THE war of words between atheists and religious believers has entered a new chapter with the launch of Northern Ireland’s first ever humanist advertising campaign.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) yesterday unveiled a billboard with the slogan:

Please Don’t Label Me. Let Me Grow Up And Choose For Myself.

Located on one Belfast’s busiest routes, the poster is a follow-up to its atheist buses campaign that ran earlier this year in parts of the UK.

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Reverend David McIlveen from the Free Presbyterian Church ranted:

It is none of their business how people bring up their children. It is the height of arrogance that the BHA would even assume to tell people not to instruct their children in their religion.

What Reverend McIlveen is missing is that this campaign isn’t telling people not to teach their children their beliefs, but rather to leave the labeling and indoctrination out of their childrens’ lives.  It’s a fine line to draw, for sure.  I liken it to teaching historical religions (I think most of us learned of the Greek gods in school, no?).

I don’t feel as if it’s wrong to tell a child, “Mommy and Daddy believe X, but we want you to decide for yourself what’s right.”  Yes, of course the child will likely seek to emulate his or her parents, but keeping this open line is important in development, always reinforcing the child’s individual right to choose.

This is all secondary to the campaign’s primary message: Stop labeling children for something that they cannot have decided that they are.  It pigeonholes social and mental development in the worst way, forcing children into particular lines of thought before allowing their own powers of reason to decide what’s right for them.