West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: morbidenigma on January 09, 2009, 03:19:34 AM
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Donations totalling more than £140,000 to fund adverts on 600 buses across UK as well as in London tube stations
Anyone who has spent a chilly half-hour waiting for a double-decker may already have doubted the existence of a deity. But for those who need further proof, a nationwide advertising campaign aimed at persuading more people to "come out" as atheists was launched today with the backing of some of Britain's most famous non-believers.
The principal slogan – "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" – can already be seen on four London bus routes, and now 200 bendy buses in London and 600 across the country are to carry the advert after a fundraising drive raised more than £140,000, exceeding the original target of £5,500.
The money will also pay for 1,000 advertisements on London Underground from next Monday and on a pair of giant LCD screens opposite Bond Street tube station, in Oxford Street. Organisers unveiled a set of quotes from public figures – including Albert Einstein, Douglas Adams and Katharine Hepburn – who have endorsed atheism, or at least expressed scepticism about a Creator. The words "That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet" are quoted from the poet Emily Dickinson.
At the launch in a heated marquee next to the Albert Memorial, the television comedy writer Ariane Sherine, creator of the campaign, said: "You wait ages for an atheist bus and then 800 come along at once. I hope they'll brighten people's days and make them smile on their way to work."
She suggested the campaign in a Guardian Comment is free blogpost last June, saying it would be a reassuring alternative to religious slogans threatening non-Christians with hell and damnation. At today's launch she said the sheer number of donations, which were still coming in, demonstrated the strength of feeling. "This is a great day for freedom of speech in Britain. I am very glad that we live in a country where people have the freedom to believe in whatever they want."
Joining Sherine were Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, Hanne Stinson, from the British Humanist Association (BHA), the philosopher AC Grayling and Graham Linehan, who wrote Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd. There were messages of support from the actor Stephen Fry and the writer Charlie Brooker.
According to the BHA, "huge numbers" of people in Britain have non-religious beliefs – between 30 and 40% of the population, with a higher figure, between 60 and 65%, in young people.
Hanne Stinson said: "We all, whether we have religious or non-religious beliefs, have a right to be heard, and no one particular set of beliefs has any more right to influence the public debate than any other. The message isn't aimed at people with religious beliefs – it's aimed at atheists and agnostics."
Most commentators recognised the slogan as a simple statement of non-religious belief and appreciated that it was designed to reassure people there was no reason to worry about being non-religious, she said. "People can lead a happy, enjoyable and rewarding life without religion."
Prior to the launch, Sherine was concerned that the posters would be banned from buses operated by Stagecoach, the second largest public transport company in the UK. Its co-founder Brian Souter is a member of the Church of Nazarene, an international evangelical Christian denomination.
A Stagecoach spokesman said all adverts on its buses were vetted before being published. "This particular advert is being carried on a number of bus operators' vehicles across the UK. We took advice from the Advertising Standards Authority in advance of publication and we have been advised the advert complies with the relevant guidelines and legislation."
The theology thinktank Theos welcomed the campaign, saying it was a "great way" to get people thinking about God. "The posters will encourage people to consider the most important question we will ever face in our lives. The slogan itself is a great discussion starter. Telling someone 'there's probably no God' is a bit like telling them they've probably remembered to lock their door. It creates the doubt that they might not have."
A statement from the Methodist Church thanked Dawkins for encouraging a "continued interest in God".
The success of the British initiative has inspired atheists around the world. The American Humanist Association launched a bus advertising campaign last November with the slogan, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake", appearing on the sides, rear and insides of Washington DC's 230 buses.
The subsequent news coverage generated mostly negative phone calls and emails, with the largest number going directly to the organisers. Hundreds of complaints were sent to Metro, the government body responsible for the city's buses and subways. The poster provoked two counter-campaigns by devout Christians.
From Monday, buses in Barcelona bearing a Spanish translation of the British slogan will hit the streets, to the consternation of the city's Catholic hierarchy, while Italy's Union of Atheist, Agnostics and Rationalists plans to roll out atheist buses.
Atheists in Australia have fared badly with their campaign. Attempts to place slogans such as "Atheism – sleep in on Sunday mornings" on buses were rejected by Australia's biggest outdoor advertising company, APN Outdoor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/atheist-bus-campaign-nationwide
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Lame initiative, but this chick is hot
(http://www.spitsnieuws.nl/archives/images/atheistbus2.jpg)
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Lame initiative, but this chick is hot
(http://www.spitsnieuws.nl/archives/images/atheistbus2.jpg)
damn right.
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^
that girl is half english half pakistani
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Athiests like to portray themselves as the ones who really see the daylight, who will tell you that religion is the reason for bloodshed, for control but it's ironic that they excuse religious people of ignorance when they are guilty of exactly the same thing. Some of the worst regimes the world has witnessed saw themselves as being athiests and it began and ended in massacring innocent life on a horrific scale to. I am not saying that athiests shouldn't think that way and certainly religion has been used as a weapon but it doesn't guaranteed shit taking religion out of the equation.
