You may have heard of the new billboard campaign by the British Humanist Association against state funded faith schools. It takes a page from Richard Dawkins argument that small children are not yet intellectually or emotionally mature enough to make their own decisions about religion, and should not be labeled with the religion of their parents.Apparently the happy children pictured above came from a stock photo website, and are actually kids of famous evangelical Christian parents. What do people have to say about this?

[Their father] said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”

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He said that the children’s Christianity had shone through. “Obviously there is something in their faces which is different. So they judged that they were happy and free without knowing that they are Christians. That is quite a compliment. I reckon it shows we have brought up our children in a good way and that they are happy.”

Gerald Coates, the leader of the Pioneer network of churches, which Mr Mason and his family used to attend before they moved to Dorset, said: “I think it is hilarious that the happy and liberated children on the atheist poster are in fact Christian.”

…

Are people really this daft? The whole point of the bloody campaign is to show we should stop labeling children, yet they go on to repeatedly call them not Christian children. They are not Christians. They are impressionable kids who are currently being raised in a Christian environment and do not yet have the skills to make informed decisions about religion. But with the level of critical thinking we’re seeing in the adults, I’m concerned that they’ll never reach that level of comprehension.

And the fact that they imply that these children are happy just because they’re raised by Christians annoys the hell out of me. Yep, atheists are completely unable to raise children in a healthy, loving environment. That’s why we didn’t use atheist kids, because they wouldn’t stop sobbing or cutting themselves long enough to take a good photograph. Oh wait, no, it’s because we don’t label children as “atheists” or “humanists.”

Good thing being the children of twits doesn’t automatically make you a twit yourself.

(Via RichardDawkins.net)