The Atheist Bus Campaign
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Author: Moxie
Tags: Atheist Bus Campaign, There's Probably No God
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The Idea.
It all began in June of 2008 with an idea: when comedy writer Ariane Sherine saw an ad on a London bus featuring the Bible quote, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find Faith on this Earth?”. A website was listed underneath, and when Sherine visited the site she learned that, as a non-believer, she would be “condemned to everlasting separation from God and then spend all eternity in torment in hell”.
Sherine was unsettled due to the fact that a religion was able to publicly advertise that non-believers would suffer destruction and eternal torture. This lead her to write in the ‘Comment is Free’ section of the Guardian. As she was writing the article and doing research, she contacted the Advertising Standards Authority inquiring about the ad she had seen but learned that the website wasn’t part of the remit for the advertisement. This sparked an idea. In her article for the Guardian’s CIF she proposed the following,
“[if all atheists reading this] contribute £5, it’s possible that we can fund a much-needed atheist London bus ad with the slogan: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and [enjoy] your life.”
The result.
Today (January 6, 2009) marks the launch of the Atheist bus campaign in the UK after receiving more than £135000 (the original goal was £5500 and was surpassed in a matter of hours). There will be 200 buses seen throughout London and hundreds more across Europe and as word reaches the rest of us in the west the campaign is going global. A total of 800 buses will sport the campaign ads.
Sherine says that the “rational slogan [There's probably no God] will hopefully reassure anyone who has been scared by this kind of evangelism” referring to the orignial bus ad she saw in the summer of 2008.
The big deal.
In addition to ads on buses, ads will also be present on two large LCD screens in London near the bery busy Bond Street tube station. Because of the enormous show of support from the atheist community, every advertisement will include the words, “This advert was funded by public donations.”
This is perhaps the first time in history when there has been such a visible and highly public show of support for rationality and atheism. This speaks to the fact that atheists are a growing minority and are also growing in strength and influence. The many atheists who have been forced to hide their beliefs from fundamentalist believers such as family members, friends, employers, teachers, and whole communities can take some comfort knowing that a huge leap forward has been made today, a step towards equality for non-believers. Perhaps we’ve inched a little closer to the end of anti-atheist prejudice.
Word of the campaign has spread, causing other organizations (Atheists, Freethinkers, Rationalists, and Humanists) to roll out their own version of the campaign in countries like Spain, Italy and the United States.
A Positive Campaign.
The important thing in my mind is that this is not a malicious attack against religion. Rather, it is an attempt to counter the unsubstantiated position of a fundamental religion that advertises that people will die and suffer if they don’t believe. This is a balancing act which offers the public an opportunity to view more than one perspective. The positions are clear: a warning that if one doesn’t believe a particular ancient text which has been translated and interpreted over the course of centuries but that no one ever agrees on, or the rational views of individuals who observe through science that there are other explanations to our existance that do not require a god.
Sherine says, “The advertisements were designed as a response, an affirmation for people that it’s OK not to be religious; that if you are not religious, there is absolutely no reason to worry about that, and that one can lead a happy, enjoyable and rewarding life without religion.” This is not atheist proselytising or an attack on religion, rather in my opinion it is an exceedingly positive campaign, though I’m sure a deeply religious person would disagree with me.”
The word “probably” is meant to soften the blow of the statement to what is anticipated to be a largely sensitive audience. However, it was also used because it doesn’t imply an absolute. Rationalists, scientists and honest atheists do not presume to imply absolutes, but base their views on observable evidence rather than defaulting to a traditional or simply emotional belief.
This afternoon Richard Dawkins said of the slogan that he would have preferred the term “There Almost Certainly is no God.” and explained that he was, “not going to say there positively isn’t because you can’t say that even about fairies and unicorns.”
There hasn’t been a warm reception everywhere though. The Atheist Foundation of Australia tried to place the slogan “Atheism – celebrate reason” on buses, but were rejected by Australia’s biggest outdoor advertising company.
I hope that we will soon see the Atheist bus driving the streets of Vancouver, Canada. I would be one of the first in line to help push the campaign forward.
Please visit the official campaign website at www.atheistbus.org.uk
Ariane Sherine and Richard Dawkins at the launch of the Atheist Bus Campaign in London on January 6, 2009. Photo credits: Flickr
A banner at the launch of the Atheist Bus Campaign in London on January 6, 2009. Photo credit: Flickr
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Good on them. It’s funny but here in the states they tried something similar with a billboard. I’m not sure of what it said other than it was pretty benign but the religious right was all up in arms calling it “hate speech.” It’s kind of funny how they work. To them, anybody expressing themselves in support of something the religious right opposes is somehow intolerant hate speech against them. That’s what this whole gay marriage thing was about. They were actually arguing that allowing gays to marry violates the civil rights of Christians.
Only religion will ever claim that giving rights to someone will actually violate someone else’s.
Too awesome. That’s the kind of positive message that should be sent.
They’re not even sure that there’s no god in outer space! The slogan should have read: If God’s Kingdom is in your hearts, He’s probably just in your head.
