WorldNetDaily Supports Atheist Billboard Vandalism

Incidentally, when was the last you heard about a Christian billboard that was vandalized? It happens all the time, yet it’s never “newsworthy.”

I’ve seen this situation before:

*Gay person gets the **** beat out of them for being gay or some equality group gets its building vandalized*

Bigots who constantly encourage gay bashing by opposing gay marriage: “Well thats just awful ut we get harrassed just aas bad…”

Sane people: “Name just one example. One example where it wasn’t one of you walking into a group full of gay people and insulting them. One case where you were attacked unprovoked.”

Bigots: Well, um, you see… *Lies about how the evil liberal media is covering up these many, many incidents*

Satterfield:

It took a lot of guts to do what you did –- and the fact that you haven’t stepped forward to take credit makes you a hero. It shows everyone that you are more devoted to the message than you are to the spotlight.

I’m conflicted about this, but just a little. One part of me wants to respond, “No, it shows they’re more devoted to not being prosecuted than to owning up to their ideals. It makes them cowards.”

On the other hand, I applaud defacement of commercial billboards, which are a blight upon society and drive the mindless consumerism and brand identity which is killing us all. This is called “culture jamming” – e.g. replacing McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” with “I’m sick of it”. Such actions should be taken secretly, in the face of corporate legal money which would come down on the little person.

And that’s how I resolve the conflict, and many such conflicts generally. Overwhelming institutional forces, particularly commercial and military, with corrosive power in our society are fair targets of direct action. Vandalism as a form of citizen revolt can be seen as a safety valve for bloodshed, and a bellwether for officials. And there are historical times and places when not even bloodshed is an inappropriate response to power.

Do I condone defacing Christian billboards? I guess part of my answer would be to ask to what degree a given society has turned into a theocracy.

Why does Chrissy Satterfield hate freedom of speech so much?

This just goes to prove what we’ve all been saying all along:
It is not possible for someone who uses a book as a basis for morality to have any true moral sense.

My Email to Chrissy.

So,

You would be perfectly fine if I decided to go down the street, and take a nice can of spray paint to the newly erected christian billboard?
You think it is perfectly fine to vandalize something as long as it is something that you don’t like.
So I don’t like the local church, using your logic I can go down there and take a hammer to every stained glass window?
Would you call me a hero? Or would you abandon your own view on this matter and call me a vandal and call for my arrest and conviction.

You, Chrissy, are what is wrong with religion.
Your happy to allow someone to break the law, as long as it makes you feel good.

Guess what, your house/car/boat/(insert expensive possession here) offends me, therefore by your logic I have the right to vandalize it, and in your eyes, I will be a hero.

You are an idiot, a bigot and a criminal, if christ were ever real, and alive today, he would happily smack you into next week. And worst of all, you don’t even know it, nor would you believe it when shown the evidence.

“Never would I encourage vandalism, but in this case I think I’ll let it slide. Atheists have been vandalizing my beliefs for years, so it’s about time the shoe was on the other foot.”

Oh no I’m a persecuted Christian!

Vandalism to me is such a mean thing to do; it’s obvious people that do it enjoy wasting other people’s time. And here she is supporting it. That annoys me quite a bit. It’s obvious she would never want her own house vandalised, cos that’s just her own money and time wasted trying to clean it off. So why would she want it done on a harmless billboard?

Once again, I’m immensely annoyed.

@Maliknant

Never would I encourage vandalism, but in this case I think I’ll let it slide.

it seems those vandals were responding with contention and passion. i do think it was in bad taste, although, it’s hard to argue that i haven’t gotten “fired-up” about something at least once in my life. so, i understand their sentiment even if it was a bit sophomoric.

another point worth considering is the similarity that this act bears to things Christ did in terms of generating controversy. i’ve studied Bible scripture at length and many things Christ said and did were very hotly contested in His present day. Jesus had many followers and drew large crowds, but a large number of religious authorities hated Him. while these Christians appear to be acting maliciously and without rationale they are speaking to what they believe based in the Bible despite the criticism it attracts. that, my friends, is Christ-like and thus Christian.

are you disappointed that Christians did something you could very easily expect them to do?

would you be disappointed if a senator/congressman/the president behaved politically?

when you think about it, it’s their Way. there is no use getting mad about it or becoming disappointed.

i’m not mad somebody decided to follow through on expressing what they believe to be the Truth.

