It’s hard to see this as anything other than a threat — a call to violence against atheists.
You can contact Answers In Gensis here to pressure them to remove the ad and issue an apology.
Believe in God or die?
Guided by reason, informed by science, motivated by compassion
on Apr 15th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a threat… I’m really not sure what it’s supposed to mean at all. Careless use of strong imagery for sure but the phrase that follows it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with violence at all. I suppose it could be taken to mean “…and then it’s ok for our brainwashed kids to shoot you.” but it doesn’t really say that (and I’m sure they’d deny it if you asked). Consider this from their front page “[facts] can be properly understood only when given the interpretation the Creator intends; as such, all facts demonstrate the truth of Christianity.” and I think it’s safe to assume that putting things together in ways that are at all rational is not their strong suite and they were merely trying to steal the emotional impact of staring down the barrel of a revolver being held by a crazy hick boy to use as a “religious experience” without any particular thought put into what it’s supposed to mean. Low-grade propaganda on par with mainstream religion (ex: the nazi imagery in “Expelled” wasn’t a symbolic of literal violence against cdesign protaganistists it was just sloppy cheap use of imagery to evoke an emotional response).
The real problem for this group, however, is that abstract, non sequitur violence is still completely inappropriate for their advertisement so they are either:
1. Threatening non-christians with real violence. This is the easiest, if largely unsupported, interpretation to make which is illegal and fallacious but at least internally consistent to their message of radical evangelism.
2. Figuratively using violence to try and make non-christians feel malaise and socially undesirable. This would also be internally consistent and would also be legal (and possibly even intellectually honest if they had any real content to back the statement up with). Except the violence in their advertisement is too abstract to be able to claim that this was the intended purpose that any reasonable person would recognize so if they claim this one they must also admit that they are stupid or insensitive (or some combination thereof).
-or-
3. They used abstract violence for nothing other than shock value. This is not internally consistent, not logically valid, legally questionable, and socially deplorable. This thirst possibility is, I think, the most likely and also the most damning.