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WITH ITS images of bouncy, grinning youngsters and bright, child-friendly text, Northern Ireland’s first humanist advertising campaign makes atheism look as much fun as a trip to the zoo. “Please don’t label me,” runs the slogan on the billboard in Belfast city centre. “Let me grow up and choose for myself.”, writes FIONOLA MEREDITH

The point of the campaign is to persuade parents to stop attaching religious labels to their children. Sponsored by outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins and the British Humanist Association (BHA), the billboards are an extension of the “atheist bus campaign”, in which messages on double-deckers across Britain breezily announced: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The new billboards also appear in London, Cardiff and Edinburgh, but – perhaps unsurprisingly – the Belfast campaign has generated most controversy, and accusations of arrogance and hypocrisy are flying.