The British Humanist Association have launched a billboard campaign showing images of children with the slogan “Please don’t label me, let me grow up and choose for myself”.
Do you feel positively toward the advertising? How do you think it compares with the “Probably no God” bus advert campaign?
More information about both campaigns can be found via www.atheistbus.org.uk
Posted: November 19th 2009
logicel
Yes, I am supportive of it as I am not mental enough to think the slogan means that religious believers can’t teach their children their faith. Apparently, there are folks who think that labeling is equivalent to teaching.
I, myself, because of this particular poster campaign, will now declare to any parent who insists in labeling their tiny children with the religious brand of their adult conviction that it is ridiculous as the child is too small to embrace any religion or lack of it. I will firmly say, that their child is a child of parents who are of (insert religion in question). However, the child can be encouraged to have critical thinking skills and to find out about all the religions, including the one of their parents so when they are grown up they can decide for themselves and either choose the one of their parents, or another one, or none at all.
I predict that this poster campaign will really get under the nose of religious believers, even if they do get the correct meaning. Not labeling tiny children the religion of their parents will rock hard the religious believers’ boat which has been kept buoyantly floating in a sea of modern cross currents because of religious privilege and the tacit agreement to tiptoe around religious beliefs.
I also foresee that the parents’ religious beliefs will be equated with moral values, and that somehow the labeling of tiny children will be deemed necessary to take the place of the often complicated and challenging teaching of ethical values. In other words, the religious will squirm like the dickens because if tiny kids are not so thoughtlessly and carelessly labeled the religion of their parents, the parents will have to have a think. Did the fact that they were labeled as a tiny child the religion of their parents have something to do with their own religious beliefs? If a person can be informed of all the religious brands that exist and then be allowed to choose, what does that say about the truthfulness of the religion they practice?
And the agnostics, the atheist butters, the faithiests, and the accommodationists will all continue to exclaim how strident and downright mean such a poster campaign is. They will bleat, moan, and whine that there is such a thing as a cultural religious identity (fine, then clearly label, if you must, the small child as being part of a religious culture, like she/he celebrates religious holidays, has religious relatives, etc.)
Hopefully, like with the atheist bus advert campaign, this poster campaign will spread to other countries.
Posted: November 19th 2009
bitbutter www
Yes, I’m supportive of the campaign. I like that it makes a request that’s so eminently reasonable. You really have to mangle the message to turn it into something objectionable. Predictably its opponents have been quick to do just that.
It’s good to see the campaign accompanied by a webpage dedicated to answering anticipated criticism and questions.
Posted: November 19th 2009
SmartLX www
I’ve read that a lot of atheists who were irritated by the necessity of “probably” in the first slogan are a lot happier with this one.
I like the new campaign, and I agree with it. An immediate reason why I like it is that the majority of religious people’s public objections to it have completely missed the point. They are upset about being told not to instruct their children in their religion, when that’s not what the sign says at all. Teach if you want, but don’t label the child until he or she has the powers of reason to decide whether to accept it all as true, and has done so. Until then, for example, a child is not a “Christian child” but merely the child of Christian parents. (The underlying point for parents is, “I dare you to subject your own religion to the analytical powers of a child to see if it holds up.”)
Same goes for children of atheist parents, by the way. The idea is not to counter-indoctrinate children who would otherwise grow up religious, but to give them a chance to choose for themselves. Those who do consciously choose a religion tend to be the most devout anyway.
Posted: November 19th 2009