The Atheist Blogger

Voted no and I'll give my reasons. If we complain about their advertisements we become hypocrites and sink to their level. What we want is freedom of speech and I'll defend to my dying day the right to spew their nonsense, even if they don't support my right as well. Freedom of speech is pointless if you don't protect the rights of the people whose opinions you hate. I know it's a hard fight, but we need to be persistent and continue to show how if they can say what they want so can we. And we need to respect their right to do it even if they disrespect ours. We need to take the higher ground even if means we lose a few battles, I think we'll come out stronger in the long run,

Voted no, because that allows us to point-and-laugh!

Even if they make testable claims, e.g., "There's probably a god," complaining would be useless. It's like debating — unless it's carefully set up and strictly refereed, the godster has an advantage going in.

Not legally but we must
a) make the atheist slogan at least as firm and direct than the theist one.
b) Blog about the hypocrisy

Freedom of speech does not mean simply allowing anyone to say what they want with no response. The fact that people seem to think that criticising what someone says, or speaking out against someone's actions, is somehow stiffling their freedom of speech astounds me; that is what freedom of speech is.

Someone says one thing, someone else can say what they want back, even if it's directly contradictory, or heavily critical. If someone stands up in a public arena and says "I think that x and y are happening", then it is not contradicting their freedom of speech to stand up next ot them and say "You are wrong, it is actually z".

Coming back from loose analogies, I don't think that anyone here is promoting the idea of censoring these christian ads, as in trying to make them disappear. What I personally mean when I say "yes I will send in a complaint to the ASA" is that I am willing to go on record and express my intense disagreement with what they are saying and how they are saying it.

Expressing disagreement or dissent is not trying to stiffle free speech. It is actively participating in free speech.

If I lived in England, I'd vote yes, and send a complaint to boot. Not because it's encouraging stupidity, it's because of the wording they use. They are either offensive (calling people fools which, even though it's mild, is still a derogatory term) or they make definite claims ('there is a god') which isn't verifiable and thus isn't truthful.

If they hadn't quoted the bible or used the word 'probably', then I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'd most likely laugh at them because they are scrambling to hide their insecurity. But the fact is that they are calling people who don't follow thier beliefs fools and saying that something improvable is the truth!

Not only are their adverts insulting to atheists, but they also insult every other religion as well. I hope the ASA tells them to either change thier slogan or scrap the whole thing altogether. Christianity has abused it's respect for far to long.

One things for sure, I can't wait to see how everyone, Muslims, Hindus and Atheists, will react to this.

An Atheists 10 Commandments!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrLcyBRO_Sw

In any other case, I'd agree. But I've made the point in various discussions on this topic; there is absolutely no chance that the ASA will pull these adverts based on complaints, no matter how many they received, even if they are in direct contradiction to the ASA's own laws. Given the fuss kicked up over the atheist adverts, to then ban a christian response for *any* reason would be a PR nightmare. Can you imagine the Daily Mail's response? They alone would be able to kick up an effective campaign of moral outrage (they were always good at that, but recently they've seemed to perfect the art, have you noticed? The new surge started off with Russel Brand and Jonathan Ross and hasn't stopped since).

I might be wrong, and the ASA may have more integrity than to let itself be controlled by mob rule, but I'm fairly certain that they wouldn't risk it.

Given that, any complaints made to them would be a complaint to "make a point" rather than actual censorship, and would probably get mentioned in the media anyway.

But you're probably right. The best way to respond to this would probably be to write letters to various media outlets (newspapers, radio shows etc) expressing disagreement.

On another note, I don't think we should shy away from claiming some sort of discrimination in the message from the trinitarian bible society (the one that says "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no god"). They are calling us fools, and society apparently thinks it's acceptible because we are not a race or a religion, which I find quite annoying.

If the basis of the complaint involves the violation of a law or established advertising policy, then complain away. However, I wouldn't advocate complaining simply because I didn't like the ad.

Poll doesn't work for me, but…
Point and laugh, yes. Try to stop them from exercising free speech, NO. I fail to see the difference between them saying "God is Real" and Detroit saying "the Ford Phallus is Awesome."

I would say yes but, not in a desire to censor them completely. The ASA exists for a reason, without it the bus advert idea would turn into a complete gongshow where two parties use public advertising to make complete asses of themselves. The ASAs standard ensure that this doesn't become a public dickwave and that at least as far as the campaign is concerned, it is kept civil.

Not surprisingly they are breaking the civility first, we played by the rules, they can too. To top it off, if we ever try to put out a message that does not meet the standards then I hope it gets complained about and taken down, we're better than that and we know it.

So yes to this particular advert, if they want to put one up that follows the ASAs standards then power to them but, I am not a fan of this whole thing turning into a giant public dickwaving contest on the sides of busses.

Voted yes, I'm all for free speech, their right of reply, etc, but the fact they were outspoken about the atheist advert and tried to get it stopped by taking it to the ASA leaves them open for us to do the same to their advert. The atheist advert did not assert an unproven concept their advert does. IMHO declaring "god exists" breaches adverting guidelines so we should complain. If for instance they had "God might exist so blah blah" then I would have no problem with it.