SAN ANTONIO – Some road warriors are driving through a battle over God.
An atheist group put up a billboard on I-10 near Crossroads Boulevard.
“Oh my God, did you see that sign?” driver Mary Munoz reacts.
It says: “Don’t believe in God? Join the club.”
“It’s one of those things, just to me, would hit a nerve,” driver Paul Salazar says.
The
San Antonio Coalition of Reason paid for the billboard. The group says whatever road it’s on, it’s paved with good intentions.
"It really has one purpose,” group representative Jim Parker says. “And that is to allow people in the San Antonio area who are already non-believers to know there's a place they can go to and be with fellow non-believers."
Nearby, a group of believers put up a billboard down the highway. It reads: “Think God.”
“It makes you start thinking,” Salazar says. “It makes you think about your beliefs, your religion.”
Think God’s website has no contact information but says the signs are sponsored by “ordinary people” who want to spread God’s message.
Put them side by side, and it’s a duel over deities designed to get us thinking and talking.
"It's pretty interesting because you don't see that advertised,” Munoz says. “You see signs for lawyers or restaurants. You don't see advertisements for God or religion."
"I think it boils down to our Constitutional rights of the United States,” driver Eddie Cruz says. “Freedom of speech, expression religion -- shouldn't have anything to do with anything else than that."
So as the 1970s rock scene put it: is it a highway to hell, or a stairway to heaven?
The answer is in the eye of the beholder.
