The American Humanist Association is at the forefront of atheist/agnostic/humanist/whatever-you-want-to-call-it advertising. Our billboard, transit, and publication advertising has been seen in cities across the country—and this is to say nothing of the work of our sister organization, UnitedCoR.

One argument against advertising that has been brought up again and again is that the money could be better spent elsewhere. Fair enough. But advertising also brings interest to our philosophy, and this is one of the stated objectives of the AHA.

The mission of the American Humanist Association is to be a clear, democratic voice for Humanism in the United States, to increase public awareness and acceptance of humanism, to establish, protect and promote the position of humanists in our society, and to develop and advance humanist thought and action.

One may disagree with the importance of this objective, but so long as the AHA’s mission contains public awareness we will continue; and we will succeed. Our advertising not only causes a press heyday, it also provokes a counteroffensive of some kind (also here and here).

But our good friends over at Answers in Genesis (AiG) have now gone a step further in Boston. Their ad is strikingly similar to our winter campaign ad. Now we could start screaming copyright, but we won’t. In my opinion they can go to town with our ad; who cares? The simple fact is that we know and admit an ad will never convert someone, so we target our ads to those already sympathetic to our message.

Looks like AiG is tying up their resources as they attempt to market to our sympathizers. That’s a foolish errand, and one we are happy to send them on.