God billboard turning heads on highway

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A billboard along a Grand Rapids highway is promoting the message that it is possible to live a fulfilling life without God.

The sign on the northbound side of the highway south of Hall Street reads, "You don't need God - to hope, to care, to love, to live." It will be there throughout September.

It is sponsored by the Center for Inquiry, a "non-profit organization with the mission to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values," according to a news release.

“We want to let nonreligious people in the community know that they’re not alone,” Jefferson Seaver, executive director of CFI-Michigan, said in the statement.

Roughly 16% of Americans have no religious affiliation, according to the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), and about 10% reject belief in God, based on surveys conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the CFI-Michigan says.

Local organizers say the billboard's message is you don't have to be religious in order to be a good. They also say a local outdoor advertising company refused to sell the billboard space because it conflicted with its owners' Christian values.

Similar billboards are in seven cities nationwide.

CFI paid about $2,700 for the month-long display, with some money coming from around the country to supplement the local donors.

Jefferson Seaver, who runs the Michigan chapter of the CFI, said the air of religion is so thick in West Michigan sometimes atheists and agnostics are afraid to claim their beliefs. But, the Greenville native said, the billboard is not a blast on believers.

"It is saying the non-religious are part of the community and we share the same human values that they do," he told 24 Hour News 8. "There's a good element of free expression here."

Ray Nothstine of the Acton Institute thinks there is plenty of religious inclusion in West Michigan. He moved to this area four years ago and said it's more positive than other parts of the country.

"You have an evangelical spirit that flows from this area," and that's not bad, he said. "It reminds people of faith to talk to their family. It's a good conversation starter."

The difference in the conversation, Nothstine said, is that atheists and agnostics are becoming more vocal.

"It used to be less evangelistic where they didn't care and now it seems like they are out more in the public square."

The billboard won't settle the age-old argument about God and religion, but both Seaver and Nothstine hope it could bridge a divide of religious differences.