Signs similar to those in Washington are being placed on buses and billboards in New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and near the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, as well as in London; Barcelona, Spain; Genoa, Italy; and Toronto, Montreal and Calgary, Canada, Mr. Speckhardt confirmed.

How did Moscow, Idaho make that selection?

When my mother had a job that involved answering the phone a lot, she dealt with the situation by starting to answer with "Happy Holidays" in early November. To cover Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's.

Interesting. A former head of the American Humanist Association wrote in a letter to the editor criticizing those ads.

Some of those signs definitely fall into the "Not Helping" category. I don't mind ads that are in the vein of "It's okay not to believe", but I don't like the attacking ones. There are plenty of religious billboard ads I see, but they are usually in decent taste. There is the odd "you'll burn in hell" ad, but those are pretty rare. Of course, I guess if the article is talking about a handful of atheist ads they are pretty rare as well, but the bad taste ones are probably a lot higher percentage.

I've been getting the emails promoting keeping the Christ in Christmas thing. They just get deleted. I save my rage and nasty replies for the bigoted anti-Obama or anti-Muslim stuff. I don't enjoy getting my rage on that much so I use it sparingly.

"Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays"

I don't care one bit. Honestly, I think Christmas has been both a secular and religious holiday for a long time, so the greetings seem completely interchangeable to me. I hear "Merry Christmas" far more often than "Happy Holidays" FWIW.

There is the odd "you'll burn in hell" ad, but those are pretty rare.

I've never seen "burn in hell" (though I have had it shouted at me on the subway) but I have seen "Jesus is the one true God, accept Him into your hearts" type ads, which I don't think is so different in spirit from "Religion is myth and superstition."

Definite fail points for use of the word "enslaves," though. That was unnecessary.

I've never seen "burn in hell"

I think I've mostly seen those in rural areas. I can't think of any ads in the city, plenty of bumper stickers, but not actual ads.

Definite fail points for use of the word "enslaves," though. That was unnecessary.

Yeah, that part was bothering me much more than the "myth and superstition" one. Religion is myth and superstition? I dunno, maybe. Some parts are. Nothing wrong with myth, anyway. It hardens hearts and enslaves minds? There's where I've got a problem.

Yeah, I'm OK thanks, sj and Andi. Just pissed off at Camden (and a bit shaky). Being the borough that also gave me TWO parking tickets today (once for forgetting to display my disabled parking permit, and once for setting the attached clock wrongly, both because I've been all shaky today from being attacked by their pavements - or maybe I'm just plain evil). It's been a bash-my-head-repeatedly-against-side-of-car day today. Oh and Camden just found me on twitter and told me to report the "damaged" pavement. I replied that reporting that one badly-designed pavement wasn't going to help with the hundreds of others throughout the borough. At least I got that off my chest!

Have we discussed the atheist ad campaign here?

Heh. That's fun. Is it related to this campaign, over here? [link] That's been so much fun to see on buses.

My mom is actually among those who is pro-Merry Christmas, which I find odd since she's married to a JEW and has celebrated Chanukkah for the past 40 years. ::shrugs::

Like I was trying to say, some of us do both. Am I hypocrite because I'm going to be celebrating Hanukkah with The Girl next week, and she'll be celebrating Christmas with me and my family in a couple of weeks' time? I hope not. Some of us don't want to impose our faiths on other people. We just want to share the fun with our partners. And we'll be sharing stories and dreidles with a lot of non-Jews next week, including several people from my LGBT Christian group. We have masses of friends, Jewish, Christian and even my Buddhist father, coming to light candles with us. I think it's utterly fantastic.

I know people here are only sounding off about having religion imposed upon them, but some Christians don't do that, and I get tired of hearing that we all do. I wouldn't be marrying a (female) Jewish atheist if I was either a fundamentalist or out to impose my faith on other people. I don't think it's any bad thing for people to want to share their customs with each other (as long as it's in a non-imposing, non-judgemental way).

Is it related to this campaign, over here?

I think the campaigns are more or less independent, but the organizations behind them are friendly with one another.