Tell you what. Try it, and if it works, get back to us.

Implicit in the Christian Christmas message, in all of those nativity scenes, is the threat of hellfire and eternal damnation and torment.

Love baby Jesus or else. Or else he is going to burn you alive forever without respite.

Now that's confrontational. That's offensive.

“At this season of the winter solstice, let reason prevail."

This may be shocking admission, but I find myself unmoved. What percentage of the population actually cares about the winter solstice? We should be trying to reach, and move persuasively, large numbers of people. And what does the winter solstice have to do with reason prevailing? Is it somehow more reasonable to celebrate or acknowledge the winter solstice? Who cares about the winter solstice?

"There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth & superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

Even the staunchest critics of religion have to admit that it is not entirely "myth and superstition," and that not all aspects of it "harden hearts and [enslave] minds." If it is easy for me, as an atheist, to immediately think of counterexamples (in the two religions about which I am most critical), such as charity in Islam and compassion in Christianity, how easy must it be for the well-rehearsed, smooth-talking apologists to come up with many more when they refute the above ad? Surely, most of the educated public today knows that religion is at least in part a matter of interpretation, and most Americans who read the above ad are going to know many religious people, as friends and family members, who do not have “hardened hearts” or “enslaved minds.” (Most Americans are at least nominally religious; they comprise the majority of the audience who’ll see this ad).

To say “There is only our natural world” is to introduce a philosophical assertion into the ad that really doesn’t need to be there. Do large numbers of people prefer monism over dualism, and if not, why the attempt to appeal to people on this issue? Who cares? Again, the ad needs to focus on issues that the general (religious and non-religious) public cares about. The purpose of an ad is to reach out and move people, moving them in a specific direction or toward a specific view. This ad should have been viewed as a public-relations opportunity for atheists and humanists. However, this opportunity has been squandered with simplistic summary denunciations of all religion, expressions of dogmatic certainty, and appeals to issues and subjects that don’t interest most of the people who’ll see the ad.

Second, it simplifies the legal battles. We don't have to argue ad nauseam over whether a nativity scene violates the separation of church and state - we just say that if other private displays are allowed, we want in as well. This is a more straightforward argument and leads to easier and quicker victories when we go to court (as the Arkansas case shows, we'll still have to go to court on occasion). And if the state removes all displays rather than permit ours, that's a victory too.

Keep in mind that this can work both ways. I remember here in Columbus some years back when the KKK kept insisting on having their display at the statehouse grounds every holiday season. Of course, someone always kept knocking it down when security was looking the other way...