Have We Got News For You
25.10.08 | Ariane |
Alexander Armstrong, Comedy, Frank Skinner, Have I Got News For You, HIGNFY, Humour, Ian Hislop, Paul Merton, Television, TV
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…
October 25th, 2008 at 8:41
Can you imagine telling some one who has cancer, dying a slow painfull death, to stop worrying there is no God? Thats a great hope and comfort!
October 25th, 2008 at 9:03
Er… that’s not really what the clip was about!
Re. your point: it’s telling them that they’ll be at peace and at rest. Nothing to worry about – no hell, no interminable heaven (”like North Korea, except you can never leave” – Christopher Hitchens) – just going to sleep and not waking up again.
I think it’s better to enjoy life while we have it, rather than hope for something better (yet almost certainly non-existent) afterwards.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:07
Thanks for uploading that – I saw someone on the justgiving comments section said it had a mention on HIGNFY. Funny, and more good publicity.
Hope the total keeps going up. It seems to have slowed down a bit. Still, even if it doesn’t go up much more the amount, and all the good comments, is excellent and shows atheists are far from an insignificant minority – or, as Steven Green claimed, stingy! I hope you find lots of good ways to put it to use and that there are future campaigns as well now we have seen people see a need for it.
Religion is overly favoured in the UK and being atheist is still too often associated with negative ideas in people’s minds as though one must have some sort of “faith” to be a nice, fully-rounded person, or that, perhaps it is just too bleak to live without one. I think we are helping show that neither is the case. There is also sometimes a feeling that one must not make any criticism of religious ideas. I think all ideas are up for debate, as long as people try to avoid being deliberately insulting an dinflamatory about things and we should stop respecting things just because they are traditional. Unless we are able to question traditions and the status quo how are we to progress as a society?
October 25th, 2008 at 9:18
To Rob — I don’t think there is any need to force atheism on someone who is close to dying and finds a comfort in whatever their belief system is. However as a general rule we need to get the message out there that t is OK, and can be beneficial in terms of clear-thinking, not to have supernatural beliefs, and that there is no satisfactory evidence for such things as a God, a hevan, a hell or a soul. Also that athesist are not nasty, cold people.
I came from a moderate Christian background where I (unbiblically) thought most people were not likely to go to hell as God was loving, or that perhaps it did not exist at all or was some sort of metaphor. So I wasn’t going around terrified of hell for myself or anyone else. However as as a questioning adult I soon saw there were all sorts of logical problems with Christianity, but I spent years studying it and searhing round other religions and spiritual belief systems to see what the “truth” might be. I then had quite a painful realisation that probably none was the truth and felt bleak about no life after death or loving God. But now I think I am getting over that and think I am starting to feel more clear-headed and calm about life than I was before. The problem is religion gives un an unrealistic expectation and so adjusting to the facts, and learning to just appreciate what we really have, can seem upsetting at first. It is really like finding out that Santa is not real, but on a bigger more adult scale. I still remember being disappointed about that as well.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:02
Rob , you obviously fail to see the flawed logic of your own statement. Whilst dying a slow painful , death someone is apparently, supposed to seek comfort from the very omnipotent loving God who, presumably was responsible for giving the person cancer in the first place. Said person could have spent a lifetime as a devout follower of his God and no doubt would have been putting in prayer overtime during his illness, praying for a cure or succesful treatment – and his reward from God for this devotion is a slow painful death!
October 25th, 2008 at 12:10
I noticed that Theos got quite a few mentions for their smug £50. But I think I’m the first to spot that they changed their press release after the campaign proved to be such a success.
http://pogsurf.blogspot.com/2008/10/scoop-thoes-upgrade-atheist-bus-from.html
October 25th, 2008 at 19:58
Rob and others are clearly not ‘Au fait ‘ with current medical practice. Nobody in the 1st world has a painful death from cancer, because morphine is used to titrate the pain level in each individual patient. If the pain needs an overdose, then that’s what happens.
This is perhaps the least painful way of all ways to die, in fact. Never mind that the person may well find pleasure in the drugged state, given that addicts always seem keen to repeat the process.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:23
Seen in Rome gift shop…
http://www.e-design.to/atheism/probably_pope_graham_davis.jpg
October 26th, 2008 at 18:57
“Can you imagine telling some one who has cancer, dying a slow painfull death, to stop worrying there is no God?”
I don’t need to imagine. My own wife died of cancer. It infected her brain, causing her one by one to lose all her faculties. At the end I had to sit and watch her for two months, in effect being tortured to death. It amazes me how Christian logic consistently praises ‘god’ for the good stuff but lets him off the hook when it comes to the vile stuff.
October 27th, 2008 at 13:08
[...] has been given that Richard Dawkins is leading the campaign (including on the UK satire show ‘Have I Got News for You’), which is inaccurate. When Dawkins offered his support for the project, Ariane replied that the [...]
October 30th, 2008 at 13:00
From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist…. I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:36
I went to see Eddie Izzard last night, and although he didn’t mention this campaign directly. he had quite a bit to say on this front. Your first reaction to most of his material is to laugh, although in reality he made numerous thought-provoking points.
Between he, Ricky Gervais and probably six dozen more famous funny faces, surely we could follow up the bus campaign with another public campaign to make people stop and think.
Viral video?
February 16th, 2009 at 6:06
I dunno. Not sure I agree but okay. Good post anyway. Cheers.