"Don't believe in God? You are not alone."
Those are the words on a new billboard erected on Wednesday night at the corner of Beach Boulevard and 19th Street in Westminster.
The new "Godless billboard" was paid for by the Orange County Coalition for Reason, the local chapter of a national atheist coalition. The group said their decision to post the billboard is a way to reach out to the millions of people in the United States who do not believe in God or religion.
The billboard is located in Westminster, which was the first city in Orange County to post the words "In God We Trust" in its council chambers. The group that posted the billboard said that is not a coincidence.
"The point of our ongoing nationwide awareness campaign is to reach out to the millions of atheists and agnostics living in the United States," said Fred Edwords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason, in a statement. "Such nontheists sometimes don't realize there's a community for them because they're inundated with religious messages at every turn. We hope our effort will serve as a beacon and let them know they aren't alone."
The billboard is expected to stay up through the Memorial Day weekend. It is in conjuction with the Orange County Freethought Alliance Conference, which is scheduled for May 15 in Irvine.
Westminster is not the first city to feature the billboard. The "Godless billboards" have gone up in Los Angeles, Fresno, San Joaquin, and Sacramento, and in Oklahoma, Texas, Delaware, Washington, Utah and Missouri.
The National Coalition for Reason started in 2008 in the Washington, D.C. and has since grown to become a nationwide coalition.
