Richard Dawkins and Ariane Sherine, the founder of the Atheist Bus Campaign, from Dawkins’ site, which has news and videos.
I’ll post some other photos that I found in the comments below.
The campaign has spread to Spain today and should be near the Vatican for February, and local groups across Canada are proposing local versions.
You’re right, it does say "probably." It also implies that if there is a God you need to worry and won’t be able to enjoy your life. Being a believer hasn’t ruined my life but has made it better, especially the part that comes after the transition called death. How do I know? That’s the faith part. We’re all going to find out!
The prototype is good!
I spent this morning explaining to third graders that flying dragons are fantasy, made up in the times when there was little true science for a better explaination, but it was OK to fantasize, as long as they understand that it is just that, fantasy.
I really enjoy Dawkins quite a bit.
I got a hug from my 4-y-o daughter this morning right before she told me she loved me. She doesn’t know anything about God. And I’m hard pressed to figure out how my believing in God could’ve made that moment any more exquisite. Life is amazing enough, IMO, without always looking forward to some other life after death.
that’s exactly how i feel. there’s a great line by the rapper t.o.n.e-z on the gangstagrass mashup album, "we live for today so to hell with tomorrow." while that might have been the point that he was trying to make that’s what i’ve taken on as my mantra.
My new year’s resolution has been to write a daily blog about compassion and I’m the furthest thing from a religious person. Atheists get such an undeserved, negative reputation and I’ve got to pin a bit of that on Dawkins. I am happy to see him turn out to support the bus campaign and that he admitted its at least bemused reception is likely due to that ‘probably’ and its makers’ sunny disposition.
This isn’t to be less than serious about what we find important in the world. It’s to say that I suppose Sagan and Bill Nye the Science Guy have taught more people to think freely, broadly, scientifically, and compassionately than anyone whose career it has been to primarily attack religion. The Dalai Lama has probably done more to connect compassion and science, and he’s the head of his religion. The universal and common ground approach is critical.
All in all, this has been a positive step for everyone which promises to not stay entirely positive as it rolls through Rome, but I do think it needs to go there.
This campaign is a reaction to some alarming trends emerging in the UK where a recent survey indicated that a third of teachers have Creationist beliefs. Freedom of religious belief is a worthy ideal, but limits have to be drawn, and religious belief can’t be allowed to go around stomping on science or on fundamental rights – that way lies the Taliban – so something had to be done to raise awareness. I’m watching this with interest.
We need to make this happen here in the states. The closest I’ve seen is the Freedom from Religion Foundation (http://www.ffrf.org/), but the bus campaign or others like it more public facing are the way to go.
It’s very disappointing to see all the wickedness that’s been caused by religion in our modern world, from suicide pilots to stem-cell research veto-ers to gay-rights squashers to Palestinian crushers. It’s a good time for rational thinkers to (politely) push for an end to the madness.
The campaign uses the Dunkin’ Donuts colors. Interesting to see if DD will react.
T-Mobile has been trying to copyright the magenta of their campaign.
Living in the "Bible belt" of New Jersey, it is nice to see that there is someone out there who can see with clarity what has always seemed to obvious to me. Refreshing!
There was a story in the UK papers yesterday of a Christian bus driver who refused to drive the bus because of the advert (above) on it’s side. After sending him home because there was no other buses for him to drive they’ve agreed the next day to do all they could to ensure he doesn’t drive any buses carrying the ad. Made me wonder, if an Atheist refused to drive a bus advertising the Alpha Course (a very Christian organisation), would they have been so accommodating?
Ah yes, well we know how that goes… From their FAQ, this campaign started in direct response to just that:
"an advert on a London bus featuring the Bible quote, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find Faith on this Earth?” [sic]. A website URL ran underneath the quote, and when Sherine visited the site she learned that, as a non-believer, she would be “condemned to everlasting separation from God and then spend all eternity in torment in hell”.
She also confirms the advertising code as a driver of the word choice of "probably", with precedent from Carlsberg beer ads.
And I thought I should clarify my earlier comment on respect. I hope I can respect all of the people, but there is no reason to respect all opinions.