“I would like to extend my deepest thanks to the man or woman responsible for this vandalism. I appreciate the action you took. Thank you for reminding me that I’m not alone. It took a lot of guts to do what you did –- and the fact that you haven’t stepped forward to take credit makes you a hero. It shows everyone that you are more devoted to the message than you are to the spotlight. I encourage you to keep your cover.”

Mohave Cross? Totally Honest Chrissy, oy.

Are you seriously upset by the vandalism? Doesn’t it just add to the billboards’ effectiveness? They turn what was previously a fairly mild invitation to contemplation into a much more urgent provocation.

I would’ve thought that these acts of vandalism were completely foreseeable by the people responsible for the billboards. Look, they’ve even left a nice white space at the bottom.

Disclaimer: I am not an American.

What an ignorant WASP bitch!

And yeah…interesting that the lying christbot doesn’t link to any examples of Christian billboards vandalized–because they don’t exist. And even then, you’d have to show me more than the average douchebag vandalism that most signs and billboards get, something that shows this is specifically atheist vandalism aimed at the faithful. Considering that average douchebag vandalism would hardly be chalked up to godbot behavior, but these vandalisms of atheist billboards are explicitly Christian.

And guess what? If atheists were constantly vandalizing anything, much less religious property, you’d hear about it clear across the country. It would get enthusiastic coverage even in the liberal media. You know why? Because, despite your pissy unsubstantiated bawling that Christians are ‘persecuted’, the reality is that you are in an overprivileged majority that is supplicated to by everyone, including the liberal media, to the point that you have only the open existence of atheists and our tendency to be “mean” (aka not kissing your ass for the supreme achievement of believing in fairy tales) as your “evidence” that you are being “persecuted”. All the while leveling all manner of actual persecution against not only atheists but every other group that you would see either marginalized or executed.

L’il Chrissy is just one of many religiotards who would love to take any and every open atheist to the public square and give them the ol’ Spanish Inquisition treatment–while claiming the whole time that they are just defending themselves from the vile “persecution” of having someone disagree with their pet beliefs. If not for our modern demonic society with it’s equal protection for Gawd’s enemies, that’s exactly what they would do, and that is why they constantly want to fight the Bill of Rights to allow each state to become it’s own little fiefdom of Christian “morality”.

And that is also why an atheist simply expressing him/herself is seen as the beginnings of some Satanic effort to persecute the believers–it’s simple projection. That’s what they want to do to anyone they dislike, so therefore that’s what their enemies want to do.

Which is why Chrissy sees this as so amazingly moral. We see it in all manner of bad movies and bad books–like R.A. Salvatore–the mentality that whatsoever the “heroes” do shall be known as “moral” and whatsoever the “villains” do shall be known as “evil”, with the designations of “hero” and “villian” being assigned a-priori. If the hero commits genocide, there had to be some good, moral reason for doing so, if the villian gives money to charity then he must have some dastardly reason for doing so. It’s the essence of mindless tribalism–insert your nation or religion or whatever other community into that and very little changes.

Of course, compare that with the discussion of the Mojave cross. There was much more discussion and even condemnation of that theft in the atheist community than there is of Holy Christian Vandalism in the Christian community. Nothing but justifications (well, it’s bad but you had it coming) and outright celebration, puntuated with false claims of atheists having done the same things for years and insistence that they, as an overprivileged majority, are “just as persecuted, even more so!”

