This has got quite a bit of publicity in the UK the last few days and as such donations have rocketed. Originally the target was £5000 to put some ads on the sides of buses in London. Now it is approaching £100,000 and they intend to put ads all around the UK on buses and trains. What do you think?
Bendy-buses with the slogan "There's probably no God" could soon be running on the streets of London.
The atheist posters are the idea of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and have been supported by prominent atheist Professor Richard Dawkins.
The BHA planned only to raise £5,500, which was to be matched by Professor Dawkins, but it has now raised more than £36,000 of its own accord.
It aims to have two sets of 30 buses carrying the signs for four weeks.
The complete slogan reads: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
As the campaign has raised more than anticipated, it will also have posters on the inside of buses as well.
The BHA is also considering extending the campaign to cities including Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.
Professor Dawkins said: "Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children.
"Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side.
"This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion."
Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the BHA, said: "We see so many posters advertising salvation through Jesus or threatening us with eternal damnation, that I feel sure that a bus advert like this will be welcomed as a breath of fresh air.
"If it raises a smile as well as making people think, so much the better."
But Stephen Green of pressure group Christian Voice said: "Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.
"I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.
"People don't like being preached at. Sometimes it does them good, but they still don't like it."
However the Methodist Church said it thanked Professor Dawkins for encouraging a "continued interest in God".
Spirituality and discipleship officer Rev Jenny Ellis said: "This campaign will be a good thing if it gets people to engage with the deepest questions of life."
She added: "Christianity is for people who aren't afraid to think about life and meaning."
The buses with the slogans will run in Westminster from January.
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist
"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
as a cyclist, i find the prospect of a bendy bus approaching with "There is no god," plastered on the side deeply ironic.
"Aid, trade, green technology and peace." - Hans Rosling.
"Welcome to SDN, where we can't see the forest because walking into trees repeatedly feels good, bro." - Mr Coffee
"Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.
"I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.
"People don't like being preached at. Sometimes it does them good, but they still don't like it."
What the hell? What. The. Hell does this mean?
They're a danger to the public--how? Are those atheistic slogans bullseye marks for Zeus to hurl lightning at?
Quasi-religious advertising campaign? Last I looked, atheism wasn't a religion. At most it's a philosophy; but it's really more a description of whether or not a person believes in the divine.
Christianity is for people who aren't afraid to think about life and meaning
*sigh* This needs some more context to clarify if this person is being hypocritical, lying, or naive... Or if she means that only people willing to *think* and think DEEPLY about life should come to Christianity. Which would be a contradiction.. because the bible offers simple answers for origins, life and death...
I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars ... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
Yes... I should wonder who would be doing the vandalism to these signs, Mr Holier Than Thou...
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
DPDarkPrimus wrote:Yes... I should wonder who would be doing the vandalism to these signs, Mr Holier Than Thou...
Communists and neo-Nazis?
I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars ... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
Christianity is for people who aren't afraid to think about life and meaning
*sigh* This needs some more context to clarify if this person is being hypocritical, lying, or naive... Or if she means that only people willing to *think* and think DEEPLY about life should come to Christianity. Which would be a contradiction.. because the bible offers simple answers for origins, life and death...
Asshole "progressive" Christians like these looooove to offer the impression that Christianity is a deep, sincere and thought-provoking philosophy on life, and cling to the old canard of the Immature Atheist who rejects God the Father out of petulance, not sound thinking. One Christian once told me that he saw no harm in reading the Golden Compass because "if it challenges your faith, then you'll come out stronger when you find a way to explain the mend between the apparent rift."
Right, because finding shoe-horned and force-fitted "explanations" isn't a slow descent into relativism or even solipsism.
I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.
Blah blah blah victim blaming nonsense. If an ad is subject to vandalism, it's the vandals who are at fault, morons.
"I fight with love, and I laugh with rage, you gotta live light enough to see the humour and long enough to see some change" - Ani DiFranco, Pick Yer Nose
"Life 's not a song, life isn't bliss, life is just this: it's living." - Spike, Once More with Feeling
"There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
1. I can think of better uses for the money.
2. Lots of religious people don't worry about God, and do enjoy their lives whilst still being believers. As an atheist myself, I would scrub out the second part of the sentence and leave the first part.
There have been religious advertising campaigns on British public transport and easily accessible billboards. Some sickeningly intolerant examples included the Christian "No-one comes through the Father except through me" and "I am the Light, the way etc" [sic] messages. Guess what, they were free of graffiti, although only 'cause I didn't have a marker pen at the time. I know it would have been vandalism to write Such a modest chap! underneath those Jesus messages, but everyone has a snapping point with regards to being baselessly told you're a heathen shit.
Britons, if anyone asks you for a specific instance of an intolerant Christian message, just say "The poster outside Finchley Central tube station". That shit is intolerant, arrogant and plain wrong; this atheist stuff isn't that powerful, but it's logically watertight, inoffensive, and life-affirming. Good to see a public statement of it for once.
"Show me a commie pilot with some initiative, and I'll show you a Foxbat in Japan."
DavidEC wrote:Britons, if anyone asks you for a specific instance of an intolerant Christian message, just say "The poster outside Finchley Central tube station". That shit is intolerant, arrogant and plain wrong; this atheist stuff isn't that powerful, but it's logically watertight, inoffensive, and life-affirming. Good to see a public statement of it for once.
I live all the way on the next line over from Finchley Central. What's the poster say?
"I fight with love, and I laugh with rage, you gotta live light enough to see the humour and long enough to see some change" - Ani DiFranco, Pick Yer Nose
"Life 's not a song, life isn't bliss, life is just this: it's living." - Spike, Once More with Feeling
If I remember correctly, "No one comes to the Father except through me" or "I am the Light... etc". I'll take a picture next time I'm there, assuming it isn't replaced with something. If you use the Tube, then you might also have seen these advertisements once in a blue moon inside the carriages. I've also seen them outside churches, although that's somewhat expected, though no less bullshit-laden.
It's a strange example to give, a poster outside a random station, but it is the only specific instance I can recall right now.
"Show me a commie pilot with some initiative, and I'll show you a Foxbat in Japan."
We have these stupid bible quote advertisments in our tubes, too. They´re rather frequent and annoying. I hope we´ll get some of these atheist ads as well.
Christian billboard advertisement is not only annoying, it is often very stupid and has the ironic effect of taking up space that can be used for community service billboards. I always found it quite hilarious that the billboards in the highly Christian Hispanic neighborhood had Spanish-language public service billboards and then when you left for a predominately white part there was this stupid Christian billboard with the quote "life is short, eternity isn't." It bugged me every time I drove to my GFs, because by definition eternity is all time, and thus discussion of length is irrelevant. That's like saying a half is small, a whole isn't. Great job dumbasses.
A teenage girl is just a teenage boy who can get laid.
-GTO
We're not just doing this for money; we're doing this for a shitload of money!
