New billboard in Niagara Falls preaches positive message to people without faith

Last week a controversial billboard sponsored by Amherst's sector of Center for Inquiry went up in Niagara Falls.

Why controversial? The billboard presents passer-bys with the message: "You Don't Need God — To Hope, To Care, To Love, To Live."

It has a picture on it of a smiling woman with her family affectionately surrounding her.

Gasp! Atheism in my country? Blasphemy! I am offended!

Of course I am being facetious, but there are a number of persons offended by the billboard's pleasant message.

I don't think Christians have the right to be offended. They get their way pretty much all the time. Their God is mentioned in the National Anthem. Their God is on our currency. Their God is acknowledged by children every morning when they recite the pledge of allegiance. America is a very religious country, with surveys stating that around 80 percent of Americans believe in a higher power. It is only right that atheists have their voices heard as well.

Ronald Lindsay, President of the Center for Inquiry, said the billboard is meant to combat negative stereotypes about non-religious people.

I think the billboard is a great idea, and I am excited about it. My hope is that it helps people realize that non-religious people, like myself, have morals and live fulfilled and spiritual lives.

There are various reasons why I am not religious, and I firmly believe in the fact that we do not need religion to live virtuous lives.

Some are afraid to live in a Godless world because they feel without Christianity there is no pressure to live ethically. But can we live ethically without a God?

Yes we can, and to explain my position I will recall a few things I learned in a freshman year philosophy class about Divine Command Theory.

For one thing, God's commands of right and wrong are arbitrary. God could have just as easily commanded murder to be right as he could of commanded it to be wrong.

It is easy to think it is ridiculous that God would decide that murder is right, but what are his reasons for deciding it is wrong? Because if you murder you are infringing on another's right to life? Because you would make their family members very upset? Because you would spend your life in jail with a guilt-ridden conscience? See, it wasn't so hard to determine that murder is bad idea, without God's help.

One might also argue that God commands something to be moral because he has the divine wisdom to know what is right. If we believe that God commands us not to murder because murder is wrong, we recognize a standard of right and wrong independent of God's will. We already know it is wrong, so why do we need a God to reinforce that belief? The idea that a belief in God is needed to make people morally and virtuously does not make sense to me.

I do not need God to hope, to care, to love or to live, and I hope to one day live in a world in which religion is not needed to calm and coerce the masses.

As my underappreciated hero Karl Marx once said, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions."

Amen to that.

Ariel Peters can be reached by email at peters.record@live.com.