In a blog post title 'Real Sign Real Poll' on his Pharyngula blog fundamentalist atheist ASS* professor P. Z. Myers comments on a Chigago Tribune article titled 'God wants you to buy baseball tickets?' and subtitled 'Joliet JackHammers tickets specifically, billboard says'. Yes it would appear that the Joliet Jackhammers baseball team in Illinois has taken a cue from those religiously motivated billboard ad campaigns which have "messages from God" on the billboard and have created a billboard ad saying -
"BUY JACKHAMMERS TICKETS TODAY." - GOD
P.Z. makes a valid point about how Joliet Councilwoman Jan Hallums, and no doubt other people, consider this humorous and somewhat irreverent billboard ad campaign to be "in very poor taste".
Herewith some "fair use" of P.Z.'s words -
"I wonder if Quillman felt the same way about the serious billboard campaign that had God announcing his will and intentions? There was one that read, "Let's Meet At My House Sunday Before the Game -God." Was that in poor taste? It seems to me that many people think it's perfectly alright to put words in their imaginary deity's mouth as long as it sounds serious and respectful, no matter what it may be."
It occurs to me that the copywriter of the billboard ad may well have been familiar with that "Let's Meet At My House Sunday Before the Game -God." billboard ad and is referencing it, if not parodying it, in the Joliet Jackhammers billboard ad.
P.Z. Myers concludes his blog post in typical fundamentalist atheist style by saying -
"Since it appropriately trivializes the foolishness of claiming that a god speaks, I had to vote no. Keep it up!"
Why is it foolishness to claim that a god or indeed *The* God speaks?
Surely if God exists and, like Carl Jung, I can very honestly say that I *know* God exists, God has the capability to communicate in various ways, including (pun intended) the use of *sign language*. . . Pretty much every god imagined or *real* has the ability to speak, or otherwise communicate with human beings, as the Bible, Koran, and numerous other religious scriptures and "mythology" make abundantly clear. So there is nothing particularly foolish about claiming that a god speaks. Nope. In his typical close-minded fundamentalist atheist world-view P. Z. Myers quite evidently fervently believes that it is pure foolishness for people to believe in the mere existence of *any* god whatsoever, ergo it is foolishness to claim that any god speaks.
Since P. Z. Myers has proven himself to be something of an obnoxious asshole with his anti-religious ranting on his Pharyngula blog I have decided to "honor" him today by creating my own parody version of the Joliet Jackhammers billboard ad.
* ASS = Atheist Supremacist Spokesperson