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Athiests like to portray themselves as the ones who really see the daylight, who will tell you that religion is the reason for bloodshed, for control but it's ironic that they excuse religious people of ignorance when they are guilty of exactly the same thing. Some of the worst regimes the world has witnessed saw themselves as being athiests and it began and ended in massacring innocent life on a horrific scale to. I am not saying that athiests shouldn't think that way and certainly religion has been used as a weapon but it doesn't guaranteed shit taking religion out of the equation.
I'm atheist and I agree with you to some extend. What you said about some of those worst crimes could be true (I don't know), but religion has always been the easiest excuse to commit war crimes.
You don't like a group of people? Find a good biblical quote and murder them all. It's that easy.
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Not criticising you for being athiest mate I personally have a belief in god but am not religious so each to their own. I am just saying since I have read a few books on the Bolsheviks for instance that iconic figures to some like Lenin preached that there was no god but since there was no god, it gave incentive for people like him to rise to power and see themselves as gods instead. Since they believed there was no higher power, they saw it as their right to reign. The evil that these people preached and exacted on anyone they perceived as being opposition either in ideology or physically is just mind blowing.
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Not criticising you for being athiest mate I personally have a belief in god but am not religious so each to their own. I am just saying since I have read a few books on the Bolsheviks for instance that iconic figures to some like Lenin preached that there was no god but since there was no god, it gave incentive for people like him to rise to power and see themselves as gods instead. Since they believed there was no higher power, they saw it as their right to reign. The evil that these people preached and exacted on anyone they perceived as being opposition either in ideology or physically is just mind blowing.
The Bolsheviks didn't kill for atheism, they killed for the belief system of Marxism.
While of course I despise atheism for trying to usurp the good Juedo-Christian values, I don't see it as the same way you do. Communism is a religion of its own, one that is every bit as savage and violent as Catholicism and Islam.
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I like the slogan on their bus. Some people get so caught up or even brainwashed by their pursuit of God that it keeps them from enjoying life. Their religion becomes their addiction.
Anyways, God bless 'em.
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That slogan only works in our gluttonous western lifestyles. We have so much and bask in it that we can easily just live our lives to the fullest. Go tell some kid who is going to live his entire life in a caged off garbage dump picking scraps and giving them to his masters for food and to avoid being tortured to "stop worrying and enjoy your life". I don't know if there is a God, but I sure as fuck hope there's one. Not for me. If I live my 80+ years in the lifestyle I live it maybe when it's all over I won't care if there's a God. But there are hundreds of millions to billions of people that really suffer an don't have to debate theologies. They just suffer and hope.
Athiests like to portray themselves as the ones who really see the daylight, who will tell you that religion is the reason for bloodshed, for control but it's ironic that they excuse religious people of ignorance when they are guilty of exactly the same thing. Some of the worst regimes the world has witnessed saw themselves as being athiests and it began and ended in massacring innocent life on a horrific scale to. I am not saying that athiests shouldn't think that way and certainly religion has been used as a weapon but it doesn't guaranteed shit taking religion out of the equation.
I'm atheist and I agree with you to some extend. What you said about some of those worst crimes could be true (I don't know), but religion has always been the easiest excuse to commit war crimes.
You don't like a group of people? Find a good biblical quote and murder them all. It's that easy.
Safety is was and always will be the easiest to get people behind a war. Christians didn't join the crusades because of Jesus and Muslims didn't join the other side because of the Quran. National security was threatened on both sides and the rest just played it self out.
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Jared there are a number of quotes in the book I was reading recently from Lenin in which he is putting himself at a god like plateau. That guy was one evil monster but of course the underlying point of administering a marxist ideology is not to create equality, it's simply to create equal inequality, dressed in equality.
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That slogan only works in our gluttonous western lifestyles. We have so much and bask in it that we can easily just live our lives to the fullest. Go tell some kid who is going to live his entire life in a caged off garbage dump picking scraps and giving them to his masters for food and to avoid being tortured to "stop worrying and enjoy your life". I don't know if there is a God, but I sure as fuck hope there's one. Not for me. If I live my 80+ years in the lifestyle I live it maybe when it's all over I won't care if there's a God. But there are hundreds of millions to billions of people that really suffer an don't have to debate theologies. They just suffer and hope.
Co-mufafucking-sign.
If you aint ever struggled, suffered or felt pain you ain't been living.
Hell is not punishment, its training.
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Word shallow didn't properly pay attention to your posting until just then
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Jared there are a number of quotes in the book I was reading recently from Lenin in which he is putting himself at a god like plateau. That guy was one evil monster but of course the underlying point of administering a marxist ideology is not to create equality, it's simply to create equal inequality, dressed in equality.
Right, because that's what Marxism is. Worshiping a prophet (Marx) and believing his ideas will bring about Heaven on Earth in the form of communism. And just as there are always many factions of religions (Catholic vs. Protestant, Sunni vs. Shi'a, etc.) who claim that their beliefs are the correct path to Heaven, there are many schools of Marxist thought (orthodox Marxism, Marxist-Leninism, Trotskyism, Maosim, etc.) who claim that their beliefs are the correct path to communism.
