If you are traveling up and down I-45 this season, you may see a different kind of holiday billboard. The American Atheists are getting into their own version of the holiday spirit, with a series of billboards in Dallas, Fort Worth, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Albuquerque asking motorists to question what they hear in church, or skip it altogether.
The billboards are meant to start a conversation here in the buckle of the Bible belt, and let Dallasites know that atheists are part of their community.
“Everyone knows that the stories we’re told in church aren’t the truth,” said American Atheist president David Silverman. “Spend time with your friends and family, give gifts, do charitable work, and enjoy the season. You can do all of that while also celebrating the truth.”
In 2015, Forbes said that Dallas had the seventh-highest ratio of churches to people, with over 1300 churches in the city. That is one for every 909 people. Only 18 percent of the city was unaffiliated with a church, it said.
The billboard will be on the northbound side of I-45 south of its intersection with I-30, just southeast of downtown. It sits less than a quarter of a mile from a Tiger Cabaret billboard on I-30, starring a squinty-eyed woman touching her lips, so perhaps it won’t be as shocking as originally hoped. The signage will be around for the month of December.
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