Raelian Press Site: Raelians support New York subway ads promoting atheism - Urge stronger, expanded apostasy campaign

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Date published: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:45:06 -0500

Raelians support New York subway ads promoting atheism - Urge stronger, expanded apostasy campaign

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 23 – Starting this week, a new ad campaign promoting atheism will run in the New York subways and Raelians are supporting it. The new ads will carry this message: “A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?”

Similar ads in the United Kingdom are already causing heated discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. But the Raelian Movement is urging an even stronger, worldwide atheist campaign. It is also asking non-atheists to join in by renouncing what it calls “primitive and stultifying belief systems that deny some fundamental rights of human beings.”

“All people whose religions discriminate against them should apostatize, not just those who become atheists,” said Rael, founder and spiritual leader of the International Raelian Movement. “That includes all gays and lesbians, people who divorce, and those who use contraception or abortion. Since their faiths don’t recognize their rights, they shouldn’t recognize these primitive religions either.”

In addition, Raelians say the current ad campaign isn’t enough.

“The U.S. Raelian Movement supports the subway advertising, but it’s not enough,” said Ricky Lee Roehr, leader of the North American Raelian Movement. “It’s not enough to just suddenly claim you’re an atheist. You must also cancel your baptism officially.”

He explained that in almost every case, baptism takes place in early childhood, when people are clearly unable to decide such important matters for themselves.

“Religious organizations take full advantage of this fact by continuing to count all those baptized children as lifetime members, even when they no longer participate in the faith as adults and even if they have proclaimed themselves to be atheists,” Roehr said.

He said that to counter this policy, atheists need to officially renounce membership in the religion of their upbringing once and for all. This action is called “apostasy.”

“The millions of people who are atheists must also become apostates,” Roehr said. “They should ‘de-baptize’ themselves with a simple registered letter to the church or synagogue or mosque where they were baptized. In the letter, they should say they are apostatizing because they don’t believe in God anymore, and – this is very important – that they don’t want to be counted among the membership of the faith they’re renouncing.”

He said a model apostasy letter can be found online at www.apostasynow.org.

“It’s easy to write this letter, and it’s very important for atheists to follow through with this action,” he said. “Otherwise, religious organizations continue to claim false numbers of followers, which makes them look more powerful than they really are. And they also continue to get the public’s money to maintain their buildings and salaries.”

Roehr said the Raelian Movement started its “Apostatize Now” campaign years ago.

“It’s great to see more and more atheists ready to ‘come out,’ and we hope that continues at an exponential pace,” he said. “But it’s only the first step! There’s so much damage that needs to be repaired – damage caused by the primitive religions in which our primitive ancestors had the right to believe. But we’re no longer primitives unless we choose to be by believing in supernatural gods, demons and angels – the Santa Clauses for adults.”

Friday 23 October 2009

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