In-your-face atheists attempting new marketing strategy

Jewish World Review ^ | 12/12/2012 | Dianna M. Nanez

[Former Fetus]

Freddie Schineller is a hip-looking math professor with a salt-and-pepper goatee. His artist wife, Holly, has long blond hair and stays home to take care of their four kids, ages 8-12.

The middle-class family lives in a modest Tempe home full of lots of love, noise and pets, including two dogs and a python named Monty.

Their bookshelves hold works by Plato, Leo Tolstoy and Franz Kafka, as well as the Book of Mormon and a Bible.

But Holly and Freddie don't believe in G0d. And, earlier this year, they decided it was time to "come out of the closet" in a big way about who they are.

After a family meeting, the Schinellers volunteered to appear on a Phoenix-area billboard for a campaign by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national group that aims to boost social acceptance of atheists and spotlight the growing numbers of non-religious Americans.

[tbw2]

I find it interesting that this family has 4 children instead of the common atheist 1.0 or “child-free”. Then again, Gene Roddenberry’s “Homo Sapiens Invictus” or “nietzschean” genetically engineered human race was atheist and Darwinist - and their highest honor was “father” and having lots of kids.

[Former Fetus]

Thanks!

[little jeremiah]

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They put a reality TV show on about Muslims. Will they have one about jolly normal happy non-bigoted atheists next? Atheist proselytizing is so ugly.

[sthguard]

But if they weren’t bigoted, how would we know they were atheists?

[metmom]

But Holly and Freddie don't believe in G0d. And, earlier this year, they decided it was time to "come out of the closet" in a big way about who they are.

Yeah, they're such heroes.......

After a family meeting, the Schinellers volunteered to appear on a Phoenix-area billboard for a campaign by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national group that aims to boost social acceptance of atheists and spotlight the growing numbers of non-religious Americans.

Victim mentality raises its ugly head yet again.

Ask me if I care.

[metmom]

Philippians 1:15-18 15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Let them rant against God. It just puts God in the forefront of everybody else's minds anyway.

They can't rant against Him without talking about Him. You can't promote a negative or lack without mentioning the positive.

[Cronos]

Everyone believes in something, whether it is God or gods, or their ability to attain nirvana, or to ascend, or "in the force". We even have people who believe in the party ideology, in the "nation", in the power of history, in their "race", in the power of science/technology (another god) etc

at the lowest end you have those who believe in their god the television and commercialism -- and they worship each Sunday at the mall.

[Cronos]

that’s why Russia today is increasingly returning to Christianity.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

they decided it was time to "come out of the closet" in a big way about who they are.

Coming soon to a mandatory "celebrate diversity" workshop at a business near you.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

participants perceived atheists to be the least trustworthy and most likely to commit a crime

Maybe not the garden-variety crimes, but we have plenty of evidence for what often happens when certain kinds of atheists gain control of a country's government.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

But she said it will be a step in the right direction if the billboards just make the people who know her family, but didn't know she was an atheist, start to think differently about atheists as group.

For people who are supposed to be big on logic and reason, Mrs Schineller is pretty illogical here. Is she really saying that her family is representative of atheists as a group? Pick another sample size of one (Mao's family for example), and the generalization might turn out very differently.

[little jeremiah]

Well, the spin is that atheists aren’t bigoted, only people who believe in God are.

[sthguard]

Yes, I know the argument-- but how do you develop an explicitly atheist character without scripting some direct attacks on religion and/or religious people? After all, most sitcom characters are at least functional atheists, but with few exceptions (e.g. Brian the Dog on Family Guy) those characters just don't deal with religion at nearly the same level of a character scripted to be religious.

[Bellflower]

Its tough to be and Atheist recruiter. No holidays, nothing to believe in and when you die, well, you die. No sale here.

I think the sale is first, the enjoyment of a sense of great pride as you are so much smarter and so much more logical than any of the others and second, thinking one does not answer to God and therefore becomes his/her own god. The second reason is also pride, the same kind of pride that originally got Satan into huge trouble.

All in all atheism is almost always a form of rebellion from God which some seem to think most enjoyable, but the fruits thereof sure aren't. Though it is too bad they don't realize it, at least not until most of the time it is too late.

[Bellflower]

Gaylor said members in the Phoenix area believe a government-sponsored day of prayer shows preference for religion over non-religion.

And government mandated forced exclusion of prayer doesn't show preference for non-religion?