Bendy Atheist Buses
There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
The campaign to put the words “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” on bendy buses in London has been a tremendous success. The campaign started this morning and within a few hours had succeeded and passed it’s target by over £15,000.
The original target was £5,500, with Richard Dawkins matching the donations up to that value. This alone would have put the slogan on 2 sets of 30 buses for 4 weeks. Now, with the campaign getting more donations by the minute, the organisers, British Humanist Association, can either get more buses or more weeks (or both).
I’m gonna have to go into London and take some photos when they come out. Meanwhile, some quotes:
Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride – automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children. – Richard Dawkins
We see so many posters advertising salvation through Jesus or threatening us with eternal damnation, that I feel sure that a bus advert like this will be welcomed as a breath of fresh air.- Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the BHA
I certainly hope the campaign will get people talking, and I will be donating to it later today (every little helps). Fundamentalists however, were not pleased:
Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.
I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.
People don’t like being preached at. Sometimes it does them good, but they still don’t like it. – Steven Green, Christian Voice
Mr Green evidently doesn’t understand the difference between his kind of preaching (hateful and vindictive) and the slogan on the bus, which tells people there is probably no god, and also to stop worrying and enjoy life. I wonder which people would prefer?
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I’m sooooooo jealous!
Isn’t this a bit of a disappointing choice of slogan? It seems about as mindless as most religious statements. ‘Probably’? Er, who calculated the probability? ‘So stop worrying and enjoy your life’? Doesn’t this just mirror how believers perceive atheism: as apathetic, hedonistic? Shouldn’t the worrying start here, with disbelief…and the tough questions.
Green’s reply is hilarious! Great catch! I ROFTLed big time! If only he listened himself and made 2+2…
Oli, actually I don’t agree with you at all. While you’re technically correct, in the sense that no sane peer review paper has ever come out to try to put bayesian and / or frequentist statistic models into the probability of existence of God, in layman terminology it just means that his existence is quite improbable given the sheer amount of little and big things that go against his existence, from philosophy, science, history, morals, the type of people that preach, etc.
And the hedonistic stuff? Well, it’s an ad, not a philosophy! It must work within a sentence! And since the reality of sin and worrying about god’s “will” and hell and all those terrors is a good portion of religion, it’s this relief that atheism brings that is in the marketing. How do you plan to sell atheism if you only offer difficulties? You’d make a terrible marketist.
It’s very Douglas Adamsian.
Well, I guess I hoped to sell atheism on the grounds of intellectual integrity! I see your point – it’s just an ad. But they wanted it to be thought-provoking and I worry that it comes across as vacuous. Still, nothing wrong with Adamsian…
@Oli
I think they had to use those words to get around possible restrictions on adverts. The UK doesn’t have freedom of religion / speech built into our law so we can’t have slogans saying “there is no god” or the like.
Saying “there is probably no god” is making a more neutral statement.
I don’t believe in bendy-buses.
There’s probably no god because, though a good one is impossible as it’s existence would contradict our experience of the world, there still could be an evil one.
Its ok, Christian Voice have decided to save us all by complaining to the Advertising Standards Agency on the grounds that the organisers would not be able to factually prove that there "probably isn't a God".