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Atheism bus advertising campaign launched
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
I don't know what the situation is in other towns and cities, but in London we have been bombarded of late with various religious messages and Bible quotes posted as advertisments on buses.
The Humanist Society has launched a fundraising campaign to pay for posters on buses promoting atheism. I am happy to see that in less than a day the campaign has received more than 4 times the original target:
http://www.justgiving.com/atheistbus
Good on them
*egarly awaits reaction from certain Churches*
*goes off to donate a few quid*
The Humanist Society has launched a fundraising campaign to pay for posters on buses promoting atheism. I am happy to see that in less than a day the campaign has received more than 4 times the original target:
http://www.justgiving.com/atheistbus
Good on them
*egarly awaits reaction from certain Churches*
*goes off to donate a few quid*
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
0
Comments
But it's nice to see that there is a public sentiment about being told you're going to hell by self-righteous pricks all of the time. It'll be good as a one-off for ironic value, but I don't think it should become a regular thing.
Why don't these organised atheists form their own religion, because atheism is specifically the lack of religion. How can a 'non-religion' go out and preach its values and beliefs? It's daft if you ask me.
Their money to burn, though.
I'm all for fighting fire with fire anyway. This ad campaign is a direct response to the ever-increasing numbers of god-bothering ads appearing on billboards and buses. I'd much rather no such ads, for or against, appeared but if we're going to end up like fucking America with religious claptrap adorning every other billboard, we might as well try to offer an alternative view.
They're not preaching at all. :rolleyes: They're saying 'get on with your life' the way you want to. There are a lot of advertisements in London at the moment for religion, so they're having a bit of tongue in cheek fun in retaliation.
I think you need to take a chill pill. Are you religious, by any chance?
I don't want to be told on the street (or on the TV, newspapers or anywhere for that matter) that I'm a sinful being who will suffer an eternity of pain and suffering unless I choose to worship a certain deity, thanks very much. I can go to a church if I wish to hear that message and look into it further.
I notice them quite a bit where I live (Camden Town, North London), some are good and some are not. As a Christian some of the choices of verses to quote seem a bit questionable.
Fair enough - I just blank them out I suppose (or perhaps on Civil Service pay can't afford to live in Chelsea:D ), But I can't say I care either way - neither Jesus Saves adverts or God Doesn't Exist (probably) do me either good or harm.
No - but the point is we get pro-religion adverts, so they've decided to go the other way now offering non-religion adverts.
Fair enough to me!
Isn't that what I say? Their money, their choice.
Aye, fair enough.
I'm not religious, but I don't see why it matters. I'd class myself if I *had* to label myself as atheist / agnostic but that's such a shitty way to think of it. Any religion is an idea, and like any other ideas it will have its merits and its pitfalls. I don't believe in a particular god, but I don't rule out the possibility that forces other than those which we understand could be at work. I think it's naive and arrogant to do so, but that's just my thoughts
But the thing with atheism, is the belief that there is no god, thats great. But really I see more 'preaching' of intolerance by atheists than theists. This is because a lot of these atheists band together 'to change the world' or some crap, and start going off about how 'evil' some religions are or otherwise. If that's not preaching, I don't know what is. These adverts are pretty tame but they are part of a wider hypocrisy of atheism. If you are an atheist, you shouldn't go to 'atheist church' or groups or whatever. You should just 'be' atheist, because you have opted not to believe in anything. But a lot of people aren't content with that and have to take it further and try to convert people to their way of thinking.
I mean, look at the rhetoric used even in this thread:
"It's trying to liberate people from the claws of unrational beliefs that too often promote prejudice, intolerance and repression."
Had anyone called for religious people to be persecuted, jailed, killed or have views and laws forced on them, you might have a case. But nobody has ever claimed that. The only people who tend to do such things are the religious ones (though not all of them of course).
Please show me some practical examples of non-religious people being intolerant to religious ones.
Agreed.
I personally think ShyBoy has somehow read FAR too deeply into this and interpreted incorrectly.
Have you read your posts recently?
Now obviously an extreme example as most atheists aren't agents of intolerance (though even your posts are not as extreme as say for example, USSR's persecution of the Orthodox Church, the Spanish Anarchists against the Catholic Church or China and Tibetian Buddhists).
As for the more generalised preaching, its bullshit you've not seen it. It's not in an obvious 'we should kill everyone who believes xx' and really you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who on any idealogical grounds was saying that. But how many times have you heard the 'people who are religious have lower IQs' and such? It is prejudging people based on one belief that does not have any causal relation to anything else.
