Currently there's a bizarre billboard campaign going on along parts of Interstate 95 in southern Florida. It seems God has decided to address the masses.
"What part of 'Thou Shalt Not...' didn't you understand?"
"Keep using my name in vain, I'll make rush hour longer."
"Think it's hot here?"
These and other sayings are all ascribed simply to "God." And he's not saying it just along roadsides, but on the outsides and insides of buses, too.
According to a Reuters news report, some religious leaders aren't too fond of them, calling them possibly blasphemous. The public, though, has generally responded positively.
That includes Sue Marcellino, owner of the Clergy Apparel/Christian Book Store in Fort Lauderdale, who said, "Anything at all that will make people stand up and take notice is very important anywhere ... Anything that puts something in someone's thought like, whoa, maybe I should change my ways, maybe I should check into this, go to church, read the Bible. I don't see why anybody would have a problem with it."
Well... How about motivation? The billboards quoted in the article do not inspire such introspection and self-evaluation. They're threats, pure and simple. People don't change for the better because of threats, but because of desire.
If Ms. Marcellino and others would take a look at the edicts of their Bible, they'd see that it doesn't say much more than the billboards, when it comes right down to it. It is a book filled with threats of damnation, of pain, of unrepenting torture.
Fear isn't my idea of good motivation. Why would it be the motivation of a supposedly all-loving God?
