(Image Source: Biblical Paths)

BY JOE SIMMONS

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American Atheists Incorporated paid 20,000 dollars last week to display this billboard on a New Jersey highway. The billboard claims the story of Christmas is a myth and urges people to “celebrate reason.” (Video)

Catholic League president Bill Donohue tells the Brooklyn Heights Courier this billboard is the first shot fired in this year’s war on Christmas. 

“American Atheists has a special hatred of Christianity, and that is why it seizes on the Christmas season ..."

American Atheists president David Silverman responds, saying he’s tired of having the War on Christmas pinned on atheists, and tells the Daily Mail it’s time to strike back.

We get blamed for a war on Christmas every year. This time we’re actually going to pay attention to that … We’re actually going to earn a little bit of that.”

And he tells Fox News:

“People need to understand that while Christmas is a Christian holiday, the season belongs to everyone...the ones who are saying ‘you can’t say happy holidays you have to say merry Christmas because this is our season - this is the Christmas season. Well,’ it’s not the Christmas season, It’s the solstice season. And that’s why it’s not a war on Christmas - it’s a war on the solstice, and the Christians started it.”

Regardless of who fired the first shots, some atheists are saying the billboard is still in bad taste. A blogger for The Stir says it casts atheists in a bad light.

“I'm not a fan of the billboard as it stands -- not because it might offend Christians, but because I don't think it represents atheism fairly. I don't believe in the mystical aspects of the story of Jesus' birth, but that's not why I'm atheist. Nor do I wish to dissuade Christians from believing. Religion is a personal matter.”

But Silverman maintains that the billboard isn’t meant to be destructive to beliefs - he tells WNYW it’s aimed at the “closet atheists,” who shouldn’t feel alone this holiday season.

“The intent here is not to convert Christians. The intent here is to get atheists going through the motions and pretending to be religious to stop, come out of the closet, and be honest with themselves.”

In the midst of the controversy over the billboards’ existence, some Christians are taking time to debate the sign’s actual message, saying that reason and religion can go together. A writer for Catholic Online writes...

“The real irony of their campaign is found in setting our faith against reason. For the Catholic mind, reason does not lead you away from the manger but toward it...Celebrate reason? No thank you. Celebrate with reason? Absolutely!”

So what do you think?  Free country to say and think what you wish?  Or is this a war on Christmas?

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Transcript by Newsy.