I’m not really sure if I’m an atheist. But if God is someone a human can explain, knows what he thinks, understands his plan, totally gets his or her mind around, put him in an intellectual or emotional box, he must be a very small God indeed. A God deserving of any awe would have to be a bigger mystery than any mind could grasp.
As it says at Job 26:14: “Look! These are the fringes of his ways, and what a whisper of a matter has been heard of him! But of his mighty thunder who can show an understanding?” What are the forces that move the universe? That move through hidden beginnings and finally influence our lives? I don’t know , and I don’t think anyone else does either.
A person that thinks they know, is misled or undeveloped. Those that mislead these innocent people, for their aggrandizement of power, are worst off of all(Governing Body). They don’t even have the humility of wanting to grow in understanding, that an undeveloped, misled person could have.
True humility has enormous potential to open up to ways to think, fresh perspectives, new approachs. You’re never irrevocably locked into the old way of thinking. Each day you can throw yesterdays ideas away and rebuild your intellectual furniture, because your ego is not committed to the past.
That’s why I have a respect for your atheism. It shows you’re a thinking, growing person. The Bible condemns idolatry. Modern idolatry is idolatry in the mind. An atheist smashs idols of the mind; he or she is an iconoclast of lies about gods and other ultimate things that do harm to people. The only cavil I have is that atheism can be a idol too if it stops there, and becomes merely mocking of religious folks. I say “cavil” because your humanist position shows you’re not like that. Remember the account where Jesus told of the demon that was cast out, and the man’s soul was swept clean, and then several more demons came in to the take the first demon’s place. There was a void. Something had to take it’s place, good or bad.
I think a reverence for the mystery of life and the universe is good. There’s more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Children know that instinctively! If we’ve lost the sense of wonder it’s a good way to spend the rest of a life, trying to get that back.
For example, there’s more than the material universe. Matter is, after all, only what we experience from the five senses, that we happen to have only by chance. What else there is we’ll never know as humans, and those that claim otherwise are liars, fools, or undeveloped. But one way or another we’ll all end up in eternity, and maybe there’ll be some surprises.
Moxie, I’ve enjoyed your articles and commments. Thank you! Patrick
is definitely keeping their options open here, just in case … they encounter God - like Abraham and many others did, and the many who testify today.
You know, that word ‘God’? It is a translation in the English bibles of the word consisting of the Hebrew letters Aleph, Lamed, Hey, Yod, Mem: ‘el-o-heem’, and is plural of Aleph, Lamed ‘el’. From Paleo Hebrew before Hebrew was written with Aramaic square script, the Aleph represents an Ox Head while the Lamed a Shepherds Staff. In concrete terms this means a strong leader/shepherd and all cultures can relate to this universal picture. The word ‘God’ is used on the advert as associated with hypocrasy/religion! But in the scriptures it was signifying a real helper, a real power, and real entity, a ‘God’, one who can deliver and save the family/flock from oppressors or attackers and also make ends meet and make provision.
You know, that word ‘Jesus’? It is a transliteration in the English bibles of the Greek ‘Iesus’, which is a transliteration of an Aramaic word, and close to the Hebrew ‘yeh-ho-shoo’-ah’ (Joshua) which could be expressed in English as ‘Yah saves’, ‘Yah’ being short form of ‘Yahweh’ etc. The name is about saving, redeeming and deliverance. He has to do that, save – that is his name otherwise he had the wrong name! He lived up to that name. In the advert we are told not to worry, we don’t need saving, deliverance etc. An advert (just words) verses a whole life given to that purpose. For Abraham, we can read that the man received a revelation of this ‘God’ and this ‘God’ made promises to him, and continued in that relationship with him for all his lifetime. One of the promises: that God himself would provide a sacrifice - God’s own son.
But what happens when the ‘God’ becomes his own mind or intellect and this intellect is put up as the strong rational thinking system, and a powerful academic peer-review judging house (or Beit Din). It boasts to find, through its power, a natural answer to everything that he/she needs an answer to. However, the word ‘probably’ in the advert is a sure give-away that the mind of an atheist is not that strong and powerful and all-encompassing to be really sure of what they are saying. Are you ready to trust a brains-trust with the meaning of your life? Isn’t naturalism narrow-minded? What trust should I put in a science that isn’t sure? I mean really sure. Is what you see really just all that you get? I want answers, not atheism. ‘I know’, ‘I’ve seen it’, ‘I just saw it’, ‘I testify to it’, ‘I’ll go to my death proclaiming it’, not ‘probably’.
John writes:
“By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1Jn 4:13-16)
I see Richard Dawkins in the photo. I left that entire guru following stuff long ago when I touched on it with Transcendental Meditation. A Guru can only take you so far, and one who thinks-he-can-just-think-life-out is not even worth listening to, and he himself dangerously close to, in the end, sadly, going mad/crazy.
Quote from above comment: “the Hebrew ‘yeh-ho-shoo’-ah’ (Joshua) which could be expressed in English as ‘Yah saves’, ‘Yah’ being short form of ‘Yahweh’ etc.” - this is not correct.
Should be “…the Hebrew ‘yeh-ho-shoo’-ah’ (Joshua) which could be expressed in English as ’salvation’ or ‘rescue’ or ‘deliver’.
My appologies for this mistake.
Andrew.
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