This week, the final phase of the atheist bus campaign will appear in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast – not on buses, but on billboards. Due to the amazing sums you donated to the campaign fund at the end of last year, we raised enough for a second wave of adverts – and the above posters on the theme of freedom of belief will launch today. Thank you again so much for your generosity.
This is the cover of “The Atheist’s Guide To Christmas”, Britain’s first atheist charity book initiative, which I’ve been editing on a voluntary basis for the last six months. The full advance and all royalties from the book are going to the UK HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust.
The book features contributions from 42 of the UK’s most entertaining atheist scientists, comedians, philosophers, journalists and writers, including:
Richard Dawkins
Derren Brown
Charlie Brooker
David Baddiel
Ben Goldacre
Josie Long
Richard Herring
Simon Singh
Brian Cox
Jenny Colgan
AC Grayling
Simon Le Bon
Claire Rayner
Robin Ince
Jon Holmes
Zoe Margolis
Phil Plait
Mitch Benn
Lucy Porter
Adam Rutherford
… and many, many more, all of whom have kindly given their time, thought and talent for free. The book has six sections: Stories, Arts, Science, Philosophy, How To and Events. It’s funny, thoughtful and hopefully quite beautiful in places, and also contains quotes from great atheists throughout history.
It is published on October 1 and available to pre-order now. It would be brilliant if we could see it enter the Top Ten Bestsellers in its first week of release, raising thousands for THT.
but we’ll be back very soon with exciting news. Until then, here’s a brilliant rendering of the Atheist Bus Campaign by US design student Joshua Richman:
Thank you to everyone who donated to the campaign in its six-month donation phase. We raised a phenomenal amount – during a credit crunch, no less – and special thanks should go to Simon Bishop, Richard Williams, Malcolm Dodd, Andrea Busby, Oliver Rowland, Deedyi, Dave Worrall, Gordon Livesey, and everyone else who kept the page alive and helped make the campaign such a success.
The JustGiving page is now closed. We’ll keep you updated on everything that’s happening here, but until then, I’ll leave those of you who haven’t yet seen it with this beautiful story:
Thank you again for your generosity, and see you soon.
I don’t know if you’re aware of The Guardian website’s comprehensive new belief section, Cif Belief, but it’s full of interesting debates surrounding atheism and religion. This week, atheist Sue Blackmore has written about the concept of free will, while a Christian admits she doesn’t know whether God exists or not, and Mary Kenny’s talking what can only reasonably be called nonsense again.
But the best article on the site right now (and yes, I may be a little biased) is the fantastic Cath Elliott’s breakdown of the recent Theos survey, which begins:
“I have to admit I was a bit put out when I realised there would be no atheist buses coming to my neck of the woods. I loved the campaign slogan, even with the inclusion of “probably,” and once it became clear that enough money had been raised to convey the message to cities beyond London I was really looking forward to being able to ride on an atheist bus myself. Alas, it wasn’t to be, but now at least I can understand why the organisers omitted to involve East Anglia in the campaign: they weren’t deliberately ignoring us; they simply understood that this region had no need for atheist buses, because the east of England is already full of atheists anyway.”
CALGARY — Atheist ads will start running Monday in Calgary — only the second Canadian city after Toronto to accept the controversial messages on its public-transit vehicles.
Signs bearing the message, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life,” will appear on eight Calgary buses for four weeks.
“It’s time that we show our point of view,” said Cliff Erasmus, executive director of the Calgary Centre for Inquiry.
The campaign started in European and American cities in recent months, and made its way to this country when the Freethought Association of Canada, a national atheist organization, raised $43,000 in donations across Canada to buy similar ads.
Maybe we’re dreaming, but we think Mathew Horne and James Corden referenced the campaign briefly at the Brit Awards the other day. What do you reckon?
Secondly, Julian Tait of Futuresonic has alerted us to this interesting story: John Lennon’s “Imagine” is going to be played on the bells at Liverpool Cathedral…
And lastly, atheist filmmaker Tim Clague, who produced the short comedy film “God vs. The Advertising Standards Authority” two weeks before Stephen Green appealed to the ASA to ban the ABC ads, has just had his film shortlisted in an international competition, and sent us the following request:
“If you can help by voting and telling your friends that would be amazing. The top prize is 20,000 Euros. I am not expecting to get this, but any prize money that I do get will be going straight into a new pro-atheist dramatic film I am developing.
Here are the instructions:
1: Click on this URL to go to my film called “God versus the Advertising Standards Authority”.
2: To play the video, you’ll need to install the Babelgum player – it only takes seconds.
3: In full screen mode, select the green “Vote” button (on the top of the screen, next to the film title) to vote for my entry – or simply wait for the “Vote Now” window to appear at the bottom of the screen.
4: You can only vote when the video is playing in full screen and only once per day. Many thanks.”
I don’t know if you’re aware of The Guardian website’s comprehensive new belief section, Cif Belief, but it’s full of interesting debates surrounding atheism and religion. This week, atheist Sue Blackmore has 
