, as some of you mentioned. Then could we said that it was perpretated by someone ‘who believes in God’?
By the way, “Vandals for Jesus” was really funny JJR! (although I don’t really know if it was Christians who did it)

I don’t think a Christian would do such a destructive thing. Everybody knows that no true Christians would willfully damage property. True Christians would also support these messages as it gives them an opportunity to practice what they preach and turn the other cheek.

Surely the appropriate thing to do for all gods fearing Christians is to get together in a large building and pray that some paint would fall from a passing truck, bounce off the road so the lid comes off and splatter the paint in exactly the pattern required to obscure the word “out”.

Obviously this is a miracle and should be treated as such. Praise the lord.

I suggest to the readers to be careful about placing blame on an entire group. It only takes a small number of people to give a bad name to a larger group. It may well be a Christian that did this, but we don’t know how many others would actually agree with doing this.

Besides, if a Christian sign gets defaced, does that mean an atheist did it? I suppose the list of possible bad actors can be pretty big there.

So let me get this straight… being good includes vandalizing billboards, as long as you are changing it to agree with your religious position? Gotcha. *rolls eyes*

This kind of thing reminds me of an incident I learned about in college.

The peace activist and Yippie Abbie Hoffman wore a shirt that looked like an American flag.

Back in those days, for some reason, it was considered anti-patriotic to wear an American flag shirt…. especially if you were a hippie. The law-and-order types didn’t like it.

The police ripped his shirt off. And he had painted on his chest the Viet Cong flag!

When someone attempts to disrupt your message, your point comes through all the more clearly.

Millions are good with God… except me.

There, now it is fixed, Billboard Tagger.

Here’s my take in it:
Link

I’m not saying it was a hate crime, I’m speculating that it may meet the definition of a hate crime. Check this out

http://www.isp.state.id.us/BCI/CrimeInIdaho2008/Hate%20Crime%20In%20Idaho.pdf
It’s a pdf on hate crime in Idaho on a government site. Now I now atheism is not a religion, but I wonder if a religious bias on the part of the perpetrator qualifies it as a hate crime. It seems clear enough that there were bias related markings and also that several incidents occurred in the same locality, and these indicators can be used to establish supportive facts to identify hate bias motivation. This does not mean the perpetrator(s) are necessarily Christian but it also does not rule out the possibility. If they were found to have a belief in God it would be another indicator to support a finding of bias. But first things first, catch ’em and then we’ll have more info to form an opinion of the motives.

It would be interesting to ask the vandal, who I will assume believes in god and that god is the source of his morality, if he believes he was being “good” when he damaged a privately owned sign. I wonder if he would realized his actions belie his message?
Ack. Somebody hit me with a shovel. Of course he wouldn’t get it.

Look how easy it was to turn that Freethought message into a Christian message. This goes to show that the original wording is really important, and probably shouldn’t include the word “God.”

Or just something that isn’t so easily turned around. Plus the clouds…it was all too easy for a vandal. Almost inevitable for that reason, it seems.

At my house we have this miraculous piece of technology called a motion detector. It is attached to a light that comes on whenever there is motion within its range. It’s about $12.99 at Wal-Mart. Could something like this not be utilized, to shine a light on anyone “good” enough to climb up there? Or maybe hook the thing up to an alarm? No one is going to want to stand there vandalizing while a bell or siren is going off. The cost to set this up would not be prohibitive, and neither would the cost of maintenance as it would rarely be set off. The cost becomes even more reasonable when balanced against the expense of constantly repairing the sign. Someone clever could even hook it up to a camera, and then SMILE! God’s good little angels can show the world how proud they are of their disrespect for the property of others.

Hey, Vas, say what you will about me, but leave my father out of this. He doesn’t even cheat on his taxes or use curse words.

I’m sorry about your building. Certainly, prosecute the little buggers perpetuating this crime. Tagging is “worse” than graffiti art because it’s only intent is to destroy, I think. I have never vandalized, and have not to my recollection had anything of mine vandalized. I just can’t get worked up about this, but I wanted to point out that a few people thought it was funny when the person changed the traffic light, but don’t think this is; perhaps different people are posting.

Billboards seem like fair game, though, since it’s about advertising, and as someone else said somewhere, this will only bring atheists more attention. I don’t know too many religious people, but I’ll bring this story up now, where I wouldn’t have when it was just a billboard.

Hate crimes: since no one was injured, and there was no call to injure someone, I thought it wouldn’t be a hate crime. Clearly there are measurable damages here, but I didn’t think there was intent. *I’m not a lawyer.

It seems to me that Christians are missing an opportunity to “let their light shine”, so to speak. I’ve seen, and have felt great respect for, some very pro-active steps taken by several Christians who post on this board in reaction to various forms of bigotry and intolerance directed at atheists.

So… why not start a letter-writing campaign to various churches in the vicinity of this sign, asking them to contribute to a fund which will reimburse AHA for this and all future acts of vandalism against their billboard?

Unlike minority organizations such as AHA, churches of the Christian community could probably raise this level of funds in a single service – and such a move would send a clear message that even I’d have a hard time dismissing. Naturally, I’d expect a portion of said fund to go to some sort of competing “JESUS” billboard right next to the atheist billboard – but that too speaks loud and clear about the *right* way to engage in this type of discourse.

Tizzle – one question. If, for each occurence of this type of incident, you had to pay $2500 out of your pocket, would your attitude toward the “little buggers” remain somewhat light-hearted?

Since when is committing a crime, however insignificant, an acceptable practice for people of religion? I think many Christians have lost their sense of perspective, not to mention their sense of justice.