Atheist Billboard in North Carolina Defaced. NEWSFLASH, PEOPLE: "One Nation Under God" is DIVISIVE!!!!

I was sent a news story by a friend over MSN tonight. The story is entitled 'Atheist billboard defaced on N.C.'s Billy Graham Parkway' and it can be found at the following link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts2936?b

An excerpt from the story:

Unknown vandals unhappy about atheists' billboard in Charlotte, N.C., spray-painted "Under God" on the ad, the city's atheist association discovered Monday. The defaced message will remain in place until after July 4, the group reports, which is the soonest that workers can furnish a fresh billboard image. Here's how the vandalized billboard now looks:



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.)

Now, this article, amazingly, has had, as of this writing, over 9000 (yes, OVER 9000!!!!) comments left by readers (many of whom apparently either can not, or did not, actually read a thing, but I digress). The seeming majority of the comments left have been, are you ready for this?:

In good ol' fashioned idiotic American theistic style (yes, this does not include everyone, JUST this (large) particular subset), in favour of the vandals!!!!! Yes, they posted in favour of the vandals. Why? Because:

This is a Christian nation


Atheists should leave if they don't like it


America IS one nation under god


Atheists have no souls


In God we Trust and One Nation Under God, get used to it or GET OUT!!


Atheists are trying to destroy religion, when atheism is a religion!


Why don't the atheists just shut up? If they don't believe in anything, what's to talk about?

and on and on and on and on and FUCKING ON. And so, reading all of these moronic comments, I felt compelled to post, in order to bring to the table the actual issue, which no one seemed to be touching upon.

And so here is what I said:  

Do you people not understand that putting "under god" after the word "indivisible" is incredibly, saddeningly IRONIC? Why, you ask? BECAUSE "UNDER GOD" is DIVISIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It's akin to us atheists re-writing it with "Under NO GOD!" Do you guys finally understand what the point of the billboards are now? It has NOTHING to do with destroying religion, being angry, having no soul, or or with atheism being a religion (which it is not, and cannot be, but that's an extraneous issue....for the moment). It's an ILLUSTRATIVE ENDEAVOUR meant to drive home the point that "under god" LEAVES OUT 20% of the POPULATION!!!!!!

Why is this so fucking hard to grasp? Hell, I pointed this out, SEVERAL times, in the comment section there. Out of the 13 replies I received, 12 were negative, and one was positive. The positive one was nothing extraordinary, just someone posting that they agreed. Now, the negative comments......guess how many addressed, or even attempted to address, in a coherent (or even fairly fucking coherent) manner, my point?

Anyone?

Hint: It rhymes with zero.

Ya fucking ZERO!!!

Look at the comments above, and you'll get an idea of what was said to me. After a bunch of back n forth nonsense, almost exclusively consisting of terrible arguments (I guess with now over 10, 000 comments in a single article, Yahoo must attract just about everybody) I sort of had enough and decided to be a bit mean, but with a purpose: I really wanted to take some of these people and "wake them up," so to speak. Try and prod thema  bit and hopefully give them some food for thought. And so, with that in mind, I posted this little bit of business:

ENOUGH B.S!!!!!!! IT'S TRUTH TIME!!!!!


THE REASON SOME PEOPLE SAY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ARE STUPID IS PRECISELY BECAUSE OF THE ABSOLUTE GARBAGE YOU PEOPLE ARE POSTING HERE.



ILLOGIC, LACK OF REASON, FALLACIES GALORE, IDLE THREATS, SUPERSTITIOUS NONSENSE, CONFLATING THE ISSUE, MISSING SIMPLE POINTS, AND INSIPID, PUERILE, JUVENILE CRAP LIKE "ATHEISM IS A RELIGION" (SERIOUSLY, WORD ETYMOLOGY ALONE DEFEATS THAT ONE, NEVERMIND SOME SIMPLE FRIGGING LOGIC LIKE THE, I DUNNO, LACK OF A CONSISTENTLY SHARED POSITIVE CLAIM, DOGMA, TENETS, ETC).


*SIGH* YOU GUYS ARE THE MOST RELIGIOUS OF THE SO CALLED 1ST WORLD NATIONS, AND YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WITHOUT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. YOU'RE ALSO THE ONE THAT HAS THE MOST SCIENCE DENIAL AND YOU'RE THE MOST SUPERSTITIOUS. BUT RELIGION IS GREAT, RIGHT? AND IT LEADS TO SUCH A HEALTHY NATION!!!


SERIOUSLY, YOU GUYS ARE STUPID. RECLAIM YOUR COUNTRIES' GREATNESS. RE-INVEST IN EDUCATION AND SNAP OUTF YOUR INTELLECTUAL FUGUE BEORE IT'S TOO LATE, GODDAMNIT!!! (yes, GODdamnit, deal with it!)


AND YOU KNOW WHAT THE SAD THING IS, ALL OF YOU WHO ARE GOING TO RESPOND TO ME IN A NEGATIVE FASHION WITH A POORLY CONTRUCTED CONTRARIAN OPINION ARE QUITE LIKELY GOING TO BE HALF MY AGE. RELIGION POISONS MINDS, INDEED. 

And yes, I posted all in caps. I didn't get my bottle on time! Seriosuly though, I recognize that I made a generalization there, and I also recognize that I maybe have been a tad mean, but as I said, I went a bit over the top on purpose. I don't mean this to sound cocky or overly idealistic, but I am really trying to do my very (very, very, very, vert, very ad nauseum) small part to try and change the world for the better. I think bringing awareness about critical thinking, skepticism, logic, reason, rationality, science, pseudoscience, etc etc etc, and yes, athesm, is a small (again, very x1000) way of doing so.

We need to bring about a mini second Enlightenment of sorts to North America (very definitely mostly concentrated in America, however.....sorry but true) and, like everything lin life, education is key. It leads to so many more changes; the effect of solid education is truly immeasurable.

Amen.