Members of Columbia-area atheist and agnostic organizations are reaching out to like-minded people with billboards, one on Blossom Street at Pulaski and the other facing westbound traffic on I-20 at Monticello Road.
At a cost of $7,000, paid for with local funds, the billboards will be up for four weeks.
The message – “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone” – is not meant to be confrontational or offensive, the coordinator of the Columbia Coalition of Reason, Dustin Tucker, said.
Columbia Cor billboard on Blossom Street at Pulaski
/Columbia Coalition of Reason
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“They aren’t aimed at religious people, they don’t attack religious beliefs. They are intended for the non-religious, to let them know we are here, to bring them into the community,” Tucker said.
Some writers posting in online communities have taken offense at the timing of the billboards.
“We put these billboards up here in Columbia because this is where we live,” Tucker said. They will be down before Christmas so as not to offend, he said.
The Columbia Coalition of Reason is made up of four Midlands groups: the Freethought Society of the Midlands, Secular Humanists of South Carolina Midlands, Pastafarians at the University of South Carolina and Camp Quest South Carolina.
Tucker, 27, is a member of the Pastafarians at USC. An archeology major and “a proud Gamecock,” Tucker served two tours of duty in Iraq in the Army.
“We’re just like you. We’re conservatives. We’re liberals. We aren’t bad people,” he said.
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