Are atheists fools?

Someone put up a billboard which quoted the first verse of Psalm 14: "The fool says in his heart: 'There is no God'."

A passer-by found the message on the board so offensive that he submitted a complaint, saying that the board implied that atheists were stupid. He did not believe in the existence of God but he did not consider himself to be "foolish" or "stupid".

The fact that he was a pilot proves that the passer-by was not dumb. However, a few classes in logic could have helped him interpret the sentence properly. The quoted sentence does not imply that atheists are fools, but the converse, namely that fools are atheists. Therefore only someone claiming to be a fool but not an atheist would have a valid reason to complain about the billboard.

Actually the sentence on the billboard does not do justice to Psalm 14:1 as it was written in Hebrew. Directly translated into English it reads "the fool says in his heart no god". The original language had no upper case letters or punctuation marks. It could therefore also be translated: "The fool says in his heart 'God, I say no to you'."

Whichever translation is accepted as correct, the verse describes character traits of a fool, not an atheist. The Bible ignores atheists, treating them as if they did not exist.