A new billboard campaign in Indianapolis will soon tell people they don’t need God to live a good life. Drivers headed south out of Indianapolis along U.S. 31 will see a new billboard next week reading, “You don’t need God – to hope, to care, to love, to live.”
The billboard also lists a website (www.LivingWithoutReligion.org) which features a video driving home that message. The Center for Inquiry started the campaign in Washington D.C. with train and subway posters this week. It will continue on billboards in Houston and Indianapolis next week.
The Center for Inquiry cites recent surveys in conjunction with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which found roughly 16 percent of Americans have no religious affiliation.
“We’re just like everybody else, we have families, we pay taxes, you know, we’re good people,” said Reba Boyd Wooden, executive director of the Indiana chapter of the Center of Inquiry.
According to the Center for Inquiry mission statement, they are a “nonprofit organization with the mission to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values”.
Reba Boyd Wooden says the billboards are designed to reach out to other like-minded people.
“We get people who come here all the time who say we wish we had found you sooner because we feel so isolated,” she said. “It’s an effort to reach out to those people. It’s not an effort to convert people who want to stay religious.”
You’ll begin seeing the billboards next week at four locations spread across the city.
– I-465 and State Road 67southside interchange
– 86th and Georgetown
– 82nd St. near 465- US 31 near 465
The new billboard on the south side won’t be far from a familiar cross-shaped sign that marks the Indianapolis Christian Fellowship. Senior pastor Jeremy Bialek doesn’t exactly agree with the message.
“While you can live, and you can love and hope and care to an extent without God,” pastor Bialek said. “There are limits on that because we’re limited as human beings. I think we need his help to do those things well.”
Despite his disagreements with the message, pastor Bialek said the group has every right to post their message. He says he doesn’t plan to protest the sign, and hopes Christians will take a minute to reflect on their own faith if they encounter it.
Reba Boyd Wooden says the Center for Inquiry says the billboards aren’t intended to debate the existence of God. She says the organization promotes religious and non-religious tolerance for all.
