Atheist billboard urges drivers to skip church on Christmas

"It is beyond disrespectful to my community and disrespectful to my beliefs", Chris Judge said.

"I think that it needs to be taken down", Conrad Vaughn said.

One pastor even calls the billboard, "A blatant and mocking attack on all the true followers of Jesus Christ".

A follow up to last year's atheist holiday billboard, a little girl telling Santa Claus all she wants for Christmas is to skip church, this year's billboard shows Santa giving her permission, as long as she's a good person.

American Atheists" holiday billboards promotes being "Good for Goodness Sake' in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area and in Colorado Springs, Colorado, going up in December 2015.

"It's bad, especially this time of year", Bonnie Miller told Colorado Springs TV news station KRDO.

Fish said there are almost 200 American Atheists partners and affiliates all across the United States including five in North Carolina.

National Program Director Nick Fish stated that the mission of American Atheists is to do away with atheist stereotypes, stating that the locations of the billboards were chosen due to the connections with Christianity of the two cities.

"It's not happy holidays, it's Merry Christmas", Karen Vaughn said.

"This is probably the least controversial billboard we've ever done", he says but adds that "challenging [religious beliefs] can be threatening for people".

"I think it's really awful, personally my family is strictly Catholic, I was raised like that", Vanessa Holdridge also told the station. "I do believe that many times there is misconception about the church".

American Atheists, a nonprofit, is urging children to skip church for Christmas through its billboards. "We want people to know that it's OK to skip church and leave your religion behind, just be a good person".

Another commenter, Adjel, said she supports the billboards.

"Atheists are there, and we're part of your community as well", said Fish.

The billboards will be up through the end of the month.