It's just the 'in thing' to mock religious people as intellectually inferior, as extreme conservatives - to label all religious establishments as fronts of hate and anti women and anti gay etc.
But I have seen first hand atheist zealots and they do work in an organised manner like a religious zealot would, and fair enough if neither of you two have ever seen it but living in London which is far bigger than Leicester and York combined (my two locales
It's nearly the same as the class war, when you go to university you meet some people who are cool and just want to meet people and get drunk / laid / high, and you meet some people who despite being friendly have a worrying superiority complex.
not that i am either relgious or an atheist...but still it would be fucking ironic
None of which were atheist groups per se. Atheism is a personal lack of belief in deity. None of those groups or States were founded around the concept of atheism, nor does atheism promote violent action or discrimination in any way or form.
Atheists are not more intolerant of religious people than a non-white person is of a white supremacist.
You don't have to look far, anyway.
It's more than having a negative opinion - its the words you use which display your intolerance religion. Now that's fine - we're all intolerant. I don't think I've come across an actual liberal on this or any other board, but let's not add hypocrisy to our crimes.
And? The atheism intrinsic in these states or groups led them to these particular atrocities just as their other beliefs led them to other atrocities. Atheism was a part of the make-up of whole.
Now if you're arguing that other things also played a part that's probably true, but then that's the same for most religous killings as well. The mass wars between Catholics and Prods in Seventeenth Century Europe weren't only about religion, but about the individual's relationship with the state and how countries should be governed. You can't lay all the blame on religion for some atrocities and then absolve atheism for others... the world is much too complex for that.
Frankly people don't need an excuse to kill each other - some use religious beleifs (or lack of them), some politics, some patriotism etc, etc. However at its best religon also at least tries to say 'look after your fellow man'.
It's the low opinions and hatred of other groups that causes the problems, not the religions themselves. Religious texts promote peace rather than conflict, it's only when people decide they're somehow better than others that violence and oppression starts. Having a low opinion of someone means you see them as lower than you, and even if it goes no futher than that they are still being treated like they matter less. Atheists are as entitled as everyone else to talk about their beliefs (or lack of beliefs) but I don't think atheists are entitled to believe they're better than others because they see themselves as more rational, or have a low opinion of religious people.
Atheists don't believe anything as a rule (hardly, as atheism is nothing but a collection of individuals who just share a lack of belief in deities). As such it is incorrect to make sweeping generalisations that atheists automatically think of religious people as inferior or less intelligent- though no doubt some individuals who happen to be atheist do.
That is the major and inescapable difference. I make no more apology of having complete disdain for much of what religion stands for and how many religious people behave than a Jewish person should have to make for having complete disdain for what Nazim stands for. You might think that Jewish person is "intolerant", technically at least. I personally believe it is actually impossible (or at least irrelevant) to be intolerant of intolerance.
(And no, I don't care about the so-called "Goldwin's Law".
Fair enough. But if we are to concentrate then on our modern day, mainly peaceful Western society, where no such atrocities take place any more, the fact remains that we still have intolerance and persecution (though to a much lesser degree only) carried out by one side. Indeed the immense majority of intolerance and interference, by a massive margin, has always come from organised religion.
So we have a number of individuals who profoundly disagree with what others believe in, but leave them in peace and try to lead their lives; and the other group who continuously tries to interfere with the others' lives and dictate how they should be lived.
There's only one lot being intolerant here, in the practical meaning of the word.
Churches aren't targeted by dictatorial regimes because of a theological disagreement. They're targeted by them because they're a threat to their power base. Dictators will either destroy all churches replacing it with another dogma, or if they have brains, will ally themselves to the strongest church and use that to control the population instead, at the expense of all other religions, as we saw with fascism in Europe, and eventually with the Russian Orthadox church and Stalin too.
I quite agree, I think that nobody, no matter what they believe in has the right to have a low opinion of someone else because of what their beliefs are. However, I don't see why the general feeling is that it's ok for people who are religious to absolutely believe they are right, and are able to 'advertise' those beliefs, but when some people want to put a few posters on buses to offer a different perspective, it's actually up for discussion. It should either be an all or nothing thing.
I think there is a great misunderstanding and belief amongst people who do follow a religion that atheist's beliefs aren't as valid because they 'just don't believe in anything'. I don't believe that there is a God, and have strong beliefs in that area; why are my strong beliefs less valid than those of people who have strong beliefs in a God(s)? I do get the feeling that people who are members of a religion must think atheists don't believe in anything out of some sort of general apathy and 'can't be arsedness'.