It was very unsettling, very jarring
Well after all, atheism is illegal, you know. I mean to say. What do they expect?
An Ontario billboard company is removing a controversial Rancho Cucamonga billboard promoting atheism after receiving complaints, according to the group that paid for the advertisement. The billboard…says “Imagine No Religion” in large letters on a stained-glass background. Underneath is the name of the group, “Freedom From Religion Foundation,” and the group’s Web address.
Well quite. That’s bound to be illegal. You can’t have people saying ‘Imagine no religion’ in a freedom-loving liberal democracy, now can you. I mean to say.
Judy Rooze, administrator of First Baptist Church of Rancho Cucamonga, which is two blocks from the billboard, was relieved it was coming down. Rooze said it was unsettling. “I understand people have freedom of speech, but this is taking it too far,” she said. “It’s very jarring.”
Well this is what I’m saying. You can’t have people saying things that are unsettling. Dear god no. I’m all in favour of free speech but obviously that doesn’t include things that are unsettling. Have some common sense. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded unemployment office and you can’t say things that are jarring, either. I don’t know what gets into some people.
Huh. Unsettling. Yes that sign was just taking it too far. I guess that is the secret hidden message in the Bill of Rights.
Freedom of Speech (unless you take it too far).
Freedom of Religion (unless it gets unsettling). Freedom to own guns (unless it’s jarring).
Freedom from having the military knock down your door (unless you don’t use your common sense, oops Judy Rooze’s common sense).
Poor Judy probably had it up to her keester with that sign.
I’m mortified that I wasn’t paying attention on the day Mrs. Steen, my 5th grade teacher, mentioned the Secret Clauses of the Bill of Rights.
They take down a billboard because the thought ‘imagine no religion’ is “jarring”, but Fred Phelps (is it?) gets to picket funerals of soldiers?! The land of the free and the home of the brave!
Quite. After all, this is a democracy! That means that when The People find something unsettling – out it goes.
Shouldn’t the Freedom from Religion Foundation jump for joy and seize the opportunity to take the billboard company to court?
I find religion jarring and unsettling….
AH! Ontario, California! For a moment there I thought Canada had gone mad…
As Rudyard Kipling (no less!) once put it:
“Once there was The People,
Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People,
And it made a Hell of Earth . . .”
Quite. And see Tocqueville and his admirer John Stuart Mill.
“Imagine No Religion” Imagine no Heaven?
Marie-Therese, can you imagine heaven?
May I suggest that Ontario folk with religious delusions should never visit Liverpool Airport.
A few years ago it was renamed ‘Liverpool John Lennon Airport’ and the decor includes quotes from his most famous songs.
Greeting you in very large letters on the wall facing you just as you step into the entrance lounge is ‘IMAGINE NO RELIGION’.
Curiously, for a city so divided along sectarian lines that it has the largest Special Branch unit in the UK, I don’t think anyone has ever complained. Maybe they just have more of a sense of humour than Californians!