Thanks to darth_ender for your responses. I did get a bit of a crash course in Mormonism, but it was mostly of the “how do I escape this building without being set on fire” emergency crash course variety and less of a thorough theological study variety. And yes, I knew I wouldn’t actually get set on fire, that was an exaggeration. For one thing, Mormons tend not to carry lighters 😉

So in my state, we have two big state universities with a big football rivalry. The bigger school is in a big city, the smaller school is out in a rural area. The smaller school has intense, passionate fans. One simply does not fail to show school spirit. The larger school has some passionate fans too, but also plenty of students who could care less. It’s this latter bit that is particularly galling to fans from the smaller school. The lack of enthusiasm in itself is a sign that something is very wrong with the larger school, its team, and its fans. How could someone not care about their football team?

Well, I’ve just been poring over what separates me from Dawkins (and I hope it’s rather a lot), and I think this story may illustrate part of it. To me, the existence of God really isn’t a very interesting or useful thing to know. I mean, I’m atheist and so by definition, I do know the answer. But I don’t actually care that I know the answer. It doesn’t affect my daily life, it doesn’t factor into my decisions. Would the thought that I could be wrong bring about a sense of existential angst? Nah. The past few days in this thread are about as much thought I’ve given the topic in decades. Dawkins on the other hand? He’s got face paint and a giant foam finger (the middle one of course). Go team!

Honestly putting anything terribly religious (pro or con) on a billboard seems more tacky than offensive. It’s like keeping a Bible on the back of your toilet. Technically doable, maybe you could even build a case for why you do it, but… ew. No. There’s a better way. But then I obviously don’t think much of billboards.