Oh, I think they both are. No, don't get me wrong, I think it's two examples of using fear for a political agenda, or, as you say: to sell books.

But in the case of shootings, there's actually no connection to religion, and with 9/11, the religious connection is obvious. Both are scary things, but only one actually has a connection to religion. So it's no wonder we were all confused for a second.

It also invalidates your sweetning of the message. We'd still have to worry about both religiously-charged terrorism (even if it isn't really religiously motivated) and angst-motivated shootings if we took up God. However, without religion, we'd just have the school shootings (which actually sounds funny to say).

But there's no denying that in both cases, they're selling something, and using fear to do it.

Well, if Dawkins chose to do a video rendition of the ad with a first person camera view of a view from a building where a plane was about to hit, than it fades to black with the words "imagine no religion", I would not have interpreted it much differently than I did the static image ad. We are not talking about what the ad merely depicts, but what that ad is to be interpreted to depict. 

Well, AiG seems to assume that most individuals who watch the ad are similar to you, that you like me understand what impression the video was trying to give off. I'm guessing it wasn't really rocket science for you to figure that out either, that there was some degree of obviousness to what the ad was depicting, that didn't leave you struggling to interpret it. 

So I understood what there original intentions were from the start but that doesn't take away the fact that the video was still horrible in the message it tried to send.

Well, I already said that I also found the ad to be deplorable. But that doesn't change the fact that it takes a real stretch of the imagination to believe that AiG was trying to advocate kids picking up guns and killing atheist. 

I think it's because it would lose a lot of punch. "if this kid doesn't think he matters to God, then he's going to go on a shooting spree ... at your kid's school."

That takes a long time to say, and it sounds a lot like dark comedy.

The caption isn't a picture, it doesn't depict it implies. The image depicts and it depicts peacetime to suggest an absence of violence. The caption recalls a history of violence to suggest a cause. This is well written, when all the elements work together to state one clear message it's potent advertising, regardless of personal opinion on the content.

Well then we agree, so why are we arguing? I'm only saying that the ad failed in it's intent. When something fails as badly as this does, when a message is delivered this ambiguously, you can't very well fault people for reading a whole different message into it, whether those people add bias to their interpretation or they don't, the point is it could mean anything if it doesn't mean what it says.

So they were advertising themselves to themselves? HAHAHA! I can believe that, it makes about as much sense as the advertisement itself does.

You mean, most everyone in the western world? Yeah, it works for them.

Yeah it works as a call to rally, that's true, fortunately it's not so coded as to exclude others from understanding it without explanation.

The Swastika means a lot of different things to different people, as does a picture of Mohammed. A gun pointed at your head means a threat to YOU in anyone's language, in every culture it's exactly the same thing. You've made another false comparison.

Anyway, I do seem to have weakened my argument with that simplification, I'll concede. What I mean by violent demonstration is not a violent image but a violent gesture. A swastika is not of itself a violent image, if you wear one to show off to Jewish people with a warning glance, that is a threatening gesture. The Dawkin's ad is without threatening gestures of any kind, so you'd be a little bit mad to say it suggested itself to be behind one. It does suggest a threat but it in no way makes itself a demonstration of that threat, it would seriously be ridiculous to read into it what isn't there.

For the record, a picture of mohammed is not a threatening gesture, even though it might evoke someone to violence it's a completely different category of interaction at work in this case.

In this case the suggestion that religion is behind the attack is still well articulated. The person who doesn't have any knowledge of the motivation is left only to question whether what the ad suggests is true.

The AIG ad doesn't get this far because it doesn't suggest anything about the boy except that he has a gun pointed at your head. Where's the bit where it suggests in any way that the boy is motivated to shoot you by a lack of hope and biblical morals. It isn't there, it never once makes any reference to where the boy stands with their god, just you. Do they expect you to think that you're him?

<snipped lots of Ad Hoc wishful thinking>

Hello.... I am a theist. (see badge)

Granted I'm not wondering if AIG is looking to have children shoot atheists, but I am a theist who thinks their ad is confusing and so very very very poorly put together they shouldn't be surprised if people do take it to mean something as outrageous as all that.

Y'know, I want to respond seriously, but I can't help picturing a seal in a bikini. Where on earth did you get that? A seal in a bikini!