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Yes, well people didn't believe and worship Marxism exactly the same as with religious faith,
but they did wear dogmatic absolutist ideological view points like a iron helmut upon the bare beating gentle flesh of their brains.
every day is like a rerun
So I reach out and try to teach one
But eighty-five percent uncivilized content
No tolerance, so a lifetime is spent
behind a cage..
;)
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Yes, well people didn't believe and worship Marxism exactly the same as with religious faith,
No, but Marxist leaders tend to surround themselves with personality cults that force their people to "worship" them in essentially the same way as Gods.
Also, you can stop replying to me with bullshit poetry and crap like that. It doesn't add any substance to your posts (and yes, I know you'll respond by saying I'm just "too dumb" to get it, but the truth is that you add metaphysical crap to your posts to make your words sound deeper than they really are).
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"too dumb" to get it
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Lame initiative, but this chick is hot
(http://www.spitsnieuws.nl/archives/images/atheistbus2.jpg)
really? she has mediocre looks to me
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fuck the atheists
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let the war beginn ;D
http://waymo.de/play/EvTnf2Z/
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It's funny how many atheists seem to hate religions recruting members by spreading their word on the streats ex. preachers. What difference does this make? NONE, its still brainwashing.
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A lot of atheists are just as bad if not worse than religious fundamentalists. Until people realize that you have to agree to disagree about these kind of issues, the same shit will always go on.
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A lot of atheists are just as bad if not worse than religious fundamentalists. Until people realize that you have to agree to disagree about these kind of issues, the same shit will always go on.
Disagreed.
Atheists don't give a damn about what others believe. They may discuss religion sometimes, but they do respect others. This of course counts for atheists in general.
For example: as long as you don't try to convert me, don't like to have long conversations about the greatness of Jesus with me or are if you are a fundamentalist... then I don't care about what you believe. There are more important things to worry about.
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I like the slogan on their bus. Some people get so caught up or even brainwashed by their pursuit of God that it keeps them from enjoying life. Their religion becomes their addiction.
Anyways, God bless 'em.
lol +1...fuck anyone with a "movement" im sick and tired of that shit.....
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A lot of atheists are just as bad if not worse than religious fundamentalists. Until people realize that you have to agree to disagree about these kind of issues, the same shit will always go on.
Disagreed.
Atheists don't give a damn about what others believe. They may discuss religion sometimes, but they do respect others. This of course counts for atheists in general.
For example: as long as you don't try to convert me, don't like to have long conversations about the greatness of Jesus with me or are if you are a fundamentalist... then I don't care about what you believe. There are more important things to worry about.
He said a lot, not most or all atheists. I don't know what number constitutes a lot for you but I bet I can find that many atheists that don't respect others' beliefs.
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A lot of atheists are just as bad if not worse than religious fundamentalists. Until people realize that you have to agree to disagree about these kind of issues, the same shit will always go on.
Disagreed.
Atheists don't give a damn about what others believe. They may discuss religion sometimes, but they do respect others. This of course counts for atheists in general.
For example: as long as you don't try to convert me, don't like to have long conversations about the greatness of Jesus with me or are if you are a fundamentalist... then I don't care about what you believe. There are more important things to worry about.
He said a lot, not most or all atheists. I don't know what number constitutes a lot for you but I bet I can find that many atheists that don't respect others' beliefs.
i would say that the majority of aethist make it a point not only to not believe in got, but to tell you that there is no god, they know this as a fact, and that you are a fuckin idiot for believing in god, and an ever bigger idiot for following a religion. they are so fuckin arogant and high and mighty, it drives me nuts, they have it all figured out, even though i have my doubts about god, id never asociate myself as an athiast.
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A lot of atheists are just as bad if not worse than religious fundamentalists. Until people realize that you have to agree to disagree about these kind of issues, the same shit will always go on.
Disagreed.
Atheists don't give a damn about what others believe. They may discuss religion sometimes, but they do respect others. This of course counts for atheists in general.
For example: as long as you don't try to convert me, don't like to have long conversations about the greatness of Jesus with me or are if you are a fundamentalist... then I don't care about what you believe. There are more important things to worry about.
There are some who have that mindset. Then, you have a number of athiests that are on a anti-god crusade which can be almost as annoying as the nut jobs shouting about how we are all going to hell in a public place.
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A lot of atheists are just as bad if not worse than religious fundamentalists. Until people realize that you have to agree to disagree about these kind of issues, the same shit will always go on.
Disagreed.
Atheists don't give a damn about what others believe. They may discuss religion sometimes, but they do respect others. This of course counts for atheists in general.
For example: as long as you don't try to convert me, don't like to have long conversations about the greatness of Jesus with me or are if you are a fundamentalist... then I don't care about what you believe. There are more important things to worry about.
He said a lot, not most or all atheists. I don't know what number constitutes a lot for you but I bet I can find that many atheists that don't respect others' beliefs.
I bet there are more atheists that do respect others' beliefs than those that don't.
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Most athiests are more credible and humble than alot of people think.