It’s that time of year again when atheists and christians fight for attention with dueling billboards at the New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Last year, the atheist billboard showed a picture of the three wise men heading to see the little kid in the manger. It featured a very provocative headline: “You KNOW it’s a myth.”

Catholics were so incensed that an anonymous Austrian forked up some dough to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights to put up a counter billboard that showed the savior kid with his parents and the message: “You know it’s real: this season, celebrate Jesus.” 

This year, however, Catholics aren’t taking the bait. Perhaps because the atheist billboard isn’t as in your face as it has been in the past. The current one shows pictures of Poseidon, Jesus, Santa Claus and the devil. It says: “37 million Americans know MYTHS when they see them. What do you see?”

The 37 million Americans, of course, refer to atheists like myself who range from indifferent to religion to militant to the point of, well, putting up billboards that usually make christians go ballistic.

David Silverman, president of American Atheists, said that this year’s message is meant to be softer in order to get closeted atheists to come out.   As a gay man, I can appreciate that. “We want people to realize that there may be atheists in their family, even if those atheists don’t even know they are atheists.”

Which has prompted Catholic League head  honcho Bill Donohue to call for an “adopt an atheist” campaign. He wants christians to contact a local atheist group and offer to help bring a nonbeliever out their closet because deep down inside they’re secretly christians. It’s uncertain whether it’s an attempt at satire or a real call to arms. Donohue is not known for his sense of humor about these things.

Silverman promises that a second, more provocative billboard is on its way. It will be displayed during the last two weeks before the biggest consumer holiday of the year. 

Whether that provokes Donohue and his followers to respond with a dueling billboard or not, the whole thing is pretty funny. And expensive, too. The billboard companies aren’t complaining, why would they?

Putting up atheist billboards, not only in New Jersey but elsewhere as well, has certainly helped give visibility to the atheist movement. No doubt about that. And it’s certainly made questioning the existence of deities more routine than it ever was before.

But how effective they are in getting people to abandon religion for reason is still anybody’s guess.