And yet, as Hemant pointed out, it’s rare to see any of the “nice” non-insane Christians take a stand against the fanatics, which is telling. It’s a little hard for me to see you as different from those fanatics when you either openly defend them against the atheists because “at least they believe in God!” or “Sure it’s wrong, but you invited the abuse by existing openly and without shame!”–or they just duck the camera and try to avoid notice. It kind of makes me think that they at least implicitly support the nutjobs and thus their insistence that they are “not like those nutjobs” is unconvincing.

As an aside, when my husband and I moved from CT to NC, we noticed a plethora of two kinds of billboards we’d never seen before. One was advertisements for Jesus. The other was for strip clubs.

Crissy defines what is wrong with the hard Christian right. There is a small minority of good people who live for god. Everyone else are evil liberals who are intent on making our country into a beehive of socialist Muslims (or some other non-Christian religion). One can only believe in global warming if your are under the influence of LSD (or have a brain that has been burned out by a past life). It is especially sad to see a young woman infected by this hatred of everyone else but the groups that pay her to write this hatred.

It’s WND. I wish I could say I’m surprised because then there would have been progress. Like this I’ll go with Huckabee “at least you are not getting shot at…”

But yes it’s a huge problem for this country to consider how people think (or rather not think).

@Christine

well you know what the next logical step is dont you? jesus themed strip clubs! lol ahh the ineundos i could make there which arnt quite appropriate ^_^

sillynis aside to be honest this is common logic we see quite often by such people, the best example are those who scream about abortion being murder ect but then on the other hand are fully in favour of capital punishment, an intresting paradox it is 😀

For what it’s worth, I googled “christian billboards vandalized”, and in the first five pages all the links were to reports of christians vandalizing atheist billboards.

Apparently, the closest thing to vandalism that atheists do are these clever photoshop edits I found: Spanish Inquisitor: Billboard Vandalism 😀

And who’s protecting my right not to be offended?

You don’t have one.

^ 🙂

Such a shame. I was going to write a long refutation of her article but frankly whats the point. She’ll neever read it and if she did, she wouldn’t understand.

I don’t like to resort to ad-hominems but to write that article she really must be dumb as a box of rocks.

It displays the self centred attitude that prompts these billboards. Its OK if its a christian. Its wrong if its an atheist.

I think everyone has covered the problems with this pretty well, so I will just say, what a total dumbass!

Wow, when I clicked through and read it, it’s even worse than the sections Hemant quoted. She is full on endorsing vandalism of atheist billboards as a valid christian action, not just this particular incident. She cites incidents in other places and includes ominous language about “we’ll only take so much before we stand up for ourselves.” Did she kiss the Sarah Palin poster in her locker after writing that?

Someone should interview her and post it on youtube along with the other dumb blond postings. She would rank high up there.

This Christian is sorry that those Christians resorted to vandalism & ridiculous rhetoric.

I’m also grateful that we now have blogs & other social media which facilitate communication and a better chance for understanding one another & how we’ve impacted others (intentionally or not).

I’ve learned a lot here~ mostly about how ridiculous and offensive we Christians can be towards atheists.

Again, for what it’s worth, sorry for what i’ve contributed to the problem.

They underestimated their demographic, and because the vandalism occurred days before the Fourth, no one could service the billboard until after the holiday. It’s the small victories in life that make it all worthwhile.

FYI everyone, she’s both a bigot and a liar. She apparently just made this “fact” up, because it wasn’t in any news reports and it’s not correct. The billboard was repaired on the morning of July 1 and remained intact throughout the holiday weekend.

Ms Satterfield would probably also be disappointed to learn that since the billboard was erected two weeks ago, we at CAA have added 165 new members, most of whom found us specifically because of the news coverage of the vandalism.

Anyone who has ever driven through heartland America can attest to the fact that every other farm has a billboard about Jesus. So how can they argue that their rights are infringed?

“If a Christian group would like to respond to this tripe in a positive way, they could always pay for a new atheist billboard. It would suggest: “We may disagree with your beliefs, but we defend your right to believe them. And Satterfield does not represent the true meaning of Christianity.”

