A controversial advertisement promoting atheism has one man in New Westminster calling for its removal, claiming the ad attacks Christians.
Mark Jaskela, a member of a volunteer ministry based in New Westminster, wrote a letter to the Centre of Inquiry Canada regarding one of their advertisements recently posted on a billboard in the city.
In the letter, Jaskela questions the motives behind the ad and its message, calling on the Centre for Inquiry Canada, an educational charity aimed at promoting evidence-based thinking, to admit the ad has taken freedom of speech too far.
“Of course, lying in advertising is nothing new. However, lying for the sake of lying, lying to coerce others into basing their lives on lies and, most unfortunately, for the sake of publicly attacking people who believe in the Bible, that’s hate speech,” Jaskela wrote to the centre.
Earlier this month, Pattison Outdoor advertising rejected the ads on the grounds that the Centre for Inquiry Canada did not meet the company’s guidelines with its design. Pattison told Global News the Centre for Inquiry was asked to change some of the copy in the ads and resubmit an application, but the centre refused.
The advertisement, which was recently posted on a billboard on McBride Boulevard between Eighth and Sixth avenues, feature a young man holding a camera with the words “Dave 27:1 … Lead with your heart. Not with your Bible. Without God. We’re all good.”
Less than a month later, the Centre for Inquiry managed to secure advertising space with CBS Outdoor at a number of different locations across the Lower Mainland – the most recent in New Westminster.
“In a pluralistic, democratic society we’re all free to believe as we choose to believe within reason, but these ads are specifically slanted in a ways as to attack Christians and believers in the Bible on the grounds that somehow belief in the Bible is some kind of assault to freedom of thought or self-determination, which is essentially bigotry,” he told The Record.
While Jaskela acknowledges everyone has their own beliefs, he believes this advertisement, and those like it, are attempting to do more than promote atheism.
“I recognize the way of the world,” he said. “There is a growing anti-God kind of movement that is coalescing in Western society today for various reasons, but at the same time, this kind of thing is essentially hate speech and I’m not interested in acquiescing to what could amount to some kind of more pronounced persecution of people of faith in my country.”
