Nov 24 2009
Children on Richard Dawkins’ atheist ads are from evangelical family
The two children chosen to front Richard Dawkins’s latest assault on God could not look more free of the misery he associates with religious baggage. With the slogan “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”, the youngsters with broad grins seem to be the perfect advertisement for the new atheism being promoted by Professor Dawkins and the British Humanist Association.
Except that they are about as far from atheism as it is possible to be. The Times can reveal that Charlotte, 8, and Ollie, 7, are from one of the country’s most devout Christian families.
Their father, Brad Mason, is something of a celebrity within evangelical circles as the drummer for the popular Christian musician Noel Richards. Now a web designer and photographer, Mr Mason has been supplementing his income for years by providing photographs to agencies who sell them on to newspapers and advertising campaigns.
He said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”
Read more here.
[From me]
Yeah, those Christian kids are so abused! Maybe, just maybe living a Christian life does lead to happiness and contentment. 
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Great find!
Kevin, both you and the article seem to have completely missed the point and, in doing so, have reinforced the point that the campaign seems to be making. That is that children are too young to have formed worldviews as complex as Christianity, Atheism, Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Islamism, etc. The claim isn’t that Christianity makes your children unhappy. It’s that there is no such thing as a “Communist child”, only a child of Communist parents.
I presume that you would think it unfair to say that a child who is 2 is a Muslim. Surely the child of Muslim parents should be free to make up their own mind? There is no such thing as a Liberal Democratic two-year-old, only a child with Liberal Democrat parents.
If you believe that Jesus’ Golden Rule is a fair and balanced way to live (as I do) then you must surely see that you are applying a double-standard if you feel it wrong to label a child by any of these other complex beliefs and yet see nothing wrong with saying “…those Christian kids are…”. They’re not Christians. They’re children of Christian parents who should be free to choose to vote Republican, Democrat or become Buddhist, Muslim, Atheist or Christian or whatever they decide when they are old enough to think for themselves.
Damian,
I disagree. I think parents should teach children their faith. The Bible says we should train up a child in the way they should go. So we can’t just expect them to come to faith in Christ without us sharing with them. I may not like what other faiths teach or non-believers for that matter. But parents do have every right to teach their children.