News Round-Up
21.10.08 | Jon - Webmanager |
ABC, Atheist Bus, BBC, Comment Is Free, Donations, Justgiving, Press, Richard Dawkins, Telegraph, The Guardian
It has been a manic first day for the atheist bus campaign – we surged past the £5500 donation target a little after 10am and the more money that gets donated the more buses with atheist adverts we’ll be able to pay for. Thanks to all that have donated, and please keep on donating!
As well as Ariane’s Comment is Free article we’ve also received some decent press coverage of our efforts:
- ‘No God’ slogans for city’s buses – BBC News Online (we were even ‘Most E-mailed Story’!)
- Heaven-sent ad opportunity – The Times
- Prof Richard Dawkins drives support for London’s first atheist bus advert – Daily Telegraph
Online we’ve been covered by The Register, politics.co.uk, The First Post, Brand Republic and tens of bloggers.
October 21st, 2008 at 17:15
Great stuff.
P.S. Any chance someone would change the definition of ‘atheism’ at http://www.atheistcampaign.org/atheism/ ?
It’s not “the belief that God doesn’t exist”, it’s “the absence of belief in gods”.
It’s an important distinction. The first definition is what the religious would like to stick on us, because it suggests some equivalence – they believe there is, we believe there isn’t, so there must be equal chance. Right?!
Also, using ‘God’ instead of ‘gods’ gives undue importance to the (assumed) Judeo-Christian god.
October 21st, 2008 at 17:21
I agree with this in principle. The concept is great but it is yet another example of everything in the UK being centred on London. There is a world west of Reading and north of Watford.
October 21st, 2008 at 17:33
@John – when we started this we wanted to raise £5500 for one ad, and as the original religious ads we dislike were on London buses we wanted our ad on a London bus too. Now we have surpassed the target we are open to suggestions for ads elsewhere. More news about that will be posted as soon as it’s available.
October 21st, 2008 at 18:27
The BBC article says this will only apply to buses in Westminster. Is this the case and if so why?
(I have donated)
October 21st, 2008 at 20:38
Please say Muhammed was wrong also, or are you too scared of Muslims to risk causing offence amongst dangerous people?
October 21st, 2008 at 22:41
So glad to see something like this happening! I wish something like this could even be debated here in the states. If anything like this was even discussed here, there would be murders and house burnings in the name of jesus.
Envious! Anyone want to marry me just to get me into the UK? Please?
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:56
digg it! http://digg.com/world_news/Atheist_bus_campaign_relaunches
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:35
David L – so are you saying there could well be a god (or gods) but that you simply choose not to believe it? I guess that’s like me saying the world could be round but I’d rather believe it’s flat because I’ve got a spirit level that tells me the ground I’m standing on is level.
I also agree with Gwyn, why don’t atheists, and Richard Dawkins in particular, go after Muslims? It’s always the Christians because they’re easy targets. Why doesn’t Mr Dawkins go to Iran and argue the non-existence of God with one of the Ayatollahs? Now I’d pay to see that on TV.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:58
Gwyn – you are suffering from what is called “fatwah envy syndrome”. You need to realize that atheists do not believe that ANY gods exist, reardless of what name the followers call them or their prophets. Unlike religions, atheism is all inclusive: There are NO gods… no xian gods; no muslim gods; no hindu gods; no greek gods, etc.
Agnostic – NO! We are not saying there could be gods. We are saying that there is absolutely no evidence for any gods having ever “existed”, so the logical conclusion is that there are none.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:30
I think it would have been more correct although less catchy to say “There are probably no gods”. That would have made it inclusive.
October 22nd, 2008 at 14:00
Nicknick bobick, it must be very comforting to you to believe you have all the answers to life, the universe and everything.
I guess scientists could have avoided spending billions on the Large Hadron Collider if they’d only thought to speak to an atheist first. Most strands of physics these days are theoretical and scientists are spending vast amounts of time and money trying to find some tiny shred of evidence for things like the rather ironically named ‘God particle’.
Science does not yet have all the answers and arguably never will. How you choose to reconcile that with your existence is your choice, as it is those who look to religion. Why can’t we all just get along as friends…..?
October 22nd, 2008 at 20:26
Not sure how you read that in to what I wrote, although logic, reason and evidence-based thought are not often high on the agenda for the religiously deluded.
I have no belief that gods exist in exactly the same way I have no belief that fairies, leprechauns, hobbits and flying spaghetti monsters exist. And all for the simple reason: there is no evidence for any of them. Come on – if you’ve ever engaged with an atheist before, you must have been told this.
If you want to believe in your comforting fairy tale, knock yourself out – but the rest of us are fed up with the continual interference of Bronze Age stupidity in our otherwise modern societies.
October 26th, 2008 at 21:48
This is hilarious. Is this a page of atheists ganging up on an agnostic? So much for open mindedness.
I’m absolutely delighted with the Atheist campaign, it really does seem to get the blood flowing. But I confess that I’m a little surprised by the aggressive tone of some of these emails? Surely if God doesn’t exist, Dawkins could afford to be a little more objective. I think ‘Agnostic’ is right, he’s a little too worked up by Christians, not scientific at all. Has anyone read ‘Is God a delusion?’ by Nicky Gumbel? Fascinating read.