Yeah, I’m not holding my breath for that…”

And if some Christian group did put up a counter-sign which I think they should do too, some atheists will still pick the counter-sign apart to show how the Christians didn’t put up a counter-sign the “right way” and argue that by putting up a counter sign, the Christians are in fact enabling WND.

You have no idea how much I would love someone to vandalize it again, this time crossing out god and putting “his noodly goodness” or even just “fsm”

My email to Chrissy:

Chrissy,

I read your column supporting the vandalism of the atheist billboard. I’ll keep it short since I’m sure you’ve received plenty of other responses to this article.

You wrote “And who’s protecting my right not to be offended?” You do not have that right. No one does. That is the whole purpose of free speech; that people are allowed to say things whether or not it offends others. Freedom of speech is crucially important as it allows for criticism of government, corporations, and yes, religion. Any type of criticism will offend the target of that criticism.

Frankly, your endorsement of vandalism offended me. But you have every right to express your opinion so I don’t pretend that my rights were violated. If you enjoy exercising your right to free speech, do not argue that others can’t exercise theirs.

I called her out on it. Sent her an email.

Dear Twit,
The behavior you are applauding in your WorldNetDaily article is exactly the sort of behavior that shows what hypocritical asses many Christians are. Yes, I am saying you are a hypocritical ass. Applauding petty criminals who are too cowardly to openly face anything they see as a challenge to their point of view is beneath me, but apparently not beneath you. Much of my family and many of my friends are Christians, and you have just brought shame to them. You make Christians look like small-minded, hypocritical, jerks.
The organization in question put up this billboard knowing full well that it would likely be vandalized. We Atheist have said that your Christians despise us, and it just gets proved over and again. We can’t even mention that we exist without criminal responses. The Atheists are brave enough to openly put their money on the line to get their message across, while the vandals you are so proud of sneak around in the middle of the night, presumably between huffs of paint. Who is braver in this scenario?
These vandals are not broadcasting their names because they do not want to be punished for a crime, not because their supposed piety motivates them to avoid the limelight. I thought conservatives were supposed to be tough on crime. I guess I was wrong. You seem to love crime when it serves your purposes. Next will you be clapping your hands when someone’s uppity wife gets beaten because she needs to learn to submit to her husband?
You claim that Atheists have been “vandalizing your views for years” yet give no examples. I understand that giving evidence for beliefs is not the strong suit of conservative Christians, but I ask that you give some evidence of an Atheist applauding the vandalism of a church or religious billboard. If you have an example, I will gladly condemn the ass who did it. Perhaps this is too much to ask, but being a rational adult, I ask for proof of ridiculous claims. Are you referring to the fact that we openly disagree with your acceptance of unscientific, bronze-age myths as fact when you say “vandalism”? Boo-frickin-hoo, you infant!
You ask “where is my right to not be offended”? You have no right to not be offended. Neither do I. But we do have a right to property. This is a basic right of all civilizations worth living in. Vandalism is a violation of that right. I would condemn anyone who spray-painted asinine doodles on a church or on a “Jesus Saves!” billboard, not matter how much I disagree with the owners of that property. I see that you would not do the same for me. Dancing for joy when property rights (not to mention this petty attempt to stifle free speech) are violated reminds me why we call the times when the church was in charge “the dark ages”. Petty cowardly criminals. Is this the image you want of Christians?
I doubt you will respond to this. It is probably in your best interest to “sweep it under the rug”. Any debate over this will likely end up embarrassing you.

Aaron Harmon

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=836385631

Moron says what?
And I care why?

*GASP* She’s posting from BEYOND THE GRAVE!!

Or it could just be a really common name. Brain death would explain her depth of thought, though.

In a way, it’s interesting to me that the vandalized billboard accurately reflects the Pledge of Allegiance itself: “one nation indivisible” with the words “under God” incongruously scrawled by someone who felt the need to inject their personal religion into our secular government. Thanks indeed to the Christian vandals for their clear demonstration of how the words “under God” got there in the first place.

