News Video: Atheist of Florida vs Lakeland Christians

[VietnamVet-BRIGHT]

Here's a news video and article of our Monday night's "Meet the Atheists" event in Lakeland, Florida.  

This event was scheduled so that Lakeland residents could come and express their feelings/reactions, both pro and con, to our atheist billboard in their city.

Video and article ...

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/fa ... God-debate

[SSY]

Here's a news video and article of our Monday night's "Meet the Atheists" event in Lakeland, Florida.  

This event was scheduled so that Lakeland residents could come and express their feelings/reactions, both pro and con, to our atheist billboard in their city.

Video and article ...

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/fa ... God-debate

"Atheists held a meeting to try and recruit new members", what a load of shit.

[Will]

Commenting as I'm watching:

The billboard reads "Don't believe in God? You're not alone." This is clearly for people that already don't believe in god.

You can't have a debate over whether god does or doesn't exist.

Also, pastor Byron George showed up to preach, which I consider trolling.

"The debate is not settled here." hahaha... really? I figured one solid debate would put the issue to rest!

[Miss Anthrope]

"Atheists held a meeting to try and recruit new members", what a load of shit.

Yeah, when I heard that is it was a "WTF" moment.

And in general I found the whole thing ridiculous. I think that even if I was a Christian I wouldn't really concern myself with the beliefs or disbelief of others. I  even remember something in the Bible about not concerning one's self with the "ways of the world" (when I was younger I remember a pastor at a church I went to using this to explain to the congregation that it was not their place to meddle in politics and that they should keep their faith separate from it).

It also shows a weakness in their faith that they're so threatened by contrary views.

[Whitney]

"Atheists held a meeting to try and recruit new members", what a load of shit.

Well...that is the purpose of that billboard...to get people who are atheists to realize that a community exists.

However, I doubt the meeting itself was held with the intention of drawing members...it was probably just a scheduled meeting.

[VietnamVet-BRIGHT]

"Atheists held a meeting to try and recruit new members", what a load of shit.

Well...that is the purpose of that billboard...to get people who are atheists to realize that a community exists.

However, I doubt the meeting itself was held with the intention of drawing members...it was probably just a scheduled meeting.

I'm an officer with Atheists of Florida.  Our "Meet the Atheist" evening was planned as a separate event from our regularly scheduled meeting and specifically to avoid bringing any such confrontation to our regular meetings.  

It was designed/intended to be a sort of "interfaith dialogue,"  which we (as a member of Atheist Student Alliance-USF) have successfully conducted at the University of South Florida for several years.  The idea is not to engage in debate but rather in dialogue to discover more about one another's worldviews.  At least that was our intention and, though challenged to draw us into such debate, we held to that standard pretty much throughout the course of the evening.  It's basically this: Ask who we are, what our worldview looks like but don't tell us how wrong we are; accordingly, tell us something about you, your worldview and, likewise, we won't challenge your ideas either.

As far as attracting new members, we were successful in growing our organization as a direct result of the sign and this meeting.    

Also, here's another article about our event ...

http://www.examiner.com/x-19674-Tampa-H ... -goes-well


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[karadan]

I'm amazed at how much controversy one billboard has caused. There obviously needed to be some dialogue though, as people wouldn't have reacted with such incredulity if there was no issue.
I really find it quite cringe-worthy when someone like that pastor is astonished some people don't believe in god then goes on to preach at them - as though the atheists will all-of-a-sudden jump up and scream for forgiveness from the lord... I just find stuff like that really awkward and I want to run away from it.

[Ellainix]

We didn't come here to get preached at, that's our whole point. He's absolutely preaching.

You tell him like it is!

Who created the world if God did not?

The world was created? News to me!

[VietnamVet-BRIGHT]

We didn't come here to get preached at, that's our whole point. He's absolutely preaching.

You tell him like it is!

Who created the world if God did not?

The world was created? News to me!

You'll probably like this next news video ... it has a sound-byte of what I said to that sermonizing pastor (I'm sitting at the table with the black suit coat) ...

http://www.abcactionnews.com/mediacente ... navCatId=3


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[VietnamVet-BRIGHT]

If you want to hear the entire event, we've posted it on our Blogtalkradio site.  The link below will take you directly to that audio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/atheist/20 ... n-lakeland


L-R: Rob Curry, Ed Golly, John Kieffer, Matt Cooper, Molly Martin, EllenBeth Wachs, Jonathan Smith


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