This campaign has gone well and truly global. We’ve inspired organisations around the world to launch atheist adverts on buses, including a Christmas campaign from the American Humanist Association, which you can view here – but sadly, one place you’re not going to see the ads is Australia. The Atheist Foundation of Australia have come up with the mildest slogan of all (“Atheism – Celebrate Reason”) and yet the company responsible for transport advertising has balked, ironically giving no reason whatsoever for this strange decision. Here’s the press release:
ATHEIST FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA INC
MEDIA RELEASE
BUS SLOGAN REJECTED!
‘APN Outdoor’, the company responsible for Public Metropolitan Transport Advertising, says no to atheism.
The bus slogan campaign proposed by the AFA with the thought provoking sentiment, “Atheism – Celebrate reason!” has been refused for display by ‘APN Outdoors’. Various other phrases have also been deemed unacceptable.
Following the lead of Humanists in London and Washington in the USA, with their intended bus signs, an international programme by humanists and atheists was to commence on the 20th January 2009 using buses to express the secular viewpoint.
Richard Dawkins is supporting the London bus signs, and has stated that such a campaign “will make people think”.
President of the Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc, David Nicholls said: “I am flabbergasted. This is extremely disappointing and a severe blow to freedom of expression in Australia. We are witnessing the result of seemingly paranoid executives interfering with pertinent social comment. This action has thwarted the right to state peacefully and openly a legitimate and timely message without violence.
Australia is going to look provincial and narrow in outlook to the rest of the world because of this decision. The planet is moving to a more enlightened era but apparently, public transport advertising agents in Australia have missed the bus.”
You can send the AFA a friendly email to show your support: info {at} atheistfoundation.org(.)au
If Mary Kenny is a journalist, I am a brass rooster collector. (And I promise you, I’m not a brass rooster collector.) I didn’t think it was possible to get every single fact wrong in an article, but reading through Kenny’s latest piece in the Irish Independent is like playing a game of “spot the error”. I honestly think there’s one in every line, and it’s not a short piece:
But it’s not just Kenny’s errors which are startling – it’s the way she attempts to equate atheism with all that is wrong with the UK, including child abuse, unforgivably using the tragic case of Baby P to generate emotion with no relevant context (Kenny has no evidence to suggest that his killers didn’t believe in God, or that their religious beliefs (or lack of them) were a factor in the case in any way).
In addition, Mary Kenny is a Roman Catholic, so she’s on very shaky ground indeed when writing about any link between religion and child abuse. Catholic priests, anyone? Magdalene Laundries? Kenny seriously believes the world would be a better place if we all believed in God. 9/11, Mary? Iraq? The Middle East? The Balkans? Northern Ireland?
You can write a letter to the editor of the Irish Independent here:
Funniest clip ever: your fantastic donations have propelled the Atheist Bus Campaign onto Have I Got News For You, with jokes from Frank Skinner, Ian Hislop and Alexander Armstrong!
I’ve been called Ariel Sharon and Aryan Shrine before, but never Harry and Sherine…
I just wanted to say thank you so much for all your fantastic comments, funny slogans and photos – and of course your donations. We couldn’t have done any of this without you.
I’ve written another blog for the Guardian site where you can leave ideas for how we can best use the funds:
** We reached the total at 1006 BST (GMT+1) on 21st October, just over 10 hours after launch – thank you so much to everyone who contributed! If you haven’t donated yet and would like to then please do – we are now aiming to launch a full advertising campaign across the UK! **
The Atheist Bus Campaign launches today, Tuesday October 21. With your support, we hope to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across the capital for four weeks with the slogan: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Donate online now!
Professor Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The God Delusion, is officially supporting the Atheist Bus Campaign, and has generously agreed to match all donations up to a maximum of £5,500, giving us a total of £11,000 if we reach the full amount – enough for a much bigger campaign. Our campaign partner, the British Humanist Association, will be administering all donations.
With your help, we can brighten people’s days on the way to work, help raise awareness of atheism in the UK, and hopefully encourage more people to come out as atheists. We can also counter the religious adverts which are currently running on London buses, and help people think for themselves.
As Richard Dawkins says: “This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion.”
Welcome to AtheistCampaign.org! Our aim is to raise the profile of atheism through innovative and exciting advocacy projects, starting with the Atheist Bus Campaign.
We’ve linked to all the leading atheist, humanist and secular organisations and initiatives. Please visit them to learn more about the resources and support available to non-religious people. You can join the BHA or NSS (or FFRF if you’re in the US), subscribe to New Humanist magazine (or Free Inquiry), renounce your religion, and maybe even decide to set up your own atheist blog (if you do, let us know). If you’d like your site to be included on this list, please write to us using the form on the contact page.
We’ve also enabled comments to encourage discussion of all campaigns and topics. We hope you enjoy AtheistCampaign.org, and look forward to your suggestions for changes and new campaigns.