I hate to break this to the outraged Christian masses, but the person who vandalized the atheist billboard is the same type who’d vandalize the Christian billboard.
Once, I encountered a Jewish kid who was apprehended spray-painting swastikas. Criminal mischief is criminal mischief, just like murder is murder. The motives and other subjective packaging supposedly don’t matter to God.

My reply to Ms. Satterfield:

Ms. Satterfield,

I read your article and was stunned at a Christian woman suggesting vandalism based on a billboard you don’t agree with. Does this mean that all people who profess to be believers are given a free pass to vandalize a public structure that they don’t agree with? So much for liquor stores, non-Christian churches, retails stores that carry objectionable material and the such.

To encourage such behavior goes against any of the teachings of Jesus that Christians profess to believe in. Or do those passages in the bible get ignored when someone is offended by something they feel is wrong?

As for what is wrong with the words of that billboard, I must remind you that for many years, those were the exact words of the Pledge of Allegiance. It wasn’t until our President and Congress felt threatened by another country that we added two words.

Being offended by something that was part of this country’s history seems a bit out of place. But praising the work of vandals is out of place with Christian teachings and values.

Marty Mankins
Salt Lake City, UT

It is no surprise but sickening that this sort of attitude prevails.

I just want to ask Ms Satterfield two things, how have atheists vandalized her beliefs? and where does she get off claiming that atheists are offended by everything?
Atheists do not make a practise of deliberately misconstruing Christian beliefs and Christians do atheists – calling us satanist, haters of god etc.
And as for the second question, the whole imagined war on Christmas is a classic example of Christian thin skin. By my observation, when atheists get offended it is when some-one’s freedom is at stake or a dangerous precedent is being set.

My e-mail to Satterfield went thusly:

Ms. Satterfield,

I’m rather alarmed by the liabilities of your July 7 column. Are not conservatives supposed to reject moral relativism?

What is this inability to simply condemn all acts of vandalism, irrespective of whether the vandals share with your worldview? Would it have been so difficult to say, “I condemn vandalism, and I wish these vandals would have found a more constructive outlet for their frustration”?

I’m sure you disapprove of abortion. But to what extent are you willing to “let slide” the actions of Scott Roeder? I’m guessing (hoping) you don’t condone the murder of abortion providers. Well, why not? Probably because you recognize that lawlessness is lawlessness. (Or do you?)

The answer to speech you disagree with is more speech, not encroaching upon the speech of others. This is an American value, one I hope you learn to appreciate more.

Your pal,

Andy

P.S., As I’m sure you know, the “under god” locution was not original to the pledge. The billboard, therefore, can be said to advocate what Justice Scalia would call “textual originalism.” The original intent of Francis Bellamy was as follows:

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”

Her e-mail address is crs.wnd@gmail.com. Everyone should send her something. If there are any Christians out there who are disgusted by what she wrote, you might want to send something, too.

I sent her the following email:

Ms. Satterfield,

I’m writing you in response to your July 7th column about the vandalism of the North Carolina Secular Association billboard.

The United States is a great country which has attracted people of all races and creeds to live side-by side with the hope of greater economic opportunity and freedom from religious and ethnic persecution. The United states spearheaded in modern times an alternative to the monarchies and theocracies seen throughout much of the rest of the world. The founding fathers also recognized a danger even in a democracy of a “tyranny of the majority” where a majority could prescribe into law persecution against a minority.

The concept of a separation between church and state is not a pandering to the non-religious. By keeping religion disassociated from government, people are free to worship as they please. The wording in all pledges, oaths, and currency pertaining to the United States should be inclusive of ALL the country’s citizens. Since all US citizens have the freedom to worship one god, many gods, or no gods, the pledge ideally should be worded without the “Under God” line. The pledge was in fact originally written (by a Baptist minister) without that controversial line. “Under God” was added to the pledge during the height of cold war (with the Soviet Union) in a moment of fear and short-sided expediency.

