PATERSON — An atheist group will roll out a national outreach campaign in the city on Monday when it plans to erect a billboard calling Isl...
The sign, which the organization American Atheists paid $15,000 to post for a month at a busy intersection, will carry this slogan in both English and Arabic — “You know it’s a myth … and you have choice.” The Arabic word for God, or Allah, appears to the left of the text.
Other billboards carrying the same message are expected to appear in ethnic neighborhoods across the country as the national advocacy group for nonbelievers attempts to reach out to “closeted atheists” in non-Christian religious communities. An billboard bearing an identical message in English and Hebrew will go up Monday in a heavily Jewish section of Brooklyn.
Images of both billboards were posted on the American Atheist website.
The Paterson billboard will occupy a busy intersection at 33rd Street and Broadway, two blocks from the Islamic Center of Passaic County, a mosque on the city’s Eastside.
Mohamed El Filali, the mosque’s outreach director, said the billboard will make it harder for people of different beliefs to learn from each other, but did not regard it as an attack on Islam. Since atheists have a right like everyone else to free speech, and the billboard doesn’t speak badly of holy figures, it should be allowed, El Filali said.
“This is not the first time in history, and not the last time,” he said.
American Atheists is critical of Muslim communities for what it views as their insularity and propensity to squelch individualism and religious criticism, said David Silverman, the group’s president. There are atheists within these groups who don’t know about the existence of nonbelievers and need help “coming out of the closet,” he said.
“They don’t watch as much television. They don’t read as much on the Internet. They marry very young and they are not educated in how to live a life outside of their community,” Silverman said.
El Filali said no one at the Islamic center is forced to follow Islam. Worshippers decide to follow on their own “as a byproduct of the discourse” facilitated at the mosque, he said.
Silverman said he came up with the idea for the billboards and refined the concept with American Atheists volunteers. A large chunk of the $15,000 billboard lease was paid for by donors, he said. The group plans to extend its campaign to California and New York City’s Chinatown. The group also wants to posts signs where Vietnamese and Koreans live, Silverman said.
The campaign is also meant to promote the Reason Rally, which will assemble the “largest gathering of atheists in world history” on the National Mall later this month, according to organizers.
American Atheists like using billboards — and are known for it — because the signs are effective at targeting a desired audience, Silverman said.
Before Christmas 2010, American Atheists stirred controversy by posting a billboard at the New Jersey approach to the Lincoln Tunnel saying, “You Know it’s a MYTH. This Season Celebrate REASON.” That ad spurred a Catholic group to erect a response on the other side of the crossing — “You Know it’s Real. This Season, Celebrate Jesus.”
El Filali said the atheists do not have to be on watch for a counter punch, and wished them well, with tongue in cheek.
“I would say to them, God Bless,” El Filali said.
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