Dawkins argues that one of the main reasons that medieval thought perpetuates beyond all reason, and to great harm, is that we toe the line when told to respect other people’s religions. He argues that we should stop being so respectful, especially when it comes to what we teach our children. We have evolved to embed important survival lessons during the "impressionable period" of childhood. These lessons are especially difficult to shake. If we waited until adulthood to make a conscious choice from the world religions, they would fade away in a few generations. Instead, we get inculcated as children. He describes this as a pervasive form of inter-generational child abuse.
I donated to this campaign even regardless I don’t live in UK. I feel that if the religious activists can downplay the science to just one (minority) opinion, the humanity’s future is very much in doubt.
I am very glad they started this campaign, and I hope they start it over here in Germany as well.
msamaclean © : that flying dragons are fantasy — we don’t even know that for sure. It seems there are no records of flying dragons, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Maybe there are some small flying dragons somewhere deep down in the jungle, and it just so happens that nobody has seen them. New species are discovered every day. But this is just an example. (Western) civilization leads us to believe that we know everything, but we don’t. We probably know very little. We just happen to have a foundation of theories and models that have been proven to work – within the bounds of our understanding of the world – but we don’t have the big picture. We may never have.
The Italian campaign that has been organized by the local atheist association UAAR is for the moment on hold, as the advertising company which has the buses’ concession judged the message contrary to its code of conduct. The above is a ‘shopped image of the bus as it would have been. The message doesn’t contain the ‘probably’ part: "The bad news is there’s no God. The good news is you don’t need one."
Cheers J-man! Ours is a very atheist household.
Fancy promoting the Beyond Belief videos? The symposium videos are fascinating but a little heavy to digest.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Belief_(symposium)
Ramones Karaoke says:
This campaign is a reaction to some alarming trends emerging in the UK where a recent survey indicated that a third of teachers have Creationist beliefs.
This would have been more worrying if the survey was a particularly scientific one. See more details here.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/07/education-ev...
I much prefer the text the UAAR planned to put on Italian buses, but I do think it’s a good campaign.
There’s an elephant in the room here and I feel we are all pussyfooting around so that we don’t offend anyone. And while it’s important to respect everyone’s opinions and, as I see it, live and let live, sometimes things have to said, no matter what others might think of you for saying it. And that is…
…Ariane Sherine is one damn fine woman!
Congratulations on the beautiful photos !!!
See more photos in high-resolution about item:
ambrosianapictures.jimdo.com/public-transport/
: Add to the article on skewed views about creationism amongst UK teachers the observation (anectdotal) of a member of my family who knows of UK science teachers telling kids that frogs are reptiles and that the sun is a planet. With ignorance like that rife in the classroom, it’s easy to see how creationism might take hold.
Bummer. I thought that with the cool accents and all… that, well, the Brits were a bit more Bright than the average Amercian. 😉
For our class on genetic free speech, Lessig used a pre-print of Posner’s new book, Catastophe: Risk and Response. Posner relates the following statistics on American adults:
• 39% believe astrology is scientific (astrology, not astronomy).
• 33% believe in ghosts and communication with the dead.
Ponder that for a moment. One out of every three U.S. adults believes in ghosts. Who knows what their kids think.
People’s willingness to believe untruths relates to the ability of the average person to reason critically about reality. Here are some less amusing statistics on American adults:
• 46% deny that human beings evolved from earlier animal species.
• 49% don’t know that it takes a year for the earth to revolve around the sun.
• 67% don’t know what a molecule is.
• 80% can’t understand the NY Times Tuesday science section.
Posner concludes: “It is possible that science is valued by most Americans as another form of magic.”
I just got back form the Obamarama in D.C. He said something much more inclusive than Bush’s slur on atheist patriotism… My ears perked up at Obama’s Inaugural address: “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.”
As I look back to my first meeting with Obama in 2007, he had a balanced reply to a question about his views on religion and the separation of church and state:
“Faith is a powerful force in our society, often for good. Social movements – from abolition to the civil rights movement – were based in religion. But the wisdom of our Founders is that we are not a theocracy. Here are things to guard against: the capture of of our government by a particular religion. For example, there is a good reason for having no prayer in school. Whatever convictions we have are translated into universal principles subject to reasoned argument. If you say you are opposed to abortion because of religion, that is a conversation stopper. If you can’t reason, then democracy breaks down. It becomes a matter of force – whose will shall prevail? There is nothing wrong with a religious argument as long as it does not trump reason in our democracy.”
