Just in time for the holidays, a non-profit group is planning on erecting dozens of atheist billboards to let fellow non-believers know they're "not alone."
The Greater Sacramento Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) has paid for 55 different billboards this year to go up in Sacramento, Calif.
"It's because atheists are starting to speak up and they're beginning to identify each other," chapter president Judy Saint told a local TV station.
"There are a lot of non-believers and this time of year, they feel like they're alone. This isn't directed to people who enjoy their church, who enjoy their religion."
"That's fine. But we're talking to people who don't know that atheism is okay."
The billboards, all featuring area residents, share non-religious messages such as, "I worship nothing and question everything," or "Science. It works."
It's all part of the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation's overarching campaign to try to get atheists to "come out of the closet."
"The whole month of December is taken over in a celebration of religious beliefs, in particular Christianity," FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said.
"And it's just as if the whole month turns non-believers into outsiders."
Not everyone is excited by the planned atheist billboards, however.
Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto of the Cathedral of a Blessed Sacrament told local Fox affiliate KTXL that he wasn't particularly pleased about them.
"While I'm not happy, I am certain people still, when they look deep down in their soul and heart, find a spark," Soto said. "They believe in a higher power."
While the tone is not meant to be confrontational, both atheists and religious groups have used similar billboards as a way to criticize their rivals' principles.
This October, for example, the creationist group Answers in Genesis paid for large billboards in N.Y. City's Times Square, San Francisco and L.A.
The message: "To our atheist friends: Thank God you're wrong."
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