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.

Please pre-order it now:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atheists-Guide-Christmas-Ariane-Sherine/dp/0007322615/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252064471&sr=8-1

Thank you!

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:

See you soon!

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.

The atheist bus campaign is going international… Or to be more precise a whole bunch of different people all over the place have liked what we’ve done in the UK and are doing similar things in their own towns and cities. Here’s a round-up of the international developments!

1. Bus Kampagne / Germany – the campaign to put buses on the streets in Germany (Köln, München, Berlin) is now online. Site visitors can choose their slogan and make online donations. Berlin and München transport authorities do not want the ads it seems, but the guys are determined to find alternatives.
2. Uskomaton bussikampanja / Finland – the campaign for atheist buses on the streets of Helsinki. €3500 donated so far. News in English here.
3. Atheïstische Reklamecampagne / Netherlands – a huge atheist advert on the side of the A4 motorway near Schipol airport.
4. Atheist Bus (English) / Canada – buses in Toronto and Calgary, and even an atheist streetcar party (that means tram, folks), $46000 donated so far.
5. Bus humaniste (français) / Canada – the Association Humaniste de Québec is running ads on buses in Montréal.
6. Atheist Bus / Switzerland (DE | FR | IT) – local bus firms are resisting the advertisements, but this might also result in bans on religious advertising. Paypal donations are possible.
7. Atheist trams / Croatia – ads appeared for 1 day on trams in Zagreb but were removed after complaints. Freedom of speech in a formerly communist country? News in Croatian here, Google translation from Slovenian here.
8. Campagna Bus / Italy – despite some legal issues with the bus company the campaign continues in Italy, with €30000 raised so far.
9. Bus ateo / Spain – buses in Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga with slogans in Spanish and Catalan.
10. Atheist Foundation / Australia – a one-off bus after other ads were not permitted. Latest news here.
11. Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign / USA – new campaign for buses in Bloomington, Indiana
12. Freedom From Religion Foundation / USA – bus campaign in Madison, Wisconsin
13. NYC Atheist Bus Campaign / USA – no website yet, but join the Facebook Group
14. Why Believe in a God / USA – bus campaign in Washington, and also a new campaign in Seattle.

If there are other atheist buses anywhere else please do let us know in the comments!

We were invited to make a presentation at Re:publica ‘09 in Berlin about the campaign. Here is the video of the presentation – click Jon’s face to start the video! Then fast forward 5 minutes into the video.

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.”

In other news, Tony Blair has clearly been discussing ideas with Mary Kenny, and on a much brighter note, atheist buses are now running in Calgary as well as Toronto. From the Vancouver Sun:

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…

Thirdly, here’s a France24 article on the ABC (in English).

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.”

We hope you can help him. Good luck Tim!