That’s when he won me over.
Oh, and I have been having a fun email exchange with Dawkins about the bus campaign. He will have some bus ads too starting in April. Here is a mock-up of Dawkins’ argument that babies are not born with religious, political or other thought labels, and we should not call them as such (or limit their lives by law, as is done for babies born to Muslim parents in Malaysia):
For all the nonsense discussion of his father’s Islamic roots, Obama met his father only once, for a week. He was raised by his mother. O’s mother was a realist or as some would call her, Atheist, or as I estimate she would identify, Humanist. I kept quiet about this point before the election, but is it not incredible that conservative Christians hardly tried to make hay out of the scary Atheist mother? Surveys say Americans are less likely to elect an Atheist than a Muslim, so just how politically incompetent were the Republicans this time around? — *that’s* how politically incompetent :/
Obama has dropped a lot of "I know you’re out there, thinkers" between the lines of his remarks. He has also directly stated that he considers doubt — including about the existence of a god — to play an essential role in his religious and world view. He has proven to be more transparent and more true to himself publicly than most politicians, already, but what he truly thinks and believes about belief I would say is unclear.
Obama won me over with "The Audacity of Hope." From the book:
I was not raised in a religious household. Without the help of religious texts or outside authorities, [my mother] worked mightily to instill in me the values that many Americans learn in Sunday school: honesty, empathy, discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work. She raged at poverty and injustice. Most of all, she possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and its precious, transitory nature.
Given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
Millions of families struggle for the lack of canon to teach ethics and values without blind belief, just like Obama’s mother. The rougher patches of his personal road certainly built his character, too, but he may have achieved the same knowledge of self sooner or with less hardship had his mother been better supported. There is a lack not only of canon but of community, even among compassionate "nonbelievers." We are working every bit as hard for the common good as the "makebelievers," shall we call them in fair turn, but we are not as well organized or connected to each other. We should be.
Obama’s mother gave him a steel spine and a warm heart, a curious mind and an optimism that has charmed the world. He may be the greatest evidence yet of the solid, universally respected character with which an atheist family can raise a child. I write CompassionRise for a gathering storm of reasons, but in that analogy, Obama has been a sort of supercooled cloud seeding.
Just the mention of non-believers is a major step forward i think.
Steve (and with all due respect to Kaptain Kobold) my experience of UK science teaching is somewhat different – despite the dodgy stats mentioned above – I’ve found it to be pretty good – I’m sure there are bad teachers out there – same as every country – but I think "rife" is probably overstating it. Certainly, my kids, going to an average state school, know more science than I knew at their age.
As a slight aside. My sex education teacher at the grammar school I went to was also the religious education teacher (which back in the 70’s meant being taught about anglicanism) you can just imagine what I got taught. I think we’ve definitely moved on!
: Agreed. I think UK science teaching is, in general, pretty good. But if you have kids at school it’s still worth keeping an eye on what they are being taught.
Shoshin Seishu: Another shosh! Here’s one, and here’s another 🙂
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lost_in_shoshi/
(Sorry, OT)
I just heard on the news that the adds have come here in Canada. First Toronto, the Calgary. I hope not to see these in Montréal.
I read in the papers yesterday that 2 religious groups in London are going to run their own counter ads on buses sporting the slogan
"There definitely is a god"
I look forward to called the Advertising Standards Association to ask what proof they presented to support this allegation. :o)
John 3:16 (New King James Version)
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
I believe in Him and I know there is LIFE EVERLASTING.
Gosh, that sounds so familiar… like the stories that passed around the Mediterranean for a long time before Jesus, who ended up living the same story line as Horus in Egypt, thousands of years prior.
Or maybe it was something more recent:
"Through His pasta, He has blessed us with everlasting life, and holy is His Name." – FSM
Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Diatribal Soapbox [say something!], and we’d love to have this added to the group!
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