Boston Area Coalition of Reason Kick Off Event (Nov 2)

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Good without God? Millions of Americans are.
boston.unitedcor.org/

Kickoff Event

When: Monday Nov.2, 7:30-9:30 PM
Where: Harvard Science Center Hall D. Free and Open to the Public

I thought this could be of interest. One of the member organizations is the Tufts Free Thought Society. www.facebook.com/group.php

Comments

[perich.livejournal.com]

Something more like "Curiosity, it's what makes us want to be better." would communicate the same message

No, it wouldn't.

The original message is a marketing gem: non-antagonistic (good without god, question mark: it's offering a positive state as an option), concise (three words in large text to entice the reader, four words below it in slightly smaller text to elicit more), clear (the most important words are all one syllable or easily visualized terms, like "millions" and "Americans"). It's presented in a readable font with plenty of empty space around it, that space being filled by the non-confrontational image of a blue sky.

Given the issues that non-believers have had marketing themselves in the past, I was frankly astonished when I saw this poster. It's almost unprecedented in its quality.

[turil.livejournal.com]

The current one up there is certainly better than some messages I've seen from the anti-something-about-god folks, but it's still literally antagonistic, just not as obviously so. The term "without" is a negative word, connoting a lack of something, and emptiness, rather than a fullness. Yes, the term "good" is obviously a step in the positive direction, but when you combine the negative "without" with the positive "good" they cancel each other out, and you are left with people hearing nothing beyond "God". Literally.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

So "flight without feathers" is antagonistic to feathers?

I don't think of bats as so confrontational.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Linguistically, yes. The way the brain works, in the instance of negation of something, is to first imagine (remember~reconstruct) what that something is, and then imagine it disappearing. So in the brain, most people would imagine feathers on something that is flying - "Hey!" the brain says, "I know this one! A bird!" - and then removes the feathers from the image, leaving a very pathetic looking naked and uncomfortable bird flying around in their mind's eye. After a while the higher functions of the brain take a look at that image and compare it to the context of what you were talking about around that bizarre phrase, and decides if you might actually mean something quite different from that unpleasant bird. But even with this correction, the first impression, which is the strongest emotionally, is of something "wrong".