Atheists Take Message On Road

November 3, 2009

Author: Neil Johnson

Source: Tampa Bay Online

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/nov/03/na-atheists-take-message-on-road/

Motorists along one of Lakeland's major thoroughfares are being greeted with a billboard asking a provocative question: "Don't believe in God?"

Then there's the answer: "You are not alone."

The billboard went up Sunday on eastbound Memorial Boulevard nearMartin Luther King Jr. Avenue, making Lakeland the second Florida city to have a billboard sponsored by an atheist organization.

The bottom of the billboard lists the Web site of Atheists of Florida, which paid for the message, www.atheistsofflorida.org. The organization picked Lakeland for the billboard to mark the opening of a chapter in the Polk County city, said Rob Curry, the group's president.

The main goal is to increase awareness of the secular group, which was founded in 1992. The group has about 1,000 members statewide, Curry said, with fewer than a dozen in the Lakeland chapter.