In Seattle, this year’s signs say “Millions are good without God.”

We have one of those in Chicago on my bus route. More or less - I think it says "Good without God? Millions are." I like seeing it there.

I've definitely seen the burn in hell variety of god signs, mostly from the freeway in country areas.

I'm with Trudy on Happy Holidays as a catch-all - it's a six week period incorporating quite a lot of different holidays so I don't get the issue.

Have we discussed the atheist ad campaign here? [link]

Those billboards led to death threats in Cincinnati, and I am not even kidding.

We're so open-minded, it brings a tear to my eye. It's one big love-fest for the atheists, non-white folks, gay people, and trans* people!

I swear that stores and other places for the general public have said "happy holidays" for as long as I can remember, and this idea that there's a sudden concerted attack on Christmas is made up out of whole cloth.

I am an atheist who has an emotional attachment to the idea of Christmas as embodied in A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life and the "Yes, Virginia" editorial. I'm also fond of the music. I think there is some human need for festival at the darkest time of the year.

As an aside, I thought I could not loathe Macy's more than I did when they took away the Rich's and Marshall Field's store names, but I found I had more loathing in me when they co-opted "Yes, Virginia." I may go tomorrow and get the $10 gift certificate they're giving to people named Virginia, though.

“Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

I've seen that one on the buses here, and I always have the dual reaction of, "Oh, fuck you, you fucking fucks, you have no idea why I believe what I do and what I do with that belief" and "Oh, fuck you, Jacqueline, suck it up and deal. The folks who put that up are on the receiving end of some pretty awful stuff 99% of the time, it won't kill you to feel what they feel for the three seconds it takes the bus to pass."

Though those signs are [she said waggishly] preaching to the choir in this city. Or at least among my peer cohort, as actual actively practicing religious people are kinda rare in the white middle class college-educated artists/actors/writers/reenactors communities in the Bay Area. I've gradually, gradually come to realize that I'm not the only one, but it took us years to find each other out because we're all kind of secretive and sheepish and preemptively defensive about it and try not to out ourselves unless we have to. Which, really, is awesomely educational in helping us to get how atheists in most of the rest of the country feel.

Still, those are my second-least-favorite bus ads (the first least favorite is some other ad, for something else entirely, that I can't even remember; I only know it's either aggressively moronic or aggressively sexist and it rages me out so much every time I see it that I have completely blanked the campaign from my mind to prevent myself from stroking out every time I happen to think of it).

My advisor submitted my letter of recommendation.

Well, if Chicago is any example, hell does seem to be freezing over.

Though those signs are [she said waggishly] preaching to the choir in this city. Or at least among my peer cohort

There's really a predominant school of thought that religion makes individuals worse people? Most of the angry atheists I know personally are careful to rail against the institution, not the individual, and it's not like all of them have a bug in their ears.

Maybe not predominant with such aggressive wording, but definitely an unspoken base assumption among my peer cohort (which is admittedly a small, weird one). I've had several people express open shock at finding out I believe in God, because I'd always come across to them as so intelligent and reasonable.

The Bay Area is weird, though. You can't really extrapolate from this place to anywhere else on the planet.

Hil - I am so relieved for you.

From Fancy Fast Food - Bubbe Wendy's Latkes.

Hil, wow. What a relief!