As an atheist, I find the billboards mentioned silly. The thing that I always bring up to other atheists is that they are as obsessed with everyone else NOT believing as many believers are obsessed with everyone else believing. I don’t see much difference—the rabid on both sides seem to be nervous about letting others make up their own minds.
Allow me to point out one critical difference. A Christian (and probably true for many or even most other religions) believe that there will be a point of judgment, and a salvation from that judgment. By presenting their views as persuasively as possible may lead to the salvation of another. What motive does an atheist have for similar behavior? I submit, nothing similar.
You need to look deeper.
One group wants to save souls; the other wants to deny their very existence.
That's a large and profound difference.
Consider a slightly different perspective.
Let’s say you discovered Trader Joe’s, and gradually became more fond of it to the point of generally only shopping there.
Certain joyous perceptions accompanied your involvement with that particular group than any others you had found.
Meanwhile, some others had always shopped at Safeway. Along with their Safeway shopping came soe incentives for them to attract others away from their perceived competition by becoming an even larger store, to the point of monopoly.
You share with some friends how much you find the Organic foods at Trader Joe’s to help your health. Meanwhile an adversary comes along, not only insulting the worth of organic food, but insisting all food is chemical in nature and processed food and farmed fish is healthier anyways, and besides, Trader Joe’s really isn’t unique, they just buy second hand rejects from Safeway and really aren’t an independent store.
Even if the adversary is unable to convince or change your shopping habit, he might attempt to make your testimony appear inconsequential and might succeed in convincing you to shop Safeway for while just to check things out. Meanwhile, his ultimate intention really had more to do with his personal arrogance, seeking a perceived benefit for himself, and really not having any sincere love for his fellow man with integrity.
All along, there were many other shoppers who happen upn Trader Joe’s or Safeway and never communicate with others how they shop.
The parallel is that there exist people who have found God through faith in Christ. They have been exposed to a joy that isn’t artificial, but has such substance that they are amazed and somewhat disappointed they hadn’t been made aware of it sooner in their lives.
There are also some others who openly rebel against God in search for anything worldly, fleshly, and spiritually independent of God. Some believe they will increase their riches by distracting others from God and anything and everything He provides.
There is one last distinction. Christian belief that saves, the stuff of salvation, isn’t something any other human being can give to another. Accordingly, when the real Gospel is communicated to somebody who has never heard it, it isn’t a situation where the believer is trying to get somebody else to share his belief. On the contrary, it is an effort simply to communicate to another person that God provides something not available from anybody else and which we do not have from birth.
It is something very real, allows a perception of a universe not observable by those who have never believed and is quite significant, eternally so. Additionally, those who never get it before they suffer the first death, are on a doomed irreversible track which they will never be able to control, also very real.
Unlike Trader Joe’s, the food provided by God in His Word is good for eternal life. Like Safeway, there’s lots of farmed religion out there which is filling but not very healthy.
The only difference between atheists and believers wanting others to believe as they do is that believers really do believe that there is a hereafter and that everyone will spend it somewhere. There’s the concern for where.
As far as others making up their own minds, as believer, I do feel that choice is theirs. I’m not nervous about others not believing as I do because I perceive it as a threat to my own beliefs; I’m secure enough in them that other’s faith, or lack of it, doesn’t faze me.
Likewise, I don’t want anyone making false professions just for lip service.
South Park had a wonderful parody of Richard Dawkins, in a two-part episode, with Dawkins being portrayed to say “Logic and reason aren’t enough: You also have to be a dick to everyone who doesn’t think like you.” The result is, in the future, people are still having arguments and very deadly wars over idiotic differences, and, in this case, it’s over the stupidest possible difference— the choice of name for the group atheists belong to.