I see from your accompanying photo in your article that you are quite young and perhaps can be forgiven the impertinence of youth. Perhaps with time you can appreciate the true benefit of the separation of church and state and that vandalism is vandalism whether or not you agree with or like the property that was vandalized.

respectfully,

Jeff

Good ol Christians. “I love everyone as long as they adhere to my narrow belief set”

“Her e-mail address is crs.wnd@gmail.com. Everyone should send her something. If there are any Christians out there who are disgusted by what she wrote, you might want to send something, too.”

I would *EXPECIALLY* encourage the reasonable Christians who are reading this to contact her. For all of the harping I’ve heard by some Christians about other religions needing to patrol their own ranks, this young lady is sorely in need of some patrolling by her own ranks. Being called out by some of her own will be far more effective in bringing her to understand the ethical problem with her position than anything we apostates and infidels might write to her.

More hateful twaddle from a privileged nitwit who thinks it’s perfectly appropriate to damage or destroy anything that remotely threatens her narrow little viewpoint.

I think it’s interesting that she considers an atheist billboard on a Billy Grahm street to be a shot at Christians. But what about naming a street in America after a famous hateful Christian? Wasn’t the naming of the street in a country with a Congress that shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, really the first fist thrown in this disagreement?

Someone should vandalize her property–by spray painting it with “God is great” or “I sure do love the lord.” Because her premise is that vandalism is okay if it supports Christianity, so she won’t mind at all, right?

Actually I’ve noticed this as a pattern.

Christianity by its nature tends to be absolutist. Yet, individual Christians will suddenly abandon their absolutism and descend into a form of relativism when it suits them.

Hey Nimrod – what about Romans 13:1? If you obey Earthly authorities then you don’t vandalize. Is the Bible true or not?

No fair I used “Nimrod” first.

Here’s the part that really stood out for me:

“It’s nice to know that I am not alone in my beliefs”

yeah right. I’m so sure that she was under the impression that she was the only Christian in the United States of Jeebusland.

Now she can sleep better at night knowing that there is at least one other person who favors the inclusion of “under God” in the pledge of allegiance.

She has a right not to be offended? Does that mean she’s supporting those Muslims who were holding up signs, “Behead those who insult Islam”? I wonder which makes her froth at the mouth more.

Has anyone gotten an answer from her yet?

Maybe we should send her a letter of support and see what she says. I would but I just don’t have the stomach for it.

Has anybody ever gotten that text message/e-mail claiming that Pepsi has new patriotic cans with the pledge on them. As the story goes, the cans have omitted the phrase “under God.” The text pleas with consumers to not buy Pepsi products until this is resolved.
Well this text is flying around my town like wild fire now. Upsetting a lot of Christians. They don’t realize that this text is completely and utterly false. It came about because of a special can Dr.Pepper did way back in 2001.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/undergod.asp

This is where rational thinking and facts come in to play.

I’m just pissed at how many people fail to analyze anything properly. They just get in a big fuss, pass on the stupid inaccurate message. Reason does not work.

Anyway, I’m straying from the topic. Today my friend argued that the pledge should not be edited from it’s original wording. She said that the words “under God” were there when this country was founded and shouldn’t be changed by anyone. This is out of respect for the original writer of the pledge.
I argue that the pledge of allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy and later “under God” was added due to an act passed by Congress in 1954.

Why doesn’t anyone just find evidence and research anything? I feel like I’m stuck in a town of gullible fools. Help!

oh and by the way a cross at the mojave desert war memorial was stolen. You say we don’t face illegal persecution. This is about more than religion. The desecration of a final resting place for men who died for your right to say what you are saying, erected by their comrades or a little graffiti, you choose. (here are your damn links)http://www.donttearmedown.com/ http://cbs3.com/topstories/mojave.cross.stolen.2.1687292.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/11/mojave.cross.stolen/index.html