Dueling billboards..Christian vs Atheist. Christians attend atheist meeting in attempt to convert. [View All]

[madfloridian]

It started with the billboard put by a local atheist group.

Atheist group takes message to Lakeland via billboard


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

LAKELAND - 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 near Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, making Lakeland the second Florida city to have a billboard sponsored by an atheist organization.

"We want other people in the secular community who are non-religious to become aware of us," he said.

The group wanted to keep focus on separation of church and state.

The group's main focus is keeping a separation of church and government. Curry said the billboard's message does not attack anyone or any religion.

A man came back from a trip, saw the sign by the atheist group....and he paid to put up his own Christian billboard.

'Believe in God!' is Lakeland Man's Answer to Atheists


CINDY SKOP | THE LEDGER In response to an atheist billboard Richard Geringswald has erected a pro-God billboard on Memorial Boulevard Friday November 27, 2009 in Lakeland, Florida. The billboard will be up for at least six months.

When Richard Geringswald returned from a short mission trip to Jamaica last month, he found a Ledger article sent by a friend about a billboard put up by an atheist group on Memorial Boulevard. The sign was across the street from First Baptist Institutional Church, whose pastor, the Rev. Alex Harper, is president of a small seminary where Geringswald occasionally teaches.

"I was totally ticked," Geringswald said.

....""Error conquers truth when good men stand by and do nothing," he said.

Within a week, he had rented space on a digital sign several miles away and placed an order for a permanent one closer to the atheists' sign.

Many of the local stories on TV were pretty fair, but a few showed people absolutely livid that the atheists had the right to do that. To their credit, most people who disagree at least acknowledged they had the right.

Christian groups decided to attend the meeting of the atheist group.

Atheists invited people to join them, and Christians are pushing back firmly.

It is the Central Florida billboard condemned by Christians. Now it is pulling people into a big debate over God in Lakeland. Atheists invited people to join them, and Christians are pushing back firmly. It was supposed to be a meeting for the Atheists of Florida to recruit more members, but it turned into a debate with Christians about whether or not God exists.

"When I realize there are some people who think that God does not exist, this is just unbelievable to me," said Dr. Byron George, a local pastor.

The Atheists of Florida hosted a forum at the Lakeland Public Library. Pastor Byron George told atheists to be open to a revelation. Ellen Bath Wachs says, "Christians are disrespectful when they cannot accept the belief of atheists, that there is no God."

She says, "We didn't come here to get preached at, that's our whole point. He's absolutely preaching."

Others went to the meeting because of the bill board. Christians asked questions of the group. One was.. "Who created the world if God did not?"

There is a video at the last link.