“Humanist poster stirs up religious storm” says the Belfast Telegraph. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but they did find a Free Presbyterian Church minister (Rev McIlveen) and a Muslim “father-of-four” to say a few angry things.

Frothing only slightly, the good Reverend says:

I would totally reject the [Don't Label Me billboard] advertisement. It is reprehensible and so typical of the hypocrisy of the British Humanist Association today. They have a defeatist attitude and are just trying to draw attention to themselves. I think it is totally arrogant, presumptuous and sparks of total hypocrisy. I believe this doesn’t deserve a counter campaign. I will be expressing my public position on it in my own church on Sunday.

David McIlveen "And here's my proof"

That should get the punters in.

This is the same Reverend David McIlveen, by the way, implicated in the Advertising Standards Authority decision to ban his church’s anti-gay advert in December last year. The newspaper advertisement had said that “sodomy” is an “abomination” and “God’s judgment upon a sin.”  It is apparently “a cause for regret that a section of the community desires to be known for a perverted form of sexuality.”

To be fair, in his defence, McIlveen said, “It has never been our intention to deliberately offend anyone,” – (wait for it there’s always a ‘but’) – “but we cannot deny that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will by its very nature be a source of offence to those who rebel against its message and in turn despise its messengers. … It is totally unacceptable for any church to look to an outside body for their approval to print gospel tracts that are based on the word of God. This we cannot and will not do.”

Translation: Wider social consensus on what counts as hateful and discriminatory language is irrelevant to me and my church.

It’s been a great first day for the billboard campaign. At the BHA we’ve received huge numbers of emails, it’s great to see people tweeting away again, and we’re currently 28% of the way toward our funding target. Let us know your view on the posters in the comments – good or bad.

You can hear the BHA discussing the campaign on Radio Five Live at about 10.30pm tonight (GMT).

Those useful links again:

• www.justgiving.com/nofaithschools
• www.humanism.org.uk/billboards

From the BBC news piece:

Graham Coyle, a teacher and national team leader at the Christian Schools Trust, which represents 43 independent schools, questioned what the BHA was asking parents to do.

“They seem to be saying that they don’t want parents to pass on to their children their fundamental beliefs – about what is right and wrong, about respect for other people and living in harmony,” he said.

“If that is what they are saying then they are asking parents to abrogate their responsibilities. And if parents don’t pass on these beliefs who is going to fill the vacuum?

“To say that we are labelling our children by passing on our fundamental values is mistaken.”

He added: “If a humanist says to his child ‘I don’t believe in God’ then he is making a statement and passing on that belief.”

Of course it’s not true that the Don’t Label Me campaign says you can’t pass on any kind of moral education! It’s only about labelling children and other kinds of really tight constraint on the development of their “worldview” – whatever it may end up being. Far from being about abrogating responsibilities, parental open-mindedness – allowing children the space to explore different ideas from your own for themselves – is a very worthwhile and virtuous responsibility to undertake!

Anyway, the BHA loves critical thinking, of course! So we’ve answered the questions raised here in the Billboards Critical Thinking FAQ. For example see after the jump. Read the rest »

We’ve seen photos of the billboards in their Belfast and London locations. Take a look at www.humanism.org.uk/billboards/images

Not sure if Cardiff and Edinburgh are up yet. Cardiff and Edinburgh should be up, too! Let us know if you take a photograph…? You can email website {at} humanism.org(.)uk

Also see www.humanism.org.uk/billboards/promote for web buttons like the ones below, and other ways that you can help to promote the Don’t Label Me billboard campaign.

It’s always nice to make it onto the BBC UK News website.

Also see Press Association release and British Humanist Association.

This week, the final phase of the atheist bus campaign will appear in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast – not on buses, but on billboards. Due to the amazing sums you donated to the campaign fund at the end of last year, we raised enough for a second wave of adverts – and the above posters on the theme of freedom of belief will launch today. Thank you again so much for your generosity.

To read more about the Atheist Billboard Campaign, please visit this article on The Guardian website. To donate to a new BHA campaign to end faith schools, please click here.